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Electronics PIC USB Host Question

Discussion in 'Modding' started by mikecx, 9 May 2005.

  1. mikecx

    mikecx What's a Dremel?

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    For a current project i'm working on I need the use of USB on a chip without the use of a PC. Reading some of microchips website/forum I've discovered that the onboard USB of the chips can only work in slave mode. Since i'm using it to connect and read from another device, slave mode won't work.

    With a little bit more research I found FTDI's FT2232C a USB<->Rs232 converter. Now, my question is, could this device work as a USB Host, read data from a usb disk, and pass it onto my PIC? It's 2:11a.m. here and I can't really trust anything i'm reading so if someone could clear this up for me that would be great.
     
  2. ConKbot of Doom

    ConKbot of Doom Minimodder

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    What kind of usb disk? I take it you mean one of the flash drives. If so, does it have to be one of those? Because a MMC card can be interfaced via SPI, and then you just need to be able to handle the FAT16 file system.

    Also, what are you using the PIC for that you need that much storage? I think you can have up to 2 Mbit worth of I2C EEPROMs (4 512k eeproms), at least with the microchip ones and you have individual byte acces for them. Or is this for something like a MP3 player?
     
  3. TheAnimus

    TheAnimus Banned

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    usb host on a PIC, no.

    there not powerful enough, even a high end Atmel arm 9 isn't that hot (i'm told texus make some which can do it reasonably well).

    anyway, using a USB stick is silly, MMC is fairly easy, CF is VERY easy.
     
  4. mikecx

    mikecx What's a Dremel?

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    This is actually for more of an mp3 player idea (not exactly but I really can't discuss many details about it). I need to be able to read mp3 files off a usb flash drive for this project. I was hoping the chip I mentioned, FTDI's FT2232C could act as the host but I really didn't consider the limitations of the PIC, the 18F4550.

    MMC/CF wont work, it really does need to be USB flash drive for this project. Should I look into Texus chips then?
     
  5. TheAnimus

    TheAnimus Banned

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    erm, probably better off with the atmel, myself and lynx looked at one of their high end arm9 thumb range, you could run arm linux on it.

    The problem i had is the uni didn't want to buy me a dev board. tight gits, and these things cost a few grand.

    you will need to be very hot with your electronics to pull this off, and if your not willing to post all the info in a public forum, i doubt you'll get far.
     
  6. Redwolf

    Redwolf Supermodel

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    ^
    |

    that guy is right you are better of using a Atmel some of the new media processors have usb host capabilities. but I you can't give us more information on what you are trying to accomplish we can't help you.
     

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