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I want to input an analog signal (for concreteness, temperature from a thermocouple) into a computer. The sampling rate should be at least several times (say, 10) per second. Moreover, I want to be able to use (to start with, plot in real time) this signal on all the mainstream OSes (Mac, Linux, Windows). What would be the optimal hardware and software combination for such an operation? Are there perhaps dedicated solutions available on the market? (I could not find any!)
On the hardware side, so far I have thought about using
- microphone input on the soundcard;
- USB port;
- RS-232 communications USB adapter.
The microphone input is not perfect, as it would prevent me from skyping, while tinkering with the device.
Using the USB port is probably impossible given that I would have to write drivers myself, and probably get them certified with Microsoft for normal operation (both of which are way over my head).
The problems with the USB/COM adapter are that
(a) it requires me to do some digitization of the analog signal myself (which is probably fine), and
(b) even if I bought an adapter with nice drivers on all OSes, I would not know how to write a simple signal plotting program which would work on each of the three operating systems.
How can I get this signal into my computer? Any tips, links to similar projects, or other relevant information would be highly appreciated!
ffc
Posted 2015-05-14T12:17:58.910
Reputation: 111
well, an analog input like a modem might be a good bet, but I think anyway you are going, you will need to write driver level code to digitize the signal. as for client software, I'd recommend you use a web interface backed by a cross platform scripting langague, but there is really no way to do this cleanly without native runtimes for each OS. Java may claim its "write once, run everywhere", but its really always been "write once, debug everwhere". – Frank Thomas – 2015-05-14T12:39:39.453
Thanks for the comment, Frank! However, I would like to not write driver-level code if that is at all possible. Web interface sounds good. Of course, another option that I have not mentioned is connecting my device to some small computer (think RaspberryPi) and running a web server on it to access the data.. – ffc – 2015-05-14T12:44:40.450
There are commercial USB temperature probes. If you develop a C++ data gathering software and develop a graphical interface using GTK+, it will run on Linux, Windows and Mac. – jcbermu – 2015-05-14T13:01:38.740
Thanks, jcbermu! I used a temperature probe just as an example, I want to do this DIY thermometer project as something that might (eventually) lead to a (temperature-unrelated) scientific instrument. GTK+ sounds very good, but can it easily handle data input? Is there a concrete example? – ffc – 2015-05-14T14:04:15.673