Re: Hello, and help with GNAT and Windows USB programming

[Gumpy <shepardc@gmail.com>]

Thanks for your response. I think I replied directly to you instead of to the thread, so not sure where that went.


> if the card is using serial comm, then you want to by a usb-to-serial converter.
> 
> It will act like a virtual com-port then
> 
> Use it like this (the code spoke with an Arduaino) 
> 
...
> 
> But i'm not sure you'd use serial comm though.
> 

Thank  you for the code snippet. This is along the lines of where I was headed. I will study it in detail. 

What reservations do you have about using Serial Comm?

The thermocouple device I'm using is an Omega UTC-USB: http://www.omega.com/pptst/UTC-USB.html

There is a command reference manual here: ftp://ftp.omega.com/public/DASGroup/products/UTC-USB/UTC_USB-Command_Reference.pdf

The serial communications setup is listed at the beginning of the manual. It's actually a very simple command set consisting of short strings terminated by <cr>. It seems GNAT.Serial_Communications should work well for this but maybe there's a better way? 



> 
> 
> I have a velleman k8055
> 
> <http://www.velleman.eu/products/view/?country=be&lang=en&id=351346>
> 
> which I interfaced with bundled dlls.
> 
> No serial comm at all.
> 
> It involved looping around the usb devices and finding the card, with
> 
> id of manufacturer etc.
> 
> 
> 
> I have it on a broken machine, but I might be able to dig it up tomorrow,
> 
> if you think it will help
> 

If you don't mind, that would be really good. The looping through USB devices is something I was considering if I couldn't find a better way to find and attach a specific device. 

The software that came with the thermocouple interface does contain dll's that were installed for the supplied application. Again, I'm new to PC environment programming, so I don't fully understand the concept of dlls and whether these can be useful to what I'm trying to do. There's a lot for me to learn here. This is one of the reasons I chose this kiln control project. The control part is simple enough, but it requires me to learn some underlying PC concepts in order to get it all working. 

craig