I'm working on a project that will require talking to an Android phone, which means having the Arduino act as a USB host. One problem: the due board is 10x the size of my project space budget. I need a way to get a surface USB host on the smallest possible form factor. This means no shields, as well. My entire space budget for USB is about the size of the PDIP ATMega328, not including the space for the USB socket.
Thanks...
I don't know of any existing commercial clones that include an integral USB host port, but they may exist.
FTDI do some pretty small USB host controllers with UART/SPI/parallel interfaces that should be Arduino-compatible. It would be possible to design and build your own clone incorporating the controller and port.
Some PCB prototype manufacturing companies publish PCB designs for reuse for a small fee - it's possible that you could find an existing PCB design for a DIY clone that incorporates a USB host interface.
I use a FTDI interface to talk to my Ardweeny, and I can turn it into a USB host? If I could wire one of those guys onto my project and use it as a host controller, I'd be pretty happy with the solution. Granted, it's not the cheapest way to go, and it's still pretty big, but it would get the job done using hardware that I'm already familiar with. It'll be a pain to connect it to my project board, but I'll manage.
Thanks...
The FTDI interface you refer to is probably a USB slave port which provides a serial interface. That's not the same as a USB host interface. FTDI sell both, but they aren't the same thing.
I'm looking at the microduino's USBHost device (http://www.microduino.cc/Modules/USBhost) and it looks like it might be about what I need. I'm tempted to order a couple microduinos and usb host expansions and see if they do what I need.
Getting one shipped to the United States might be a trick. The website says "No shipping options available."