Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Arduino WAV Shield


Lady Ada has a new WAV Shield board that gives Ardy (my Arduino) a voice. My mind boggled when I saw this - a plethora of useful as well as pernicious projects came to mind.
A random wake up call alarm clock. Something that would say the weather from my weather station... To numerous to count. Ordered one and will have a code fest when it arrives. I betcha she sells out this one early ...
I wonder if you can write to the SD card with her software? That is something that could be KEWL...

Monday, May 12, 2008

Termie a C# serial terminal program & Arduion

Termie a port to C# from Termite is a simple serial terminal program that does almost all the things I need to get started doing some interesting things with the Arduino and the Weather Station. Logging, hex display, and clipboard are the standouts

Am going to set up a automated dump from one instance through com0com simulating the weather station and then going on from there...

Stay tuned film at 11:00

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

C# RS232 Weather stations and com0com

Not being able to leave well enough aalone, i had to try and build some software to talk to the Weather station.
First Things first - I know C# - so i had to track down some example code.
Found http://www.codeproject.com/KB/system/rs232ThreadSafe.aspx
Installed com0com a virtual null modem cable driver.
It installs CNCA0 and CNCB0 ports - Turns out C# doesn't like ports named like that.
I ran the cocm0com setup and reamed the ports com15 and 16.

Ran two instances of the software and voila both instances talked to each other.
Now I have to go home and plug into the weather station and see what I can see.

Other code i found
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/dotnet/DotNetComPorts.aspx
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/weatherlink.aspx
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/serialcommunication.aspx
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/GpsMapping.aspx
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/Serial_port_tester.aspx
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/IP/SerialCommunication.aspx

Have to install the coc0com hub and try talking to the WS with a couple of programs... more info and code to follow.