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- Unconventional Use of a USB?
Unconventional Use of a USB?
Hello everyone,
This summer I took apart a printer and took off the linear optical encoder. I managed to hook it up to an arduino's analog ports and read data that way. However it was the schools arduino and I sadly have to return it. So I was thinking and wondered if there was a way to read the analog encoder data to my computer somehow. I was wondering if it was possible to hook the encoder directly up to a usb without a driver and read the analog data pins on the port? After some googling this seemed highly impossible but I figured I would bring it to the forum. I am very light on USB knowledge. Thank you in advanced for any response!
This summer I took apart a printer and took off the linear optical encoder. I managed to hook it up to an arduino's analog ports and read data that way. However it was the schools arduino and I sadly have to return it. So I was thinking and wondered if there was a way to read the analog encoder data to my computer somehow. I was wondering if it was possible to hook the encoder directly up to a usb without a driver and read the analog data pins on the port? After some googling this seemed highly impossible but I figured I would bring it to the forum. I am very light on USB knowledge. Thank you in advanced for any response!
You can buy an Arduino yourself. I got one for abt. 8 eur (10 $).
Then you can communicate via Serial Port (Arduino's usb connection has a serial-to-usb converter behind-the-scenes) and log its data (you can use the Serial class to send data to PC, and CreateFile with a COM port on Windows to read it back).
Otherwise, the USB ports have a specific protocol and it'll be quite hard to learn it and work it out.
If you have a builtin Serial or Parallel port on your pc, it's way easier.
Then you can communicate via Serial Port (Arduino's usb connection has a serial-to-usb converter behind-the-scenes) and log its data (you can use the Serial class to send data to PC, and CreateFile with a COM port on Windows to read it back).
Otherwise, the USB ports have a specific protocol and it'll be quite hard to learn it and work it out.
If you have a builtin Serial or Parallel port on your pc, it's way easier.
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