Microcontroller Based Data Acquisition Interface(DAI) tutorial

This tutorial is about to make a data acquisition.To make a DAI you need a hardware part which can measure analog data and sends the digital data to computer. A PC app shows the data.Before starting the tutorial take a look to the result. The figure below shows the hardware where i used pic18f4550 to communicate with PC via usb.Two pots are inserted to make analog values here i named these as voltage and speed.pic18f2550 collects the analog value and sends to PC where a PC app i already made to show the data. The red is for testing purpose,it toggles by a button pressed from the PC app.

Pic18f2550 usb device, make your own device!

People who are working with micro controller are very familiar with computer to device communication with serial port. It is easy and simple to use. But now serial port are vanishing day by day.Most of the laptop hasn't serial port. Usb is widely used now. Usb needs only four pins. So it seems good to use but needs to know how! My goal in this post to make easier to communicate with pc to device through usb.No need to know too much about usb. We make a short path to make windows program and pic project files.Here we will use pic18f2550 and visual c++. First a outline of what we have to do