Controlling Devices thru the serial/parallel port

blindasfcuk

Hi I'm a software developemt student and I'm about to start my final year project. What I want to do is to be able to switch on and off a number of lights and connections from a remote pc and to be able to check the status of the connections. I have a new dell laptop with windows XP and no paralell or serial port but I have a usb to parallel adaptor. I picked a Kemo 4 channel computer switch and a d-range 25 way plug. I have soldered on connections to 4 relays which I will use to switch on and off the lights and now I need to start work on the application to control the switches. To tell you truth I dont really know where to begin as I've no experience with this kind of programming and I'm not really sure which languague to use. If any of ye know about this kind of thing I'm open to suggestion on where to start and how to do it! Any help at all would be greatly appretiated!!!

hostyle

use perl;

clearz

What language would you like to use

Beef

If you can get access to VB 6.0 (I haven't used .NET) but they have a handy control called mscomm. I've used it numerous times and found it works really well. All you need is protocol details and some commands for your connected device and your good to go... Do a google on mscomm - you should get loads of examples. That is if you have access to VB of course...

Beef.

Hobbes

Do a google for RS232 programming. VB is probably the easiest.

For Java...

http://sourceforge.net/projects/jcomm/

*Edit.

RS232 is for Serial only. Parallel is a lot more tricky, but you could send data to it by creating a basic text Printer and sending data though that.

blindasfcuk

thanks Im still deciding the programming side of things is making me thing about using the serial port but the hardware side seems easier using the parallel port.

dregin

Phaxx did a project like this for young scientist of the year. Remotely controlling a toaster through the parallel port I do believe. Give him a PM.

blindasfcuk

I have Microsoft .NET and JCreaterLE do I can do it in VB C++ or JAVA so I'm open to ideas. I can get my hands on a prog in VB that reads in details from a mag strip reader but I'm not really sure if I can mod that to check the status of a set of relays.

Bullockshaver

Without a doubt VB is the way to go .You will need someone hardware to allow to interface with devices,The digital voltage levels are +12v and -12v on the serial portof most computers. You will need a chip called a Max 232 to change the contoller boards digital voltage levels to a level the serial port can understand, its not normal TTL logic voltages.

blindasfcuk

I have a relay board that connects in to my parallel port to interface with 8 devices which seems relativley straight forward. I know absolutley nothing about harware so I'm tryin to keep that side of things straight forward.