Can somebody please steer this geriatric newbie in the right direction?
I am enjoying my Picaxe experience which I was first intoduced to a month or so ago when my Triac controlled light dimmer circuit couldn't deliver the degree of contol I was after to drive a varying voltage into a heater wire.
I aquired a Axe022 board with a Picaxe28X installed and an Axe027 download cable.
A couple of potentiometers, a logic level MOSFET, good advice and lots of reading later I now have the total control I was looking for. Brilliant.
I next wanted to know how hot the heater wire is getting and have,with the help of this forum aquired a MAX6675 chip with the intention of using a K type thermocouple. This SOIC is now mounted so that I can see where it is at all times.
Then it dawned on me that I would need to display the aquired temperature.
So a twig hop onto LCD displays and after robbing a LCD module from an old navigation device and reading both Picaxe Vol 3 manual on interfacing and hippy's excellent website info on LCDs I can now display "Hello" and similar. Brilliant.
I am now asking myself - where next.
It would be nice to display temp on a PC first if that is easier than interfacing to the LCD (and potentally for a future data logger) and then on the LCD.
What piece of kit do I neet to do this. I read about having a a serial interface and this looks relatively simple to make. But then I read at the bottom of the Axe027 manual that:
"The AXE027 USB cable may also be used to transmit/receive serial data from the PICAXE input/output pins (via serin and serout commands)."
Does this mean that with bit more reading and work I will be able to see the temperature on (1) my pc and (2) the LCD with the hardware I already have?
If yes can somebody please point me in the direction of useful info on this.
If no, then what hardware do I need to make/buy to move forward.
They say that - "..... a little knowledge is dangerous thing" so I must appear very dangerous at the moment but any help you could give will be highly appreciated as I progress(?) up my vertical learner curve!
Thanks in anticpation
I am enjoying my Picaxe experience which I was first intoduced to a month or so ago when my Triac controlled light dimmer circuit couldn't deliver the degree of contol I was after to drive a varying voltage into a heater wire.
I aquired a Axe022 board with a Picaxe28X installed and an Axe027 download cable.
A couple of potentiometers, a logic level MOSFET, good advice and lots of reading later I now have the total control I was looking for. Brilliant.
I next wanted to know how hot the heater wire is getting and have,with the help of this forum aquired a MAX6675 chip with the intention of using a K type thermocouple. This SOIC is now mounted so that I can see where it is at all times.
Then it dawned on me that I would need to display the aquired temperature.
So a twig hop onto LCD displays and after robbing a LCD module from an old navigation device and reading both Picaxe Vol 3 manual on interfacing and hippy's excellent website info on LCDs I can now display "Hello" and similar. Brilliant.
I am now asking myself - where next.
It would be nice to display temp on a PC first if that is easier than interfacing to the LCD (and potentally for a future data logger) and then on the LCD.
What piece of kit do I neet to do this. I read about having a a serial interface and this looks relatively simple to make. But then I read at the bottom of the Axe027 manual that:
"The AXE027 USB cable may also be used to transmit/receive serial data from the PICAXE input/output pins (via serin and serout commands)."
Does this mean that with bit more reading and work I will be able to see the temperature on (1) my pc and (2) the LCD with the hardware I already have?
If yes can somebody please point me in the direction of useful info on this.
If no, then what hardware do I need to make/buy to move forward.
They say that - "..... a little knowledge is dangerous thing" so I must appear very dangerous at the moment but any help you could give will be highly appreciated as I progress(?) up my vertical learner curve!
Thanks in anticpation