bionicmotronic

Folks: i have a project where i want to use a Netduino sense voltage on 10-12 lines that each could possibly go as high as 13-14V. I know exactly how i could setup voltage dividers myself to scale this down to 3.3V but id really like to find a somewhat affordable existing device or devices to save me the trouble of fabricating something so basic 10-12 times. I have seen some single signal tiny voltage sensor boards in the $6-8 range intended for arduino etc. applications that will work, but itd be even better if i could find an inexpensive single module w an array of 10 or more inputs / voltage dividers - just like you can find boards w an array of 8 output relays for controlling servos or motors... But for voltage inputs. Anybody know of anything like this? Or alternatively any cheaper-than-$6-per-analog-input solutions? Thanks in advance...

So built myself adafruit 772 shield (comes w/ blue & white LCD).  Building went fine.

 

Took some time to figure out how / where to download the Toolbox code for DLL's and examples (a bit more detail in the basic how-to's would be helpful there... but if you keep searching its all around... ).   Got my references to .DLL's into my project.  

 

Downloaded this simple sample code.  

 

Compiles and deploys fine.

 

But sadly: Display shows nothing. No errors thrown either.

My soldering skills / experience very high, pretty sure nothing is bad in the construction.

There is 5V power on the input pins to the shield. 

 

I did see a number of references to I2C problems w the N+2 - could that be my issue? 

 

Maybe I need to try the C# sample code instead... 

 

Any help greatlly appreciated...

 

 

I got a Netduino Plus 2 for holidays and just fired it up and in relatively no time got it running using VB.NET with my own little 'enhanced blinky' app... counting user clicks and feeding those back as multiple LED flashes using a Timer object and watching for when we think the user is done 'entering data'.  Pretty fun stuff and amazingly quick to get started. Nice.

 

But now trying to decide which language to invest my time in as I want to dive into a first real project - adding a number of home sensors to a Netduino board and interfacing it to my existing internet thermostat.  I'll monitor some analog ports for water/flooding (sump pump) and a few other things, don't expect to be hard at all.  Idea will be that the home system already has nice ability to throw alerts and i'll use the netduino to trigger those in exception conditions, then when I see an alert I could choose to go directly to the netduino for more detailed information... So for instance i'd see a 'warning' alert from the other system then could log into the netduino to check say, actual sump well water levels.  All seems pretty easy and don't anticipate anything difficult but trying to decide which language to jump on board. 

 

As background I have years of programming experience and used to be a dev full time years ago, although not .NET and my C-type coding is way rusty, but I do still use VB periodically for work projects, and it's obviously a bit more speed-typing friendly than all the curly brackets and more painstaking declarations.  That said I know after a few days back in the C saddle the (irritatingly PITA to reach w/ the little fingers of right hand) curly bracket typing would come right back. I'm also reasonably electronics literate, and can likely build or mod whatever I need within my simple requirements.  

 

Any updated feedback on which language might be best to continue on?  Naturally I"ve searched around and a lot of the comments I found so far seem dated - ex: complaining VB didn't work on VS Express etc. which is all obviously not true at all now.  

 

I'm probably most concerned about if the VB will A. have all the networking functionality I want to easily put up a little micro HTTP server, and B. support as many 3rd party boards in case i want to leverage existing shields etc. (I can wire it at first but ultimately wifi would be best for instance...) Any feedback? 

 

TIA.