RS232 (Serial) Communication To OI

[Greg Marra]

Originally Posted by bglass

Sounds good. Since the consensus seems to be that the microcontroller is the best way to go, I guess I'll have to look into that. If anybody has any suggestions on which to use (or how to get started), please let me know. Best wishes.

Having used PIC 18F2455's in an introduction to mechatronics course, I would recommend them. They can be programmed by an inexpensive programmer and support USB communication in addition to RS232. You'll need to use another chip (A MAX232, or similar) to turn the serial from your serial port into the type of serial the PIC likes (there is a voltage difference).

The PIC is programmed in MPLAB, just like the FRC controller. For a bunch of documentation about how to get the PIC to do specific things, I send you to the website of the course I took. It's full of goodies!

But once you can send data to the PIC, you just need to set some digital output pins, some analog output pins, and make them do what the computer says. You could even listen to the feedback LED pins and send them back to the computer for two-way communication.