From: James Sentman <james-AT-sentman.com>
Date: 15 May 2008 08:27:52 UTC   (11:27:52 AM in author's locale)
To: xtensionlist-AT-shed.com

On May 15, 2008, at 11:21 AM, Rob Lewis wrote:

> James, your idea sounds intriguing but I'm afraid I don't understand
> exactly what you're proposing. For instance, what does "talked up
> the serial port" mean?
>
> Could you possibly take another shot at explaining just what you
> have in mind, with maybe a concrete example? Sorry if I'm dense.

I hope you're not dense as I think you might want to work on this ;)

What I mean is that we could build a sort of conduit, an arduino API
for talking directly to XTension. So for example there might be a
command in our arduino work to:

XTTurnOn( "A1")

that you might run if say, you noticed that someone had turned on a
switch connected to a digital input on the device.

and there might be an event into which you could place code, for
example something like:

on XTGotValue( TheUnit as string)
if TheUnit = "A1" then
turn on some led or something as the unit was controlled in
XTension

so all the work of talking to XTension would be handled by those
things and you and others coudl concentrate on just making the arduino
do what it wanted to.

We could also document this protocol so that it could be implemented
on any microcontroller that anybody liked, or... any other serial
device for that matter.

Does that make any more sense?
James


>
>
> On May 15, 2008, at 8:06 AM, James Sentman wrote:
>
>>
>> On May 15, 2008, at 10:43 AM, Rob Lewis wrote:
>>
>>> I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this article in the current
>>> Macworld:
>>>
>>> www.macworld.com/article/133184/2008/05/geekfactor2506.html
>>>
>>> It's about interfacing a microcontroller "project board" with OS X
>>> and using it with sensors for the outside world.
>>>
>>> I've never even heard of the Arduino product line: it looks quite
>>> cool (and inexpensive). The article says it works "wonderfully"
>>> with OS X. I'll definitely be picking up some of their stuff.
>>>
>>> Anybody already using it?
>>
>> I have 2 of those arduino boards in my top desk drawer here right
>> now waiting for a suitable project ;) I've had them for a while now
>> and beyond just making an LEd flash with them I haven't had a
>> chance to do anything exciting. But they have a fairly simple
>> programming language, you talk to them via serial ports, they are
>> not expensive and are really cool!
>>
>> what might be interesting would be to build some starter code for
>> the arduino that talked up the serial port for sending and
>> receiving unit on/off commands and values. I would then be willing
>> to write an interface plugin for XTension that received those
>> commands and translated them to and from real unit commands. Then
>> it would be up to you to add devices and do a little program left
>> you coudl control XTension units from it, and control it from
>> XTension units. The thing has PWM outputs for driving servos and
>> digital IO's for reading in states of buttons or switches and
>> turning on and off LEd's or relays and also analog inputs for say,
>> reading the position of a knob or other such thing. and that is
>> just what you get with almost no programming... With some simple
>> XTension interface libs you could do a lot more if you were willing
>> to program the thing.
>>
>> Anybody interested?
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>> James
>>
>>
>> James Sentman sentman.com MacHomeAutomation.com
>>
>>
>>
>

Thanks,
James

James Sentman sentman.com MacHomeAutomation.com