Hello, I am creating a small project with 10-12 Arduino Leonardo devices connected to USB HUB (Industrial, with external power supply, short USB cables - max 50 cm, small amount of data transferred between devices and PC) and PC based on Windows 10. Does anyone connect similiar or larger amount of devices and could exchange experience with me (any problems or suggestions)?
Welcome to the forum
Why use so many Arduino boards ?
What type of data are they collecting ?
I developed several kind of boards which I use in low cost test equipment, like Power Meter, Light Sensor, Analog IO, Digital IO etc. All shields are based on Arduino Leonardo. I had projects where I use 2-3 Arduino Boards and it works perfect, but I never use more and I am afraid of some problems. Thats why I am asking, maybe someone use more. Arduino boards in my applications are sharing control and measurement data with PC.
Surely it would be more cost effective to connect multiple sensors to a board rather than have each board support only a single type of sensor
Apart from anything else it would make dealing the data on the PC so much simpler
On each board there are multiple sensors. I need for example 48 led color sensors, so I need 6 boards only for color measurement (8 sensor on each shield).
As long as they don't take too-much current you should be fine, especially with a powered hub.
If you have a multimeter you can directly-connect 5V or cut & sacrifice a USB cable to measure the current for each Arduino (or you can measure one if the circuits are "similar"). I assume you know how to measure current... You have to break the circuit and put the meter in series.
There are also USB test-gizmos that plug in-line to check the voltage & current if it's something you do a lot.
To me the "challenge" would be - How do you know (how does the computer-software know) which Arduino is which? A "normal" USB device has a PID (product ID) and a VID (vendor ID) and usually (or always?) a serial number. But I'm not sure it that works with an Arduino USB connection where the computer sees it as a regular-old serial "COM port".
Current consumption is not problem for me - shields which use more than 100mA had own, external power supply. Windows normally enumerate each device on different COM port. But I tested only 3 devices max and I wouldn't buy 12 devices and expensive, 16 port industrial hub only for test. In addition, I store some board information in memory (like SN, device name, device alias which is unique), so I can query that data during device initialization and determine correct one, even if com port will change. I am afraid the most situation, that has happened to me in the past using different (not Arduino) Serial firmware, that Windows system enumerate multiple devices on the same COM port. It is very dangerous in my application. Thats I am asking, maybe someone has some experience with multiple Arduino devices connected to hub.
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