[DaGuy]

Are there any devices made for OSX that convert real-time analog signals to digital and then pass the data stream in some convienient form?

Thanks!

[WJMoore]

No but you could make your own with a PIC, FTDI USB Chip and a bit of electronics knowledge. One day I'll get around to trying out that particular combination and see what I can come up with.

WM

[DaGuy]

Originally posted by WJMoore:
No but you could make your own with a PIC, FTDI USB Chip and a bit of electronics knowledge. One day I'll get around to trying out that particular combination and see what I can come up with.

WM

Well, I use to know a thing or two about circuit analysis and some very basic electronics i.e. transistors, diodes, OP amps and some logic circuits -but that's about it.

Is there a text book that you would recommend that actually addresses A/D conversion and USB designs? My biggest fear is screwing up the computer with bad signal or some static discharge. Should I be that paranoid or do you know if the iMac 17" hardware carries some safeguards on it's I/O ports to protect the machine against such things?

Thanks!

[Raining Down in Texas]

Originally posted by DaGuy:
Are there any devices made for OSX that convert real-time analog signals to digital and then pass the data stream in some convienient form?

Thanks!

Check out National Instruments. They have PC cards for data acquisition that work on the Mac. They also have a Mac version of LabView, which is their software product for manipulating data from their data acquisition equipment. Their site does have references to both USB and Firewire data acquisition systems, but it is not clear if these work on the Mac or not.

[WJMoore]

Originally posted by DaGuy:
Well, I use to know a thing or two about circuit analysis and some very basic electronics i.e. transistors, diodes, OP amps and some logic circuits -but that's about it.

Is there a text book that you would recommend that actually addresses A/D conversion and USB designs? My biggest fear is screwing up the computer with bad signal or some static discharge. Should I be that paranoid or do you know if the iMac 17" hardware carries some safeguards on it's I/O ports to protect the machine against such things?

Thanks!

If you used a PIC and a FTDI USB chip as I mentioned above it caould all run off the 5V provided by the USB bus. The FTDI chip handles the USB protocol for you so there is little chance of damage to you Mac. There is a muchhigher chance that the thing wouldn't work and you would have to debug it.

The PIC such as 16F877 or 18F452 is a microcontroller and would require you to write a program for it to acquire analog values via its built in A/D converter. It would then have to transmit the acquired data to USB chip which takes care of sending it to the Mac via USB.

WM

[MaxPower2k3]

if you're looking for an external solution, check out the Canopus ADVC-100. it's a great little device that takes an analog signal in the form of RCA, S-Video, or Mini plug and converts it to a standard DV source that can be used in any of Apple's video editing software.

[DaGuy]

Thanks very much! Got some good ideas from your suggestions -and some confidence about not screwing up the computer. Really appreciate it.