Welcome to Synthiam!

The easiest way to program the most powerful robots. Use technologies by leading industry experts. ARC is a free-to-use robot programming software that makes servo automation, computer vision, autonomous navigation, and artificial intelligence easy.

Get Started
USA
Asked — Edited
Resolved Resolved by bstaehling!

Communicate Between An Ez-B And An Arduino Board

Does anyone have experience and know which way is the easiest to communicate between an EZ-b and an Arduino board? I see there is I2C, UART, serial etc. I hope someone know the easiest so I gain from your knowledge. Thanks:)


ARC Pro

Upgrade to ARC Pro

Unleash your creativity with the power of easy robot programming using Synthiam ARC Pro

AI Support Bot
Related Content
Synthiam
Based on your post activity, we found some content that may be interesting to you. Explore these other tutorials and community conversations.
PRO
Canada
#2  
I would put my vote in for serial as well especially since the EZ-Bv4 can do serial transmission on every port (and has 3 RX ports) and Arduino's have a soft serial library as well which can do TX and RX on many different ports.

I just think there's more options with serial protocol and it is more widely supported.
PRO
Synthiam
#3  
I would also recommend serial as well. What are you wanting to accomplish and maybe we can help?
#4  
I'm actually working on communication between EZB4 and an arduino as we speak. Basically there's an array of sensors input into the arduino and the data gets transmitted from the arduino to the EZB using UART. I just asked a question yesterday about the UART / receiving serial data. See a post called "ReceiveSerial?" Dave and Rich were quick to respond. So far I've been able to debug quite a few issues and can now read the data on the EZB by printing it in a terminal window. So I'd be happy to share anything that may help.
#5  
This has always interested me. I've no imediate use for it so, I've never inquired. Thanks for bringing it up.;)
#6  
@JustinRatliff Thanks for the info, I looked at the video and it is very good, that guy makes good videos, he is very good at describing what he's doing.
@ DJ I am in the planning stages but basically I want to have a Arduino read about 10 sensors 8bit and very fast, about 100 times per second, then condense it. Then be read by the smarter EZ-B, make decisions, then send commands down to the arduino, probably 4 8bit words, at about 5 times a second.
@bstaehling I read the ReceiveSerial post and like it, I will be tuned into your progress.

So I am gathering that I should use the serial (UART) system for this?
Thanks
#7  
Since i wanted the ezb to send over a distance to the arduino I used two xbee units and serial communication. Worked fine.
#8  
I will try UART. Although it is confusing that the recommendations seems to follow the path of, use serial. But isn't uart , spi, usb etc, all serial. Still confused about this but I will try uart as a start for my V4 board to the arduino Due.
Thank you all for the help.
#9  
I used UART 0 port on the EZB with the xbee units and the tx /rx pins on the arduino.
#10  
Thanks Darathian, I will try this. It may be easier than I am thinking it is, I haven't tried it yet. I am a non-programmer and code is very intimidating for me, I'm always afraid I will have a space or a number in the wrong place and will have to spend endless hours trying to figure out where I went wrong.
Thanks.
#11  
I only did this as a proof of concept.

I used the EZB UART commands to send some serial data and then wrote some Arduino code to read it back.

I used the arduino serial library.

Potentially spending hours troubleshooting is part of any learning process. I have found that I learn the most when I have to work through a problem step by step even if it takes a while.

With the EZB and ARC DJ is taking care of most of the pain and suffering:)
#12  
@Purple ... If you are a non programmer, then change that... Learn how to program. You will appreciate the ezb4 way more if you do.... I was a non "programmer" once and so was everyone else at some point in their life.... Start slow, put some effort into it and soon you'll be able do things you thought you couldn't do...
United Kingdom
#13  
@purple, I too am a non programmer. However if you have an idea of what you want to achieve and have a go and fail, then that's what we are all here for. There are some amazing brains full of helpfulness in the community that will help you and your ideas grow :-)
#14  
I feel real smart now, I looked at my V4 and saw there is a UART port on the top.:)
#15  
In fact there is 3 uart ports in total.... All of this info in on here, the EZ Robot website... In ARC there are examples on how to use most if not all of the controls including using the Uart ports and script examples etc... I used the ARC example (using the uart port) to figure out how communicate with my iRobot Create....
#16  
To elaborate on programming and what @Richard said,

I'd start by learning a little HTML then start to sprinkle in some JAVA Script. Also PHP is a good fusion of HTML and basic programming. Once you get familiar with that you'll be able to start learning other languages.

We're lucky that so much is Object Oriented. The languages are all pretty "english." By that I mean that the code is pretty easy to follow. There's not too much out there that when you look at the Classes and Methods, it isn't pretty obvious what they do. For example, most languages have an "SQLConnect" or simmilar function/method and that of course is used to? Anyone? Anyone? Connect to an SQL database. Once you have some OOP experience you'll find most languages are pretty similar.

Also, Firefox and Chrome (Not sure about IE since I haven't used it in years) have the option to view the source code of web pages. When doing so it will open a frame in your browser and it will highlight the stuff on the page as you go through the code. It's a good way to follow the code and see what it does.

To back @Richard up, learning to code will only do you good and I second the recommendation.

Just my $.02. Hope it helps.
Login to post a comment