RE: PC Interfacing

[Shane Harrison <shane.harrison@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I know a number of people on the misterhouse list use Weeder I/O boards.
Connect to one serial port and are stackable I believe to obtain more I/O.
Might be worth a google.

An extract from misterhouse docs:

Weeder Technologies, http://www.weedtech.com , offers the
following kits
priced from $30 to $50 each. All of these kits can share the same serial
port:

2 way X10 interface
12 bit Digital IO (can be input or output, switch or button)
8 port Analog IO, 10 bit resolution
Caller ID, name and number
Outgoing DTMF phone monitorYou can use 1->2 of the Weeder IO kits to
drive the the 'universal relay kit' from http://jameco.com (do a search for
'relay card' or 128910). The $60 gets you 8 relays. Here is some more info:

1. The board is sold as 8 relays complete, upgradable to 16. If you only
want to use 8 relays(in a limited fashion), the kit is all you need.

2. If you want more than 8, you need more than just the extra 8 relays them
selves. - you will need 8 extra diodes(1n4148 in my kit) - you will need
about 30 extra terminating blocks

3. The board comes with spots for LEDs to show activity, you will need to
provide those as well as the resistors to drive them(none are provided).

4. As delivered, the Weeder board will not drive the relays, you will need
to get 2 ULN2803 darligton transistor array chips to do that(The relays
need
12V, the Weeders give 5V).

5. The board has the ability to be manually driven, you will need to buy 2
extra 8 pin dip switches to do that.

6. It comes as a bare open board, so think about an enclosure of some type.

7. All of these parts are available from jameco for nominal extra cost.


Shane

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alistair Watkins [mailto:ukha@xxxxxxx]
> Sent: Thursday, 17 June 2004 10:37 p.m.
> To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
> Subject: [ukha_d] PC Interfacing
>
>
> Hi,
>
> I am after either a home-brew or 'proper' IO Solution for HA purposes.
> I want a device, ideally serial, that i can plug into the PC and
> drive a few outputs, and get input from various sensors.  It would be
> handy if the data was easy to get at as well, but I'm happy cutting
> my own code.
> At the moment I'm using the Parallel port but its not really going to
> be a suitable long term solution and I want to use that for a printer!
>
> I have tried google and maplins but I can't seem to find the right
> things to search for! Do these things have a proper name? (IO Card is
> to generic)
>
> Thanks again,
>
> Alistair
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> Yahoo! Groups Links
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