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USB cable from the 6700 directly to a USB port on the Raspberry PI 3

Mark - NU6X
Mark - NU6X Member
edited April 2020 in FLEX-6000 Signature Series
USB to USB port on a Raspberry PI 3

Answers

  • Arnie
    Arnie Member ✭✭
    edited March 2019
    Is there a question lurking in there somewhere?
  • Mark - NU6X
    Mark - NU6X Member
    edited May 2017
    I haven't posted in a long time.... it posted before I finished typing the question. 

    I will try this again....I want to connect the USB port on the 6700 rear panel directly to  a Raspberry PI 3 USB port that is the controller of a linear. The Raspberry PI is programmed for the standard Kenwood and Flex commands. I have read the USB manual and other post and all I see is FTDI to serial or Parallel. This is USB to USB connection. Does it require a special cable?
  • ctate243
    ctate243 Member ✭✭
    edited May 2017
    As far as I know from Alpha you must use an FTDI approved chipset device.  I see where your going here, I think your gonna need a couple of serial interfaces, one for the flex and one for the Pi...  then interpret the data coming into the Pi via serial...  I think...
  • Mark Erbaugh
    Mark Erbaugh Member ✭✭
    edited February 2020
    I suspect that the Pi could be programmed to act like a FTDI device and programmed to act like one of the devices that the Flex USB interface supports and then to take that data and control the amp, but I doubt that it would work as-is. A second possibility would be to have the Pi connected to the Ethernet network and to use the Flex network protocol to talk to the Flex and whatever interface to talk to the amp. Again this would require custom programming of the Pi.
  • Chris DL5NAM
    Chris DL5NAM Member ✭✭✭
    edited April 2020
    Mark, but maybe we can found a solution that Flex and PA can communicate via LAN. Then no need for a USB connection.

    And still open question is: need a good Amp a interface connection to TRX - if PA always check the frequency , switch automatically Band and Auto Tune do his work alone .... 
  • Mark Erbaugh
    Mark Erbaugh Member ✭✭
    edited May 2017
    I think that the new Flex Power Genius Amp monitors the Flex via LAN and adjusts the amp accordingly. For amps without a LAN interface, it should be possible to develop a program that runs on a small computer, such as the Raspberry Pi that monitors the Flex via LAN and controls the amp via whatever interface/prootocol the amp supports. Last year, I bought a Rasberry Pi with the intent of doing that for my SPE Amp, but before I got around to it, Flex added USB support for that amp.
  • Chris DL5NAM
    Chris DL5NAM Member ✭✭✭
    edited May 2017
    .... mark please buy onother Raspi now - maybe it push FRS again for new things :-)
  • Ria
    Ria Member ✭✭✭
    edited November 2019
    It's trivial to connect the radio via Ethernet on a pi using python.

    VITA-49 Discovery using udp packets could be dumped into a python dict, struct or other object.

    Slice frequency data can be read using tcp streams from the radio.

    Put that in a loop and spit out to your B26-PA control app. You can even do T/R switching if you like.

    Presto.

    No need to wait on flex.
  • Ria
    Ria Member ✭✭✭
    edited November 2019
    Back of the napkin function for discovery (haven't tested this but it should work)

    #!/bin/python

    import select, socket

    def discoverRadios():
    "discovery"
    port = 4992 # Flex VITA-49 port
    bufferSize = 1024

    s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_DGRAM)
    s.bind(('', port))
    s.setblocking(0)

    result = select.select([s],[],[])
    msg = result[0][0].recv(bufferSize)

    radio = dict(s.split('=',1) for s in msg.split(" "))
    return radio

    How you call it:

    while radio is None :
    radio = discoverRadios();

    radio will be a dict object, for example if you want the radio's IP it will be:

    print radio ['ip']

    Similarly you can use tcp streams to get the per slice frequency.

    Ria Edit: oops, looks like GS destroyed my indentation. Oh well, if you know python you can figure it out :)

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