|
|
GP-7 Two-Wire Serial Kit
Many ICs and microprocessors use an industry standard two-wire serial bus protocol (for example, I2C, IIC, SMBus, TWI, etc.). These protocols are very powerful since they allow you to connect a variety of devices using only two wires. But what if you want to access this range of A/D, DAC, temperature sensors, and other devices from a PC? With the GP-7 it is simple to connect two wire devices to any PC with a serial port.
|
How does it work? You simply connect the GP-7 to the two wire bus and it acts as a master, controlling the bus. You send simple ASCII commands to the GP-7, or use the handy ActiveX control to command the bus from any programming language that can use ActiveX. |
Key Links
|
In addition to the two wire serial capabilities of this kit, you can also take advantage of its 8 digital I/O ports, and 4 10-bit analog inputs! This makes it perfect for creating a PC-based tester for two wire serial equipment. What can you do with a GP-7? Here's some ideas:
 |
Test two wire circuits using custom software |
|
Create a serial EEPROM programmer |
|
Read an LM76 temperature sensor |
|
Control I2C digital to analog or analog to digital controllers |
|
Control I2C digital potentiometers |
The GP-7 has a simple command set and also includes an ActiveX control to simplify programming. Here's an example Visual Basic program reading the temperature from an LM76 sensor:
Here's the corresponding code that reads the temperature (in centigrade):
I2CA.Data = Array() ' no data to send I2CA.Receive 2 ' read two bytes t = I2CA.Data(0) * 256 + I2CA.Data(1) ' assemble into 1 word I2CA.BusStop ' be sure to let chip read data again t = t / 8 * 0.0625 ' convert to C
GP-7 complete kit
$44.95
Sale $39.95
Serial cable (DB9 female to male, 6') $8.99
