Anders, what model is your Remex paper tape reader? I have an RRS3300, the only one I know of.
Dave Wise ________________________________ From: Anders Nelson via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> Sent: Monday, April 14, 2025 9:13 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk@classiccmp.org> Cc: Anders Nelson <anders.k.nel...@gmail.com> Subject: [cctalk] Re: Paper Tape Reader Needed Following Chuck's comments, I would recommend throwing a job description up to Upwork <www.upwork.com<http://www.upwork.com>> and paying someone in Eastern Europe, South America or Southeast Asia to implement some STM32 firmware to get this done at low cost, maybe $500 total. Job category: Firmware, electrical engineering, hardware, C programming language Job keywords: STM32, USB device Job description: We want to build a device that directs an industrial paper tape reader [manufacturer] [exact model number] to read paper tape, and store data to an SD card with a FAT32 file system. The device needs 7 buttons (left, right, up, down, ok, start, stop), a common 128x64 OLED display, and a 5v tolerant parallel control and data interface to the tape reader. The user can adjust a filename based on the date, defaulting to 2025-01-01, and an additional sequence number starting at -001 added by the device that increments with each tape read. When the start button is pressed, the device controls the tape reader to advance the tape and record the data stream to a file with the displayed name on the SD card. The device should create 2 files with identical data in different formats: File one has extension ".bin" and contains 8-bit binary data from the tape, one binary character for each byte. File two file has extension ".txt" and contains 8-bit HEX data as text from the tape, two text characters for each byte ("00"-"FF"). I've been wanting to do this for a while with my Remex tape reader, haha. Maybe we can combine forces? I do HW/FW design for a living but need to complete other projects first... =] -- Anders Nelson On Mon, Apr 14, 2025, 11:44 AM Chuck Guzis via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 4/14/25 07:47, Mike Katz via cctalk wrote: > > I have a couple of Sanyo Denki units that I can do the same for. I was > > hoping for a serial/USB option that would handle fan fold in stead of > > rolled paper tape. > > I threw together my USB interface for the Sanyo Denki in an afternoon, > using the lowest of the STM32F103 MCU "Blue pills" - the C6. Useless > for many blue pill projects, but adequate to hold USB comm support and > the simple logic to control the paper tape reader. > > Why the STM32F103? I had a bunch of the things wasting space and they > feature 5V tolerant I/O and a sufficient number of GPIOs to interface to > the parallel reader output. There was plenty of flash program memory > left unused so that other features could be added if desired. > > I suspect almost all CNC-oriented tape readers have a similar interface > to that of the Sanyo. > > Really, if you're talking about it and not doing it, you're squandering > time that you could spend implementing it. > > --Chuck >
