At 09:31 PM 7/21/2008, Neal Campbell wrote: >You only need to worry about homebrewing an I2C interface until Flex >comes out with some Flexwire products or defines a protocol so some of >us can (like happened with the UCB). I am not sure but do not believe >there is anything in Psdr currently that sends data over that port so >you would have to "homebrew" that also.
Bear in mind that the radio's really only been in most people's hands for about 6 months (first shipping was around September last year), and options tend to lag... Last April, Flex made the following statement: "FlexWire Universal Peripheral Controller: The UPC will provide for control of amplifiers, rotators, antenna tuners, etc. FlexRadio's FlexWire UPC (not to be confused with the Universal Controller Board, soon to be available as a third party item) is in engineering and design. We expect a FlexWire UPC release in Q3 2008. " (from the support page at Flex) That would be any day now, if they hold to their expectation (since we're 1/4 way through Q3, and all) (it's a revision from the announcement in September 2007: "FlexWire accessories will be available second quarter of 2008." Back last October, Bob N4HY asked for suggestions about ALC interfaces to be sent to John B at Flex. Don't know if anything materialized from that. He also reported to ARRL at the beginning of the year that Flex was "about to release.. several "Flexwire" peripheral devices...", but that might have been optimistic. Mid July, last year, (before the radio was shipping) there was discussion about blocking a pin in the connector to prevent folks from inadvertently cooking something. Those of you contemplating homebrew... Flex has the usual warning about "non-approved devices might void the warranty" (but, hey, that's the same as any other radio.. Don't go using that tesla coil as a driver) >The thinking behind the flexwire port is that it could be smarter than >just relays turned on and off (so, for instance, a flexwire device >could send BCD data to antenna switches or sense ALC data and clamp >down power output for amps, etc.). So you do run "protocols" to use a >word over it to smart devices that could do more that just sink or get >high signals. > >Until Flex comes out with something to use the port, the second best >option is to tell us (on the list) what you really need to do and who >knows, maybe someone will code up something for you! I don't think >somethink has sophisticated was even envisioned like DDUtil a year ago >and it does everything but turn on the coffee pot (Steve, are you >working on this?) > >Neal Depending on how a PC application "talks" to the FlexWire (is it through midi messages?) one might be able to make an add-on utility that looks at CAT and spits out/receives the appropriate stuff (assuming that the Windows MIDI driver can tolerate multiple "talkers").. A bit of "grep"ing through the PowerSDR code base might be called for... (I'd have grep'd by now, but I have a new computer, and I didn't copy the source code over yet. The current software is 1.12.0, but the most recent source that the support page has (without SVNing) is apparently 1.8.0.. and 1.8.0 is from 2006, so doesn't include the F5K.. If I can drag it up from a backup or get SVN up, I'll take a look..) Jim _______________________________________________ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kb.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/
