ANT Forum

Hey, i would like to monitorate some parameters from a prototype of a car. I want to send information from the car, with the nRF24AP1 and a MCU, and receive this data on my notebook, using the nordic USB ANT Stick.

I've already bought these 2 components from sparkfun (WRL-08565 and WRL-08840) and i'm reading the datasheets, but i still with a lot of doubts.

First of all: when i receive the electric signal from the sensor that i'm monitorating, i will pass it through the MCU and than to the nRF24AP1 to transmit? Because i don't have familiarity with MCU's ... i find these 2 codes for MSP430 and ATMega168:

http://code.google.com/p/mstump-learning-exercises/source/browse/trunk/msp430/notes/msp430f249-ant-example.c

http://www.sparkfun.com/products/8840 (in example ATMega168 configuration)

Second thing is to receive. These data will come to my notebook from the USB and goes to where? Some of the softwares that you provide to us are able to show the information that is being received and process it in real time? Because my idea is to show the data in real time with graphics on the computer screen.

Well ... i hope that someone can help me, because this is a work that i am doing for my university and i am really stagnant. I read the datasheets and i don't know the next step.

I apologize for the bad english, it's because i am brazilian.

Thankfully,
Cauê      

The sections Getting Started with the ANT Protocol and Developing ANT Enabled Applications of the following post should give you a good starting point to get familiar with ANT and its capabilities
http://www.thisisant.com/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,146/func,view/catid,25/id,1169/

More info on interfacing to ANT:
http://www.thisisant.com/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,146/func,view/id,121/catid,25/

The specific products you mention are designed and supported by Sparkfun. You will need to refer to their datasheets for details on their interface. Due to hardware differences, those parts are not compatible with the drivers and libraries from Dynastream, but it looks like there is some reference code at Sparkfun's website.      

Ok ... but can you answer me if the sofware ANTwareII is compatible with the nordic USB ANT Stick? Or even the sensor simulator?

Because i think that i correctly installed the FTDI drivers and when i open these softwares, it shows that there is "no avaliable devices" ...

My device is from sparkfun, but it should work with ANT programs, didn't it?

Regards,
Cauê      

No, they will not work because of hardware/driver differences.

ANT USB sticks from Dynastream do not use FTDI chips. For example, the USB1 is based on the SiLabs CP2102 USB to UART bridge. Therefore, the drivers and libraries (and consequently, all applications based on the libraries like ANTware and the simulators) are not compatible with those parts.

The entire source code of the libraries is available in the ANT+ Adopter Zone, so you could modify those libraries to add a new type of USB Device so you could interact with that kind of device.      

Hi, Cauê

Because I had wanted to use ANT USB stick with ANTware, I also bought WRL-08840.
However, it is necessary to remodel ANT_WrappedLib of ANTware so that WRL-08840 may operate by Normal Serial by Drivers.

Then, WRL-08840 was operated with Arduino.
It operated without trouble.

I do not have the so much knowledge of hardness.
However, if Arduino is used, WRL-08840 can be operated comparatively easily.
Please examine the use of Arduino.

best regards,
taki      

The sample code for the embedded reference design is for the MSP430. We do not have much experience with Arduino; maybe other users might be able to help.      

guyz could u pls tell me who to cnnect two ant usb enabled devices with antware II      

Are you able to install the drivers and see the devices appear in the "Available Devices" Panel? If you want to just see data passing between the two sticks you can use "Auto-Open" to open a Master and a Slave channel on the two sticks using the default parameters.