My USB to I2C/GPIO/UART/SPI/ADC/PWM/INT... Adapter Cable

[skoperst]

Hi,

I've designed a USB adapter cable that's based on Teensy 3.2/LC, and I'm starting to sell it on Tindie in a day or two.


What can it do?
It can be used as a USB to GPIO/I2C/UART/SPI/ADC/PWM/INTERRUPTS programmable adapter and as a semi-consumer product to connect the PC/SBC to external hardware.

Why did I do it?
Bought too many USB to X adapters over time and some of them are not cheap, have proprietary driver/software. This one is free as it can use the Teensy libraries to accomplish all with one device.
And as part of my work I had to supply an adapter from Android to I2C that will look like a part in a commercial product, so this type of cable did my work easier.

Hope it will be useful for you out there.

Here are more photos:
3D Design:


Profile:


Prototype Before Assembly:

 

[blackketter]

This is pretty cool! What's the plan for the software side?

 

[skoperst]

My initial thought was to preinstall a program that will act as a usb-peripheral device with serial port, it will allow the user to configure it with a few basic commands and act as a serial port to (I2C/SPI/UART/etc..)

For example things coming on the uart you will get as:

UART1_OUT:ping
UART1_IN:pong

I2C Commands can be used:

I2C_OUT: START
I2C_OUT: READ.0x9A
I2C_IN:  ACK
I2C_IN:  0x64
I2C_OUT: STOP

But then I thought people who will use it more professionally might want a libusb low-level interface with a reference design so they can create a more specific product.
Now I think more into that direction

 

[blackketter]

Nice. Any reason not to do both?

I have a console library that works over USB serial that might be a good fit for controlling the thing. https://github.com/blackketter/Console

I'd love to have a simple command-line interface to do things like I2C commands/monitoring and GPIO control...

Is it safe to assume that the software will be open source and up on GitHub?

Looking forward to seeing it on Tindie!

 

[skoperst]

Actually thats not a bad idea at all!
I will check the code, a console with CLI can be very simple and quick to use.

And the software will be open source, the cable has a small hole that you can use a needle to put it to programming mode, so basically people can debug and develop their own cable program if they have such need.