Hi guys!
New user here, and my knowledge of programming and electronics is admittedly limited. I'll explain what it is I'm trying to do, and how I'm trying to do it because maybe I'm going about it in the wrong way =)
I have a system in a lab which uses a pressure gauge to monitor a reaction. I currently have the following item
http://www.ge-mcs.com/en/pressure-and-level/handheld-test-tools/dpi-104-digital-test-gauge.html
Which I have attached via a serial cable to a PC using the provided software to log data for the gauge.
In the interesting of automating the process, I have purchased an Arduino Uno board with a starter kit and a few servos so that I can program it to turn a Servo after a given amount of time. This is very easy and I have successfully done so.
However, in the interest of safety, I'm also interested in turning the Servo if the reaction over-pressurizes. Again, the software and basic idea are very easy, but I'm having trouble coming up with a good way to read data from the pressure gauge on my Arduino. I have almost no knowledge of how to go about this. I've looked over the serial information on a few tutorials and other google searches but I can't find quite what I'm looking for.
I do not need to monitor the cable data while it is attached to the computer, so I don't need a splitter or anything like that. My eventual plan is to use something like PuTTY to monitor the arduino to log data on the PC, so I only need the serial cable connected to the arduino. (Or maybe use a micro SD card, I'm not sure yet).
I'm a little unclear as to what I need to do to the individual pins from the serial cable since I don't know anything about it. From what I've gathered, I believe I need to hold Data Carrier Detect and Data terminal ready pins high to tell the gauge to transmit data? I expect it's probably not this simple, but I'm looking for some help!
Any insight that can be provided would be much appreciated, thanks!
Josh