I've been working on a piece of hardware as part of my degree requirements. It involves bidirectoinal dataflow from a number of sources. The poor old RS-232 just can't handle it. I either need to:

a. scrap it all and start over, with graduation in May
b. switch it over to something faster.

For obvious reasons, I'm likeing "b" better. USB becuase the peripherals just got a lot easier, becuase most of the stuff I need the serial port for there is also a USB version of. The key requirements are reading from a digital camera, sending that to a compact flash piece for archive, while also having the change in images control a set of stepper motors and some human-detectable signalers. It's an optical tracking system.

My question is, has anyone ever built a USB device? I'm looking for a microcontroller, preferably one capable of using microC OS, embedded Linux or VHDL, which has integrated USB control capabilities. Baring that, a USB controller that will play nicely with an HC12. Anyone?

HELP!!!!!!
*popping flares and smoke*
...---...
*waving a blaze orange signal flag the size of Montana*

Uh, we deal with rubbing sticks together, and using stone hand axes around this campfire... Perhaps you should leave stranger!

<img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

USB 1.1 Hardward

Perhaps that's something you were looking for. BTW, that's just a Google search on "USB microcontroller".

Sorry I can't be of too much help, I'm just an IT guy with an amateur radio license! <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Wow. That does not sound like fun...

I know that Cypress makes (or made) a line of interesting USB microcontrollers. They have development kits that you should be able to get to talk to any other processor (some bit-banging required). You should be able to rig up a simple SPI interface to let it talk to your HC12. That, of course, is not the most elegant solution. But if it works, why not?

The hardware involved with USB is pretty easy and cheap. To me, the software (at both ends) is the hard part. But, then again, I am a hardware guy.

Well, I am both hard and software on this one. I usually do the hradware side of things myself.

And actually, it is very interesting. I just wish I had more time. Thanks for the tip on Cypress. I should have checked with them, but this was the first place I ask this question of. :P Wilderness survival, urban survival, academic survival, it's all the same....

Stone hand axes... don't tempt me. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />


And don't worry, I'm an IT guy with pretentions of being an engineer.

There's a homemade MP3 player called the Minty, it fits in an Altoids tin and uses USB to download songs.

Here's the forums discussing how it works, how to build it, what chips to use, etc:
http://www.ladyada.net/forums/index.php?sid=360e63573598b3933e1aef60c1c5acfa

Here's the Minty site with scehmatics, pictures, etc:
http://www.ladyada.net/make/minty/index.html

Here's the MiniMinty site, a variant that fits in an Altoids gum tin, with schematics, pictures, etc:
http://industrialogic.com/mini-minty/index.html

Hope that helps some.

The Gumstix boards have a USB client port add-on. http://www.gumstix.com

Try looking at http://www.sparkfun.com. They have the parts that you need, and perhaps some other components you'll need.

I'm a technician formerly married to a stress engineer (her actual title!).

Oh, I never even heard of these guys. Thanks.

BTW, welcome aboard.

Oh, wow.... I don't know if I'll look at these things for the project itself, but as part of a wearable/hyperportable computing package these are going to fill something I was lookking for. Now I just need to learn how to use a chorded keyboard. :P