Hello everyone,
My name is Alex and I am an Electronic Engineering student at Western Washington University. I am currently working on my senior project, and the board I've chosen is the BlueScreen LPC2378 from ThaiEasyElec.net, which holds an ARM7 processor. For my project I want to have a wireless component (either XBee or Bluetooth), and a friend of mine pointed me towards Arduino products.
My questions are the following; I will be using the LPC2378 as my main processor, and want to wirelessly communicate between the processor and an analog board that is to act like a turn signal of sorts. Based on input from the processor, it is to beam an on or off signal to the analog board, and the receiver must be able to differentiate between a left signal and a right signal (the transmitter must send something like 1,1 for left on and 2,1 for right on, something along those lines). First, which would work best for this application; XBee or Bluetooth? Second, would I need to get an Arduino board for the receiver circuit or can that be programmed seperately then just "plugged into" the analog signal circuit?
Sorry for my first post being a doozy, if more information/detail is needed, please let me know.
It would be helpful if you went through you initial post, and changed all the pronouns that do not have proper referents to nouns.
Based on input from the processor, it is to beam an on or off signal to the analog board
It? What is it?
Second, would I need to get an Arduino board for the receiver circuit or can that be programmed seperately then just "plugged into" the analog signal circuit?
whoops, sorry. I was really tired when I wrote this last night. Let me try again.
My project is going to be a touch screen bicycle computer with a turn signal on the back of the bike. The LPC 2378 ARM processor is the brain of the project, while the turn signal is the analog portion of my project for right now (all it does is trigger 2 555 timers to make the lights blink). I would like to ultimately make the turn signal respond using some sort of wireless communication, be it XBee, Bluetooth, or something else.
My question is if I could use 2 XBee or Bluetooth modules (one as a transmitter from the LPC2378, one as a receiver to the analog signal) without having to purchase an Arduino board? Basically, would it be possible to get a XBee/Bluetooth receiver module that can operate without a microcontroller (maybe program it on the computer so it knows what signals to look for) so it could be attached to my analog turn signal board?
Anything's possible. Buying $60 worth of XBees to avoid running wires on the bicycle seems wasteful. But, it's not my money.
Whether you can get away without an Arduino for the back of the bicycle depends on whether or not you can connect an XBee to your "analog turn signal board". You have not provide much detail on this board.
@Richard
Normally, I'd whole-heartedly endorse your advice. In the case of adding turn-signals to a bicycle that does not currently have them, though, a complete (or partial) failure of the system would leave the rider no worse off than on a stock bicycle.
Doing this same thing to a vehicle (of any kind) that already has turn signals is, as Richard points out, not a safe practice.