That certainly is a hack. But its something I have often thought about and never did. He is right its really a one instrument interface as it doesn't have the buffers to drive the load of multiple instruments. But heavens that has to be a really cheap interface for a bit of soldering effort. My type of effort. :-) Regards Paul. WB8TSL
On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 11:57 PM, Joseph Gray <[email protected]> wrote: > I thought everyone here would find this of interest. I stumbled across it a > few days ago on the 'net. It is a Prologix GPIB-USB compatible made with an > Arduino Uno. > > > http://egirland.blogspot.com/2014/03/arduino-uno-as-usb-to-gpib-controller.html > > Like on his web site, I just took a cheap GPIB cable, cut off about 12 > inches and shoved the wires into the socket holes on an Uno. I uploaded his > program and did some minor testing so far. BTW, it didn't work the first > time due to poor contact. I shoved some pin headers in, after the wires and > now it works fine. > > John's Prologix config program works just fine with this cobbled together > GPIB adapter. I attached it to my HP 3457A and then ran the demo program > that comes with Ulrich's EZGPIB. It is logging data as I type this. I will > do more testing with other instruments, as I have time. > > As mentioned on the web page linked above, a few commands are not yet > implemented, although they appear to be little used commands (except > perhaps the ++savecfg command). I think I have a way to implement the ++rst > command using the watchdog timer. For ++savecfg, it shouldn't be too > difficult to store things in the Arduino EEPROM. > > I have some cheap Arduino Nano's and PCB-mount GPIB connectors on order. I > will be making a couple of these Proligix-compatible adapters with those > parts, so that they aren't just wires shoved into a board. I'll have to > find a small box to house things. I have also ordered some buffer chips to > add to the design. Total cost should be under $20 for each adapter. > > The firmware uses a serial baud rate of 115200, which I assume is the same > as a real Prologix. I'm going to try some higher baud rates to see how fast > the Arduino can push bits without losing them. I understand that with the > default 16 MHz clock, non-standard baud rates that are evenly divisible > into the clock rate should work even better I'll report back. > > One question about the baud rate - are there any reasons not to change from > 115200? Since we are simply moving bits through a USB/Serial adapter, does > any software really care what the baud rate is, as long as we don't drop > any bits? > > Joe Gray > W5JG > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] > To unsubscribe, go to > https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts > and follow the instructions there. > _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
