Digistump Forums
The Digispark => Digispark Project Ideas => Topic started by: severnia on September 03, 2012, 09:09:15 am
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Im fairly new the Aurduino type controller, but would it be possible to use one of these with the LCD shield kit to interface with some software on a windows computer to make the equivalent of Logitech's LCD found in a few keyboards? Im less interested in game stats than i am for speeds, temps, and useage. it could interface with something like CoreTemp for all of this but this is beyond my programming capabilities.
Any suggestions from the community on similar projects or information on where to start?
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Sure its possible, it just depends on the programming. Note, you will need to have programs on both Windows and the digispark side which will complicate things.
The simplest way to proceed is have a simple program on Windows that opens up the USB port and writes the core temperture. Then on the digispark side you read the USB port, and write it to the screen. Note 16x2 is not a lot of screen area, so you have to be careful in what you output. The downside is you won\'t be able to use the USB channel for printing debug messages.
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I have some experience with VB.net, i wonder could you write to a usb port similar to how you can to a serial port? 16x2 is plenty of screen for what i need, im only looking for simple read outs (CPU Temp- 30C, CPU usage - 30% GPU Temp- 40C, Ram usage - 30%) i can fit 2-4 per screen and cycle between screens if need be. Im not sure you have to write to USB and read from usb, you should be able to write to the DS in specific memory locations and just display static info (CPU Temp -) and then live info (XmemlocationX) but again this is a fair bit above my experience in this field.
As an alternate project that could be a bit more simple, a desktop based fan light control would be nice, pwm control of a fan or two, and on/off control of a few things like lights could be done with simple electronics.
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If screen capacity was an issue, one could use something like the Grove OLED displays (preferably the 128x64 version). They communicate using I2C, so the pin requirement is minimal and there is much more room for text.
On the Windows side of the programming, I don\'t know how to actually access the temperatures, I assume there is a library for that. Using the USB port should be relatively simple if you have experience using .NET, they can be treated much like a serial port.
In an implementation as simple as this (receive, save and display values) debug usage of the USB channel probably is not all that necessary anyways!
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I definitely want to do something like this, myself. Have you made any progress on this idea?
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You could always scroll parts of the LCD.
Attached is something I did for another project, that I ported to Digispark.
In the original the message was made up of a number of Error messages.
I haven't done the connection drawing to upload it into projects ...yet.
It uses an I2C display, DS18B20, and opto relay board that requires a LOW to operate.
Mark