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Canada
Asked — Edited

Ez-B Hardwired To Pc?

While Bluetooth is the standard for connecting a PC to the EZ Board and V4 is on the way (WiFi) is it possible to hardwire (USB, etc) for those builders who have room for an onboard PC. Perhaps there is a way to emulate the Bluetooth connection thru hardwire/software? I know there is a Type2 with a stronger signal but that is only one part of the connection circuit. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.
Glen


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#1  
Yep, you can hard wire the EZB directly to your PC through USB. You need to remove the Bluetooth board and install a USB interface. I don't have the exact board that can be used right now but we were discussing this over a year ago. I think if you do a search you can find a link to the proper one to use.
Canada
#3  
WOW thank you every one! Fast response and.......informative! :) Any one else having issues with poor Bluetooth connections will also be grateful to the amazing members of this community! *Bookmarked*
#4  
Yes, two of my three EZB often disconnect the BT connection from the PC. I was going to either upgrade the BT board to a higher class or get one of these USB boards. However the V4 was announced and I decided to wait and go the wifi route.
#5  
It appears there are more pins on aameralis photo of USB adapter than the link provided by HERR Ball. Is it just a plug in replacement on the EZB3? Is there any performance increase removing the Bluetooth?
One time I strapped my new ASUS laptop on the front of my robot and I got great picture and color recognition using the onboard camera.
I would love to someday have a small Acer onboard my current robot, leave in EZB3 so I won,t need voltage regulators, and use my new EZB4 for my new robot build. It would be great to have a case on both robots that I could easily move the Acer or windows tablet to either robot.
Steve S
#7  
@SteveS

You only need 3 pins, GD, TX, RX.
My Bluetooth was always getting disconnected so the converter was the way to go.
#8  
Herr Ball,
Thank you for responding.
It sounds like an easy conversion. Do you have an onboard PC? If so, what kind?
Thanks,
Steve S
#9  
I do run a onboard PC.
I picked up awhile back and all-in-one ... BioStar motherboard, dual processor and 8gb ram for $69.00.
"BIOSTAR All-In-One Mini ITX Motherboard - "A68I-350 DELUXE" with AMD Fusion 350D APU"
Runs everything just great, no problems at all.

As for the conversion, pop out the bluetooth on EZB, plug in the usb converter into the pc board and 3 wires from the converter to EZB and that's it.
You must remember that the USB converter has male ends and the EZB has female ends.

I don't worry anymore about getting disconnected from EZB and PC.
#10  
This is great! I am in the process of building a sentry bot and plan on using an on board laptop (the screen got stepped on) so will have USB camera and EZ-B.
#11  
Just google USB ttl serial. You will find the very simple communication usb port and shows up just like a bluetooth. COM 3, 5 , 7 ect.
#12  
I had a tutorial on this for replacing the Bluetooth with cable to the PC.


tutorial


What I am interested in now is if the V4 can be done the same way as I will have a Mini ITX MB on the robot.
#13  
@rgordon said "What I am interested in now is if the V4 can be done the same way as I will have a Mini ITX MB on the robot."

We know that the v4 will have a UART, but I haven't seen anything that clearly states whether that is only for having the EZ-B control other serial devices or if it will accept commands through it as well.

I can't find the thread, but I think DJ said it is also possible to remove the WiFi module and connect another TTL device but that he doesn't recommend it.

Alan
#14  
@Alan

I take it that the WiFi is a much more reliable connection than Bluetooth?
#15  
I would expect WiFi to be rock solid, particularly with devices physically near each other. Much less susceptible to interference and better error handling than Bluetooth.

Alan
#16  
Thanks Alan. That's good to know. I will have two EZ-B V3's and one EZ-B V4. I hope it will be ok to have the two old ones hard wired and the new one WIFI. If I remember....somewhere I think I asked this before and I think Rich said it would be ok to have them like that. I just found that even with the Bluetooth right beside the computer, I still had issues with it dropping the connection. But all was solved when I went to cable connection.
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