Emic hookup, pin count and mounting question...
Zoot
Posts: 2,227
I received an Emic text-to-speech card as a holiday gift from my father (he knows what I like -- my Mom gave me socks ).
I have a few questions after looking over the documentation. I'll be hooking the card up to the BS2p40 that runs my 'bot.
- I want to keep pin usage as minimal as possible. If I am using the busy pin on the Emic, do I really need to monitor SOUT from the Emic for the "OK" 0x55 bytes? Wouldn't a high busy be enough (and if in doubt reset the Emic)?
- however, can SOUT and SIN on the Emic be tied together and run to one pin on the Stamp? It appears in the code examples that you SEROUT to SIN and then SERIN from SOUT, so I would think this would be ok. Would I need to put a 1k resistor between the common IO pin and SOUT and tie diretly to SIN?
- documentation states that doing a hard reset with the reset pin is the only way to interrupt speech in progress. Should I presume this is NOT the case for a soft reset?
- In reading lots of comments, examples, discussion on audio amplification, my understanding is that if I hook, say, a 16ohm speaker up to the output of the Emic (rather than 8ohm) that my sound quality and volume may suffer, but that I will NOT damage the amp. Is that so? I only read one comment (by Jon Williams, as it happens) that suggested this could damage the Emic, but others have done this and seem to report no damage.
- I'm going to be using the AOUT pin so I can amplify FREQOUTs from my Stamp (sound effects). I would say 75% of the time my 'bot would be in "sound effects" mode, rather than speech mode. Is there any reason not to turn on AOUT as the sound source and leave it there? My idea is to only terminate the AOUT amplification when I need to speak, then turn it right back on. Will the amp draw power if I'm not actualy sending any signal to it? My goal is here not to have SEROUT at 2400 baud every time I need the amp for FREQOUT.
- Last but not least -- I don't really have a breadboard or long header receptacle available to plug the Emic into. I want to just make my own cable to the pins, but there are no mounting holes on the Emic. Anyone have suggestions for mounting (aside from sticky foam tape which I'd rather not do)?????
Thanks in advance... and Happy Holidays to all... Peace to all Men, Women, Children and Robots.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. -- HST
I have a few questions after looking over the documentation. I'll be hooking the card up to the BS2p40 that runs my 'bot.
- I want to keep pin usage as minimal as possible. If I am using the busy pin on the Emic, do I really need to monitor SOUT from the Emic for the "OK" 0x55 bytes? Wouldn't a high busy be enough (and if in doubt reset the Emic)?
- however, can SOUT and SIN on the Emic be tied together and run to one pin on the Stamp? It appears in the code examples that you SEROUT to SIN and then SERIN from SOUT, so I would think this would be ok. Would I need to put a 1k resistor between the common IO pin and SOUT and tie diretly to SIN?
- documentation states that doing a hard reset with the reset pin is the only way to interrupt speech in progress. Should I presume this is NOT the case for a soft reset?
- In reading lots of comments, examples, discussion on audio amplification, my understanding is that if I hook, say, a 16ohm speaker up to the output of the Emic (rather than 8ohm) that my sound quality and volume may suffer, but that I will NOT damage the amp. Is that so? I only read one comment (by Jon Williams, as it happens) that suggested this could damage the Emic, but others have done this and seem to report no damage.
- I'm going to be using the AOUT pin so I can amplify FREQOUTs from my Stamp (sound effects). I would say 75% of the time my 'bot would be in "sound effects" mode, rather than speech mode. Is there any reason not to turn on AOUT as the sound source and leave it there? My idea is to only terminate the AOUT amplification when I need to speak, then turn it right back on. Will the amp draw power if I'm not actualy sending any signal to it? My goal is here not to have SEROUT at 2400 baud every time I need the amp for FREQOUT.
- Last but not least -- I don't really have a breadboard or long header receptacle available to plug the Emic into. I want to just make my own cable to the pins, but there are no mounting holes on the Emic. Anyone have suggestions for mounting (aside from sticky foam tape which I'd rather not do)?????
Thanks in advance... and Happy Holidays to all... Peace to all Men, Women, Children and Robots.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. -- HST
Comments
The 16 ohm speaker should not be a problem. I've left the output pin open, used it with 8 and 32 ohm speakers, and used it both single ended and differential modes.
The Sout OK is a handshake that the serial buffer is ready to accept more data. The busy hardware line only goes active when the chip is busy speaking. They are two different things, and the busy line does not indicate when a command is being executed. You might get along without the Sout handshake, with fixed delays instead. I have found the hard reset line is and essential failsave, when the EMIC does not respond for some reason.
I don't think there is any power saved when you have the chip switched over from speech to analog input. The EMIC has an Analog in pin, where your sounds effects from the Stamp will go in. The output comes either from the Analog out pin (~600 ohms line level) , or from the two speaker pins (~8 ohms). The amplifier is on in either case.
Happy holidays to you too, and everyone!
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Tracy Allen
www.emesystems.com
I'm definitely putting the board on my bench and am going to test with a BOE before I install in my 'bot. I just don't have a breadboard or receptacle available in the 'bot and need to figure out a way to mount the board somehow.
As far as tying SOUT and SIN together, I wasn't going to modify the board, but was thinking to hook both SIN and SOUT to one Stamp I/O pin following something like Beau Schwabe's suggestion in this thread: http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=616668
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. -- HST