RE: H/W Development question

["Ward, David" <David.Ward@xxxxxxx>]

Robert,

If you have a 'spare' serial port you could just sense the state of the
alarm using CTS, RTS, CD, or RI signals, 
These are easily read in VB or programming language of your choice.

If you want to experiment try  <http://www.taltech.com>
www.taltech.com they
have some nifty free software (portstat)  that shows the state of the
Serial
port control lines, and can be setup to send DDE commands when an event
occurs.

What ever you decide It's advisable to isolate additional equipmnt from
the
alarm panel either via an opto-coupler or via a relay

Dave Ward


-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Welsh [mailto:bob-ukha@xxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, December 06, 2002 1:43 PM
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [ukha_d] H/W Development question


> This is easy with the likes of the PIC or AVR
> microcontrollers. A simple transistor, a couple of resistors 
> [..]
> Basic Stamp as this would be the quickest way to get it 
> working if you don't have any PIC or AVR dev kit. 

Given that this is (hopefully) the first of a few h/w projects for me
is
it worth me getting into the 'PIC scene'? If PIC has more potential
than
I'd be happy to spend a some money on a programmer etc and use PIC in
this solution.

The other thing I found was on Quasar was this
http://www.quasarelectronics.com/3108.htm,
<http://www.quasarelectronics.com/3108.htm,> 
which looked like almost
'out-the-box' (albeit in kit form) solution. Thoughts ?

> Check out
> www.milinst.com for the BS2 dev kit. Might be higher in cost 
> than the likes of the VIOM module from Phaedrus
> ( http://www.phaedrusltd.co.uk/system/index.html)
<http://www.phaedrusltd.co.uk/system/index.html)> 
but you will 

Thanks for the link. I was already looking at the VIOM - but mainly cos
it looks like someone is developing an Autom8it plug-in for the VIOM.

Thanks for the info, Dave.

It never fails to amaze me the wealth and breadth of information on
this
group....

Robert



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