Hello All,
I have a project that I need to use a Thumbdrive to log data on a device that only has a TTL serial data output.
I have a Sparkfun TTL to SD card data logger but we need users in the field to quickly send the data logger and not everyone has micro-SD reading capabilities. Plus the environment it is being used a bigger thumbdrive is better for the user.
I know there are plenty of options to turn an Arduino into a Mass Storage device and into an SD card read/write device. But can I turn an Arduino into a USB controller that will see a thumbdrive and allow me to write to it?
Thanks.
Not as far as I know, as the Arduino has to act as a USB host, which is quite impractical.
An option is to use a Raspberry Pi to write on thumb drives.
Teensy 4.1 supports usb host. At the bottom of the page. However i think you may need to solder on another usb port on 5 exposed pins on the board.
https://www.pjrc.com/store/teensy41_pins.html
Theres indormation in this thread for using a file system and mass storage
You don't say what the device is. I have a USB host shield for Uno. I understand it takes a thumb drive but I have never needed it. The shields are quite expensive.
Ya, a Rasberry Pi might be a cleaner solution but was trying to re-purpose one of the many variants of Arduino's I have laying around my lab.
I have a variety of Arduino's in my lab so I was really looking for whether or not it was possible to make the Arduino be a ASB Host. I know there is a standard for "On The Go" USB that allows a device to become a host so I wasn't sure if that was a library that had been created and implemented for the Arduino family.
Funny but I did search the forum before I posted and didn't find much info. As soon as I posted this topic the forum listed a bunch of "similar" threads where others have asked the same question. Of course they are like from 2010/11 timeframe but still I wish I had found them first because I would have worded my question a little differently.
I came across a couple of shields that say they are a USB Host but when I dig into them I haven't been able to access any datasheets or a description that is more than a bullet point that says "yup this is a host".
Do you have any experience with a shield that works as a Host?
No.
I bought the shield about fifteen years ago for that purpose but changed my mind before it arrived and download off an SD card via Bluetooth. This made the thumb drive pointless, so I never learned how to drive the shield. A USB host is a USB host and your problem is surely just in the programming. There must be a swag of stuff on this forum to fix that because people do use these shields for mice.
I believe the Leonardo has on-board USB host facilities.
I don't know about ESP32, but Micro/Leonardo Hosting??
I found the info on the USB host library included with the Arduino Dev environment:
USBHost - Arduino Reference
Looks like it's only meant to host for HID devices like Keyboard and Mouse. And is only compatible with the Arduino Due.
Let me rephrase what I am hoping to accomplish. I have this device:
SparkFun OpenLog with Headers - DEV-13955 - SparkFun Electronics - SparkFun OpenLog with a micro SD card
It works fine but the environment (really the users accessing the device in the field) I am going to be hooking up too and collecting data aren't really setup to handle the microSD cards and want a Thumbdrive. They are easier to grab and also plug into a laptop to dump the data and send it back to me.
So I am looking for something that is functionally the same (capture serial data and write to a Thumbdrive) as the Sparkfun OpenLog. I was assuming I could use an Arduino to be the USB host for a mass storage device but from everything I am seeing that is not possible right now.
I guess I will need to use a Raspberry Pi instead.
Thanks everyone for your responses.