How can I controle some leds or servos?

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1

I want to control a servo or some leds with my pc.

I have read about using an RS232(i have a few) to connect to the pc, but the only output is RX and TX. I read your http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/presen … BEE-4-UART

Its great, just like the rest of the site, but it end that you have to connect it to an ATmega168. Does that chip need to be preprogramed? If It does I have to use something else, cant program or code unless its html.

I saw a 232 to i2c thing [here, but 10 chips for like $40 is way to much for me. I am interested in I2c as well because you can have multiple things(like temp sensors) one one bus.

So what can I do?](http://www.i2cchip.com/pdfs/bl233_b.pdf)

2

Ya, RS232 usually needs some type of microcontroller to decode the info from the PC.

For LED or servo, the simplest way is to use parallel port. That way you have many more digital outputs.

3

It would be a good idea to buy a parallel port card, they are quite cheap. It won’t matter much if you blow that up as you can just replace it. You can’t fix the port on the motherboard.

Leon

4

I think I would just get a UBW ($25) and use USB to control the servo.

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/produc … cts_id=762

You can control up to 16 servos.

Look at the RC command. All you have to do is output commands to a USB created serial port. No programming needed.

5

RS232, including USB to serial converters, also has handshake lines (CTS, etc) whose state can be set (and read ) and thus used as digital I/O.

DLP-IO8 is 8 channels of digital I/O (and analog in or temperature), using FTDI serial emulator chip, single byte commands, $30

http://www.dlpdesign.com/usb/io8.shtml

6

How about an Arduino, available from Sparkfun here: http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/categories.php?c=103