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My Exporations with Ports - LED Panel Update
Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2009 11:50 pm
by Grimdoomer
Well while I was looking around for some stuff for Mutation on the net, I found this neat project someone had done using the printer port. Since I wanted to learn how to do some circutry, I had a spare printer cable, and I can write C# apps to interface with my boards, this was awesome. I quickly threw together a circut board with 3 LEDs on it. Looked at the persons sample app, and quickly wrote my own. Here are my results.
Now there are a lot of things you can do with this. The printer port has data lines for input and output, as well as ground. So I could send a value out, and if a circut is connected, I would get that value back. The person who posted it also said he was working on a tut for a LCD panel, so I look foward to doing that too.

Got the LED Panel working like a charm. To bad I only have 8 ouputs or I could hook up a timer since I bought 3.
Here is a video of the board in action:
Video (Ok Fixed)
LED Panel Board:
Video
Re: My Exporations with Ports
Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 12:29 am
by xxpenguinxx

DIY light shows! I just need a bunch of lasers and relays.
Could you post the link to the project itself? I have a few printer cables laying around.
Re: My Exporations with Ports
Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 12:48 am
by DoorM4n
WOW!
I'm honestly extremely impressed! Congratulations man!
Re: My Exporations with Ports
Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 1:06 am
by Gary
I had a bread board with LEDs on it, and did the same thing through the serial port with NI's Lab View.
I also had programed a basic stamp at one time, maybe I should re-install some of that stuff, I always found it entertaining.
Re: My Exporations with Ports
Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 2:12 am
by Grimdoomer
Thanks for the feedback. The original project was kind of long and not to much info on the acutally board itself or hooking it up. So you would have to really know what you need to do. I can post my work along with a short write up of the printer ports pins and what they do. It's pretty simple once you have something that shows you it. I can provide diagrams for some simple layouts for LEDs, sending and reciving data, which can be used with components such as moters and such. I will post some stuff tomaro but won't be able to post any LCD stuff for a day or two untile I actually get a panel for it.
Re: My Exporations with Ports
Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 2:54 am
by Remnant Samurai
Haha the pad says lunch money
Re: My Exporations with Ports
Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 11:35 pm
by Grimdoomer
I got LED Panels to work with numbers and some letters. I'll post some stuff soon.
Re: My Exporations with Ports
Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 11:59 pm
by Gary
So your doing this through a small application you built with C#?
Cool, I should do something like this, I have one of those LED number read outs, for 1 number.
Re: My Exporations with Ports
Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2009 1:40 am
by Grimdoomer
Gjsdeath wrote:So your doing this through a small application you built with C#?
Cool, I should do something like this, I have one of those LED number read outs, for 1 number.
Yes. It's pretty simple too. I think I'm going to do something with input next.
Re: My Exporations with Ports - LED Panel Update
Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2009 1:47 am
by Click16
neat. Imagine computer Laser shows!
Re: My Exporations with Ports - LED Panel Update
Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2009 2:58 am
by xxpenguinxx
Click16 wrote:neat. Imagine computer Laser shows!
I said it first.
And I searched on google about this, I need to try it when I get my upstairs pc fully functional.