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Subject: 
multi-device output controller
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.robotics
Date: 
Thu, 25 Mar 1999 17:52:50 GMT
Viewed: 
852 times
  
I've been considering various ways to control more than three output devices
with only the three ports and came up with the following idea.  I don't have the
electrical design knowledge to implement, so if this idea sounds good, I'd like
to collaborate with someone to try it.

My thought:  Since the RCX uses PWM to control the motors, it is basically
sending out 8 different digital signals.  A single device could be designed to
recognize these signals by counting the PWM for a fixed amount of time and route
power to 1 of 8 ports.

The device would be connected to 2 RCX output ports, one for the device
selection and another to supply power to the device.  This would leave 1 free
RCX port.  This design only allows 2 devices to be powered at a time, but allows
for a total of 9 devices.

My thoughts on physical size are a block that is 4x16 with two connecting
cables (device select and device power)  The block would be a matrix of 8 device
ports:

              +---+---+---+---+
  device------|o o|o o|o o|o o|
  select      |o o|o o|o o|o o|
              +---+---+---+---+
  device------|o o|o o|o o|o o|
  power       |o o|o o|o o|o o|
              +---+---+---+---+
           (top view  )

Does this make sense to anyone else?  Anyone interested?  Anyone know how to
design the circuit to count PWM & select output device?

-Wes



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: multi-device output controller
 
What about a real time circuit that routed the output power to one of eight output ports depending on the PWM. That way it only takes one output port on the RCX and up to three (out of 24) motors could be running at the same time. (...) like (...) (...) (25 years ago, 25-Mar-99, to lugnet.robotics)

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