Could u suggest a best Microcontroller for the data transfer.

[pmuralikrishna111]

Hello Friends,,,
i wanted to do one project....
The main aim of our project is that transfer the data between two or more USBs without using PC.
Could u tell any microcontroller that will transfer the data at faster rates and it should support minimum of 2USB ports.......

 

[barathbushan]

It depends on what you are familiar with , for example i use microcontrollers based
only on the standard 8051 model , since i am not well versed in the architecture of
pic adruino or other such controllers , it also depends on the firmware you want to use , i have "GOOGLED" up such a project , i cant find anything !!!
if you have a reference from where you got the idea , please post it , THANKS !!

 

[pmuralikrishna111]

Hello friends,
that idea was purly new and no where implementd...... as i m a Computer Science student i don't know the electronics stream... So, i am not familiar with the electronics......!

if i have a microcontroller and which can support atleast two USB and i will programe into that microcontroller and i wll make that 2USB to have more like 8USB i wll connect it threw a USB HUB...

I am full confused about which microcontroller i hve to use.... I have surfed some microcontrollers... could u plz check dem and could u help me out......!


M32Rx/D
AT76C713
AT91M40800X
AT91 ARM Thumb Microcontrollers


thnks a lot in advance...........

 

[barathbushan]

Im an electronics student , and as far as i know no such project can be done , just based on a microcontroller , its a lot more complicated involving decoders , multipexers , firmware to read and write NTFS or FAT , and god knows what .
But i may be knowing less , and such a project may be done , dont be dissapointed snd just keep trying !!!

after googling your project all got is

http://www.brighthub.com/computing/hardware/articles/31630.aspx

 

[(*steve*)]

I have a device that can read from a usb card reader and write directly to an internal hard drive *and* have that same device act as a USB hard drive.

I'm pretty sure that it contains nothing much more powerful than a microcontroller.

So such devices certainly exist.

 

[barathbushan]

Yes it can be done . i too wish to do such a project , if i can only get my hands on the schematics and the source code

 

[pmuralikrishna111]

@barathbushan: Source code means i can write for anything.....! but the problem for me is best microcontroller... i m not able to find the MICROCONTROLLERS... Finally i got a microcontroller(AT91SAM9260 ) which having one usb port and it has many other features and the cost got aroung $400.

http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/devices.asp?family_id=605

@Steve: Could u tell me the details about ur device..reading from usb card reader and storing in harddisk... could u send me pics of ur hardware and description if ur having....! could u suggest me any other microcontroller for data transfer....!

 

[(*steve*)]

Long story short. I may not be able to do this for a couple of days, but I have at least 2 devices like this (I may have given one away) and I'll try to find at least one of them and get scans of the innards.

 

[webmasterpdx]

You might take a look at the microchip.com site and their 8-bit parts. They have several USB microcontrollers and they are really cheap ($3 or so).

You might need to get 2 such devices.

I'm thinking there is one problem here though. If you want a general device, or a device for a specific function. General device might be impossible, as the USB interface needs to be a host to connect to a device and a hub to connect to a PC. If you are connecting ONLY between a card reader and a hard drive, then you could probably get it to mount a file system on both sides. You'll need some way to specify what file to copy.....or you could read the entire card and copy it to a file called xxxxxx on the hard drive, or something like that. Or, just copy all the files from the card to the top dir on the hard drive. It'll need the file systems to be some specific file system on both devices too.

Look at sparkfun.com if you want to do it with eval boards.... In their search field type USB board. There is an arduino based USB board for $20.

There are devices that do similar to this, or I think they do. Check out the following products (Amazon sells them).
1. Sima Hitch USB-101 Digital transfer system. $70
This is for copying from one USB file system to another (it has an LCD UI to select files, etc, etc...looks nice).

2. Aleratec USB Copy Cruiser Plus (unsure of price).
Sold out at Amazon at the moment.

 

[(*steve*)]

Long story short. I may not be able to do this for a couple of days, but I have at least 2 devices like this (I may have given one away) and I'll try to find at least one of them and get scans of the innards.

Timely update of this thread. It reminded me that I have the device sitting on my desk right now.

The chip powering my device is labelled:

ALI
M5637 A1
0432 TH05
XHGQMK00000E

128 pin device? (hard to count)

Documentation seems sparse, but this looks like it.

So, in this case, it's not a simple microcontroller.

 

[webmasterpdx]

USB OTG

OK, I needed to refresh myself with USB for a minute.

If you want to build your own instead of the $70 device, then what you want is USB On The GO (OTG). USB OTG is a special protocol designed specifically for connecting USB devices together. It allows them to emulate a USB host.

Now, you can do this with a microcontroller with a USB OTG peripheral built-in. The PIC24 and PIC32 chips have such an option. Alternatively, you could get a smaller PIC and use an SPI to USB OTG chip.

Now, what I'm thinking is probably the best approach is to use one PIC and 2 USB OTG chips. You might be able to use a PIC24 or PIC32 as it has a DMA controller. If you use the one with the USB peripheral, you could transfer quicker from one device to the PIC's internal RAM and then send that data via SPI to another USB chip to the other device.

It might be possible to do it with one USB chip or just the PIC USB controller. You'd transfer data from one device to the PIC's internal buffer and then transfer that data out the same USB controller, but have an external USB switch implemented in a CPLD. You would have to do a context switch on the USB controller registers (I don't know, but it might support dual channels for just such an application, but if not, just swapping out all the registers between transfers would allow you to do it in software).

FTDI, Maxim, Cypress and a couple of others make standalone USB chips. OTG is a USB 2.0 functionality, so I don't know if USB 1.x devices will be supported....probably since USB 2.0 is backward compatible.

Good luck if you plan on doing this. It sounds like a fun project, but such a device already does exist for $70 like I said before

-Donald
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