MICROCONTROLLER to control relays

[pfaisalbe]

MICROCONTROLLER

Hi

I am a postgraduate student and a beginner in micro controller. I have done Intel 8085 programming during undergraduate course. It was 10 years back.

Now I need to control relays via PC which means PC will send a command to an electronic circuit to energize relay coil and PC will send other command to deenergize the relay coil.

Electronic circuit and relay is straight forward. I can do that.

My problem is how to communicate electronic circuit using PC.?

I guess micro controller together with PC can do that. Is there any alternate solution ?

If it can be done with Micro controller , I need to get familiar with Micro controller first. Can you suggest me where to start with micro controller?

Regards

Faisal

 

[Naveed Ahmed]

Dear Faisal

You should use microcontroller to control relays and switch your device on/off.

1) Use Microcontroller's Serial port and connect it with PCs COM(serial port).

2) Send commands from Hyperterminal or any terminal software in PC to switch on/off relays. But you must have to program microcontroller for that.

3) If you are beginner with microcontrollers, then you should use 8051 microcontroller. 89c51 or 89c52. Then be perfect in this controller, then shift to the AVRs.

 

[elrayes]

another solution to use PC parallel port directly to control your relays without microcontroller in the middle, but remember to use buffers like 74244,74245,74373 to isolate parallel port and increase your fanout current, you can program it using C/C++/VB and even in matlab and labview.
if you use C/C++/VB under windows 2k, XP or higher then remember to use a low level access software like "User port" to open the ports for low level access.
good luck

 

[glenjoy]

Use a microcontroller via serial port, you problem just might be is the absence of serial ports in PCs now.