Interfacing Electronic Circuits to Arduino
In this instructable I use an example of interfacing an Arduino to an ARINC 429 transceiver in order to demonstrate the general process of interfacing an Arduino to electronic circuits so you can use these techniques on your own designs.
An ARINC 429 bus is the most common data bus used on aircraft for computer to computer communications. The ARINC 429 bus operates at one of two speeds, called low speed and high speed, which are 12.5 kbps and 100 kbps respectively. The bus operates over two wires (and a ground). Each piece of data is sent in a 32 bit word. Generally the first 8 bits, called the label, are used to identify the data contained within the ARINC word. Bits 9 and 10 often define the Source/Destination Indicator, but sometimes they contain data or are an extension of the label. Data is contained in bits 11-29 and can contain binary twos compliment, binary coded decimal, and/or a set of discrete bits. Bits 30 and 31 contain the Sign Status Matrix, and its values can indicate Normal operation, Failure Warn, No Computed Data, and Functional Test. Finally bit 32 is the Parity bit and is set so that the 32 bit word has ODD parity.
Avionics equipment manufacturers, aircraft manufacturers, and avionics equipment service centers have specialized test equipment to read these ARINC 429 data buses. I’ve wanted to own and use my own test equipment so I developed the Arinc429eReader. While this could be an instructable on its own merit, I suppose the audience interested in such a device would be small. I will therefore present a more generally applicable instructable on the process of interfacing an Arduino to other electronic circuits.
Step 1: Deciding to Do the Project
Step 1a: Solved Already?
First make sure someone hasn’t already solved your problem. Go on Google and search.
In my example I found several companies that make ARINC 429 to USB converters but they are rather expensive, $1500 US dollars or more. There had to be a better solution. I found an ARINC 429 transceiver in a 40 pin DIP at a reasonable price. I wrote to the company and they sent me some free samples. Although the transceivers contain both a transmitter and two receivers, I only needed the receivers (at least for now!) so this chip looked good.
Step 1b: Can I do it?
The next step is to determine if you have the skills (and the determination) to see the project through. To determine this I obtained the ARINC 429 transceiver chips’ specification and reviewed it.
In my example I saw the chip requires only 5v power and no ‘exotic’ analog signals.
It also requires a 1 MHz clock to time its operations. I thought that I could maybe use the Arduino’s clock or use a 1 MHz clock chip.
It also requires 11 input/output signals in addition to a 16 pin data bus. This is too many pins for the Arduino UNO but is easy for the Arduino Mega.
See Figure 1 attached.
What about software skills? Well, I’ve done quite a bit of coding for other processors before and I can look through how other library code is written as examples of how others solved similar problems. The open source nature of Arduino is perfect for my needs here.
Step 1c: Should I do it?
The next step is to determine if the project should be done. It will cost money and time. I usually error on the side of trying new things for the experience if nothing else. Asking others for their opinion is often NOT recommended. Remember that most of the people we remember a great people all had contemporaries telling them they were wrong.
I assume that you are ready, willing and able to proceed with your project! Lets get to it!
Step 2: Read the Chip Data Sheet
Step 2: Read the Chip Data Sheet
Get the chip data sheet for your chip and read all of it.
In my case the chip I found is the DEI1016 and its specification can be found here:
www.deiaz.com/data-sheets/DS-MW-01016-01-E.pdf
See the PDF file attached.
Let’s take a look at the timing diagrams. They can be intimidating at first but I am sure you can learn how to read them if you don’t know already.
Here is the timing diagram for the Reset and Initialization Sequence. I’ve added a few annotations to help you learn how to read the timing diagrams:
See timing diagram with annotations attached.
When the line is high, that means it is at 5 volts, and when low, it is ground, just like the Arduino’s digitalWrite HIGH and LOW.
Now let’s add in the values for all those time measurements in the timing diagram:
See timing diagram with times attached.
The time between the MR pin going HIGH and the LDCW pin going low isn’t specified, so let’s assume it isn’t critical.
Now let’s translate this into words:
Set MR LOW and hold it there for at least 200 ns.
Set MR HIGH.
Set LDCW LOW.
Set the data bus to its correct values and hold them there for at least 110 ns.
Set LDCW HIGH.
Let’s do the same thing for the Read operation:
See Figure 8 attached.
It is very interesting how they chose to indicate the relative timings… OE1 can be LOW 0 ns after DR1 goes LOW but 20 ns after SEL goes LOW.
Also note that there appears to be no timing provided for the Word 2 to become valid. I think this is really trying to say that Tdoedr being 200 ns is how long it takes for Word 2 to be valid and NOT when OE1 must be raised to HIGH. I’ll try this logic out and see if my assumptions are correct.
Let’s translate this into words:
The DEI1016 chip sets DR1 LOW to indicate data has been received on Receiver 1.
Set SEL to LOW and wait for 20 ns.
Set OE1 to LOW.
Wait 200 ns for the chip to set the data pins. Read the data pins.
Set OE1 to HIGH and wait for 20 ns.
Set SEL to HIGH and wait for 30 ns.
Set OE1 to LOW.
Wait 200 ns for the chip to set the data pins. Read the data pins.
Set OE1 to HIGH.
Now that we have some understanding of how the pins need to be set to initialize the chip and to receive data, let’s turn these routines into Code.
DS-MW-01016-01-E.pdf441 KB[box color=”#985D00″ bg=”#FFF8CB” font=”verdana” fontsize=”14 ” radius=”20 ” border=”#985D12″ float=”right” head=”Major Components in Project” headbg=”#FFEB70″ headcolor=”#985D00″]Arduino[/box]
For more detail: Interfacing Electronic Circuits to Arduinos
