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[on:]

I have been a big fan of arduino ever since i saw it on Instructables. I bought a arduino duemilanove for my first explorations into the PLC. i recently received a robot from Robotshop.com, his name is Doug, he has the same micro-controller the other board i own. As much as i like the arduino programming platform adn i know i can easily write a program to turn his motors on and off with, lets say, a wii nuchuck. I like the idea of using Visual Studio 2010 to control him. i have a bunch of sensors and stuff that it would be cool to see the inputs on a screen, like the level of ambient light or the temperature and display it on a form as an actual value. I do not know where to begin, I've been all over this forum, google, VB Help, and i can't get it to work. I've tried firmata and a sample program that is up in the playground for arduino. I feel if i can figure out how to press a button in VB 2010 and get the LED on Pin 13 to light up i could expand upon this and get the motor to work and get read outs from my sensors. Please help.

John the Undead

[Reply #1 on:]

On this page, http://arduino.cc/playground/Main/InterfacingWithSoftware, down near the bottom, is a link to Visual Basic.NET. That would be a good place to start.

[Reply #2 on:]

That was the first thing i tried and that didn't work at all. i loaded up the standard firmata and tried both VB programs the tutorial had and neither worked.

[Reply #3 on:]

Forget Visual Basic. Branch out a little, and learn some C#. Much easier to get C# to talk to the serial port, and get data back from it. I have a sample application that I could share, if you wanted to go that route.

[Reply #4 on:]

now i know that i can use C# in VB. see what i'm looking for is to be able to get read outs and have them on the screen in a sort of UI with controls and stuff. So do you mean use C# in VB instead of the VB language or use C# in another program and if so can i still have a UI similar to VB?

[Reply #5 on:]

C# allows you to create Windows forms applications. So, I mean for you to dump Visual Basic altogether, and use C# to build the form and talk to the serial port.

[Reply #6 on:]

I'm not married to VB 2010 so bring on the sample code! Which environment can i code in C#?

[Reply #7 on:]

Microsoft offers Visual C# Express for a very reasonable price. Free.

[Reply #8 on:]

so, Paul, how about that sample code? Thanks.

[Reply #9 on:]

I clicked on the e-mail link under your avatar, and sent you an e-mail. It that didn't work, PM me with a valid e-mail address, and I'll send it again.