Advice on Interfacing Electronics to PocketPC PDA

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

Hi all,

As part of a degree project a PocketPC PDA (new HP iPaq) is to be used
to control and receive feedback from some motors and sensors.

http://www.eagle.co.za/display_product_1965.htm

Something like the above is a little overkill but thats the general
idea. Ideally something with a couple of analogue / digital I/O lines.
Something that is fairly easy to develop a controller application (using
Pocket C++ etc) would be an advantage. How feasible is it to build
something like this? (bearing in mind that this is a 6 month project
with control being about 1/3 of the work)

Any suggestions for hardware that meet the requirements?

Thanks,
tk
 
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Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

"Tariq Khokhar" <tariq@khokhar{nospam}.net> wrote in message
news:ca7kaa$oao$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk...
> Hi all,
>
> As part of a degree project a PocketPC PDA (new HP iPaq) is to be used
> to control and receive feedback from some motors and sensors.
>
> http://www.eagle.co.za/display_product_1965.htm
>
> Something like the above is a little overkill but thats the general
> idea. Ideally something with a couple of analogue / digital I/O lines.
> Something that is fairly easy to develop a controller application (using
> Pocket C++ etc) would be an advantage. How feasible is it to build
> something like this? (bearing in mind that this is a 6 month project
> with control being about 1/3 of the work)
>
> Any suggestions for hardware that meet the requirements?
>
> Thanks,
> tk

Zilog has demonstrated such applications, such as controlling a telescope's
position using a PDA. Part of their writeup of a demonstration at a
developer's conference:
"eZ80 Acclaim! Product Demos:

Telescope Demonstration: The telescope, which incorporates
ZiLOG's eZ80 Acclaim!, communicates with a Palm Pilot
interface via the eZ80 IrDA port. A GUI-based Palm application
automatically directs the telescope toward the appropriate
constellation. The Palm controls the telescope via an IrDA
port.
"

Using one of their developer's kits should make it pretty easy. IIRC the
engineer at Zilog who developed the telescope application was offering the
full software package but I didn't bother to search around for it.
--
John McGaw
[Knoxville, TN, USA]
http://johnmcgaw.com
 
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Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

Tariq Khokhar wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> As part of a degree project a PocketPC PDA (new HP iPaq) is to be used
> to control and receive feedback from some motors and sensors.
>
> http://www.eagle.co.za/display_product_1965.htm
>
> Something like the above is a little overkill but thats the general
> idea. Ideally something with a couple of analogue / digital I/O lines.
> Something that is fairly easy to develop a controller application (using
> Pocket C++ etc) would be an advantage. How feasible is it to build
> something like this? (bearing in mind that this is a 6 month project
> with control being about 1/3 of the work)
>
> Any suggestions for hardware that meet the requirements?
>
> Thanks,
> tk

Well, there's always the magic 'do anything' PICs, or Amtel AVR. They come
with DIO, A/D, and serial.

They also have the advantage, by virtue of being a processor too, of
off-loading time critical things from the IPAQ. Use the IPAQ for MMI,
configuration, and data manipulation. Like, if you were servoing the motor
for position control the IPAQ would send 'position' and the PIC would
handle the feedback loop to get it there (motor ramp up, current overload
detection [motor stall], encoder feedback, position holding, etc.). The
parameters for all those things, like what the stall current is, could be
in the IPAQ data base, with a user configuration program (in addition to
the 'operation' program that's saying 'move it to here'), and downloaded to
the PIC for operational use so the PIC is hot configurable, etc.