Hi everyone,
I am currently planning a project that requires me to send some data (theoretically 5 bits would be enough) from one arduino to a different one which is connected to a PC.
So as far as I'm aware, this rules out using the standard RX TX serial communication because it would interfere with the USB connection to the PC.
My question is how would you suggest I transmit this data if my main concern is speed and load on the arduinos?
I already looked into I2C but I can't judge how hard using the wire library will be on the arduinos, also it seems kind of overkill because I only need to transmit from one sender to one receiver, one direction only.
The wire library will shorten an Arduino's life by years and years. That's my April joke. Seriously, it works perfectly well and doesn't impose any significant software burden. You could custom write some kind of bit banged interface but in the end it would be more complicated than I2C. If you can spare 6 pins on each processor, you could just connect them like a parallel port, one more pin as a clock (strobe) line. The software for that would be dead easy.
"I already looked into I2C but I can't judge how hard using the wire library will be on the arduinos, also it seems kind of overkill because I only need to transmit from one sender to one receiver, one direction only."
Since you don't really give any technical details on what you are trying to do, why not try the IC2 communication and see how it works?
zoomkat:
"I already looked into I2C but I can't judge how hard using the wire library will be on the arduinos, also it seems kind of overkill because I only need to transmit from one sender to one receiver, one direction only."Since you don't really give any technical details on what you are trying to do, why not try the IC2 communication and see how it works?
Well, I can't test for another week or so, still waiting for stuff to arrive
aarg:
The wire library will shorten an Arduino's life by years and years. That's my April joke. Seriously, it works perfectly well and doesn't impose any significant software burden. You could custom write some kind of bit banged interface but in the end it would be more complicated than I2C. If you can spare 6 pins on each processor, you could just connect them like a parallel port, one more pin as a clock (strobe) line. The software for that would be dead easy.
Nice one 
Yeah I thought about the 6-Pin solution but that didn't seem very elegant to be honest... Alright thanks, I'll try it, just wanted to make sure I didn't miss some obvious solution.
Good night
On my subject
https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=672563.15
in comment 19, I explain a little how you can separate the I2C communication, in an Arduino Mega 2560, in case you are interested, and answer me how to solve it, but of course I am using communication in both directions, maybe it serves you something.
A greeting