USB card adapter

I'm new and way ahead of myself, but instead of a card shield, can Arduino log data or be controlled by a card in a card adapter like the ones you plug into a computer usb slot? I've got a Lexar RW023 reader.

can Arduino log data or be controlled by a card in a card adapter like the ones you plug into a computer usb slot? I've got a Lexar RW023 reader.

But, I'm not going to provide a link to it. I need an answer as soon as possible. 8)

I'm not in a hurry, just curious if its even possible. Sorry. http://www.lexar.com/products/lexar-single-slot-multi-card-reader

That's a USB slave. The Arduino is a USB slave. Without a USB Master around, the slaves just sit around all day and drink beer.

You'd need a USB Host (master) shield and you'd need a driver (that you write) to make the device do stuff.

Writing USB drivers is not trivial.

PaulS:
You'd need a USB Host (master) shield and you'd need a driver (that you write) to make the device do stuff.

Writing USB drivers is not trivial.

Totally! I was whining about the quality of Arduino wifi shield a while back (besides soft/firmware problem, 2 out of 12 I got are dead). On the other hand, due to the same reasons PaulS provided, I can not just buy a usb wifi dongle for arduino. As for your SD slot shield, someone (by the id of fat16lib) has spent countless time to write and maintain a library (driver) for you so you can use that right away.

Ok, thanks gents.

If you have some background in linux, try raspberry pi. You can use a lot of computer peripherals such as an SD card reader on raspberry pi and you can use sensors on it.

liudr:
If you have some background in linux, try raspberry pi. You can use a lot of computer peripherals such as an SD card reader on raspberry pi and you can use sensors on it.

I have looked at the Pi. I was thinking it might be overkill for what I'm doing on a few of my projects, but the integrated card reader, and as you've now pointed out to me, ability to use USB peripherals sounds cool. I haven't used Linux yet, but think I may put it on my ancient Vista infected laptop. The Pi seems like it may be a bit advanced for me since I don't know a lick of code, and frankly suck at computers. It's time I learned all that. I've got an Arduino Uno in the mail, so we will see how far I can get with learning on that. Lucky for me I found out one of my wifes friends has dabbled with arduino an netdwino and is a techno guy for a living. He already knows I'm gona use him for local tech support.

That person may not be very helpful when it comes to linux. Arduino + netduino means the person is using Microsoft framework (likely got used to MS framework from work). Hopefully he/she likes linux too.

For a few times I tried to learn linux and didn't go very far. Its unix like command magic is not appealing to whoever is used to windows GUI way of solving problems. But since I got the pi, I've learned quite a few things and being able to eventually do something cool with it (pi alone or pi+arduino) has motivated me to read books and look for solutions. If you have used python before then you can get right to programming the pi. If you are choosing c/c++ over python (interpreting not compiling so it's slow), then the learning curve is steeper. The pi forum is helpful.

liudr:
That person may not be very helpful when it comes to linux. Arduino + netduino means the person is using Microsoft framework (likely got used to MS framework from work). Hopefully he/she likes linux too.

For a few times I tried to learn linux and didn't go very far. Its unix like command magic is not appealing to whoever is used to windows GUI way of solving problems. But since I got the pi, I've learned quite a few things and being able to eventually do something cool with it (pi alone or pi+arduino) has motivated me to read books and look for solutions. If you have used python before then you can get right to programming the pi. If you are choosing c/c++ over python (interpreting not compiling so it's slow), then the learning curve is steeper. The pi forum is helpful.

I've got zero any code experience. I read that if you learn C++ you can transfer it to about any code easily.

Yes indeed. Most modern programming languages are descendents of C and C++ can be called superset of C or a descendent of it. Java is very much like C++ so are C# objective-C etc. You will still have to learn interpreting languages like javascript, python, basic separately. They are all different styles and don't share much. So learning C is the best deal. You get the most help anywhere online and with books.

If it's important to you to use a USB card reader on the Arduino, you might be able to do that with a USB host shield and the associated library. There is a generic storage module (which implements FAT filesystem access), which might be adaptable to a card reader. You would need a Mega and external add-on RAM, tho.

http://www.circuitsathome.com/arduino_usb_host_shield_projects

This starts to outgrow the Arduino platform, tho. The SDfat library for SD cards is a better fit for this small platform.

liudr:
Yes indeed. Most modern programming languages are descendents of C and C++ can be called superset of C or a descendent of it. Java is very much like C++ so are C# objective-C etc. You will still have to learn interpreting languages like javascript, python, basic separately. They are all different styles and don't share much. So learning C is the best deal. You get the most help anywhere online and with books.

My birthday is coming up, so I asked the wife for a C++ book. Thanks for the info.

Zeph:
If it's important to you to use a USB card reader on the Arduino, you might be able to do that with a USB host shield and the associated library. There is a generic storage module (which implements FAT filesystem access), which might be adaptable to a card reader. You would need a Mega and external add-on RAM, tho.

http://www.circuitsathome.com/arduino_usb_host_shield_projects

USB_Host_Shield_2.0/examples/testusbhostFAT at master · felis/USB_Host_Shield_2.0 · GitHub

This starts to outgrow the Arduino platform, tho. The SDfat library for SD cards is a better fit for this small platform.

Well, my original thought was to use the card reader to avoid needing a shield in the first place. Now I have a clearer picture of how USB and Arduino actually work.

I've read books from this author.