accessing a USB HID

[jodansmif]

I've been teaching myself Python as part of my senior design project at
university.

The obstacle our group currently faces is communicating with a
microcontroller (ACS USB Servo II) that appears in Windows as a USD
HID. Unfortunately, the vendor's sample code is in Visual Basic and
Visual C++ which none of our group members have any experience using.

My hope is that someone has experience with this type of problem and
can point me to some reference material. At this point I'm a bit lost
in the morass of USB terminology.

While I'm at it... if anyone knows of a better way to approach this
problem (serial or parallel microcontroller) or another language with
better tools, I'd appreciate that as well. We're just trying to turn
several motors on and off while polling some photodiodes and all this
HID business seems like unnessary overkill.

Any assistance much appreciated,
Jordan

 

[Serge Orlov]

I've been teaching myself Python as part of my senior design project at
university.

The obstacle our group currently faces is communicating with a
microcontroller (ACS USB Servo II) that appears in Windows as a USD
HID. Unfortunately, the vendor's sample code is in Visual Basic and
Visual C++ which none of our group members have any experience using.

My hope is that someone has experience with this type of problem and
can point me to some reference material. At this point I'm a bit lost
in the morass of USB terminology.

While I'm at it... if anyone knows of a better way to approach this
problem (serial or parallel microcontroller) or another language with
better tools, I'd appreciate that as well. We're just trying to turn
several motors on and off while polling some photodiodes and all this
HID business seems like unnessary overkill.

After cursory look at the device home page it appears the vendor is
providing an Active X control. So it looks like you will need to learn
client side COM programming no matter what language you choose. For
Python you will need win32 extensions:
http://starship.python.net/crew/mhammond/win32/Downloads.html
or you can use ActivePython distribution that comes integrated with it.

Don't be scared by USB HID, it's just a mandatory classification of the
device under Windows, you don't need to deal with it. Python and COM
don't look scary:
http://www.python.org/windows/win32com/QuickStartClientCom.html

-- Serge.

 

[Cameron Laird]

(e-mail address removed) wrote: .
.
.

After cursory look at the device home page it appears the vendor is
providing an Active X control. So it looks like you will need to learn
client side COM programming no matter what language you choose. For
Python you will need win32 extensions:
http://starship.python.net/crew/mhammond/win32/Downloads.html
or you can use ActivePython distribution that comes integrated with it.

Don't be scared by USB HID, it's just a mandatory classification of the
device under Windows, you don't need to deal with it. Python and COM
don't look scary:
http://www.python.org/windows/win32com/QuickStartClientCom.html

-- Serge.

I'm sympathetic. The hardware manufacturers consistently produce
manuals and documentation that ... puzzle me.

However, Mr. Orlov is absolutely right: that it's exposed as an
Active X control is good news. Working with COM through Python is
fun and generally sensible. You should quickly find yourself able
to write small, sensible code fragments that send signals to the
motors and receive data from the photosensors. Good luck.

 

[jodansmif]

Thanks! I'll get cranking along and post my progress to the thread.