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What do i need to make a USB device that has 4 LEDS that I can control from a PC software that I will build.

I just need to make a software with 4 buttons (on/off) each button to control a single LED.

Any links for how to build this simple USB circuit would be nice.

I have done such a project before for the old LPT port, I had no need for any circuit, but this USB thing has only 4 wires, 2 data and 2 power I guess.

Trygve Laugstøl
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Rami Dabain
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4 Answers4

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It could be done with any microcontroller with USB capability, but your best bet if you are not too familiar with such stuff is probably to use something like the FT245, which is an easy to use USB to parallel IC.

Oli Glaser
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There are various ways to do this. FTDI makes chips that connect to the USB on one side and various things on the other side. I haven't looked, but it's quite possible that they make a chip that has a few I/O lines you can wiggle.

For a more general purpose solution, you can use a microcontroller with a USB peripheral built in. That will allow you to eventually do more complicated things than simply drive 4 digital outputs. Our ReadyBoard-02 might be useful to you. It comes with a PIC 18F2550 and all the circuitry around it to make it work just from a USB connection. The example firmware and host test program available via free download can drive 8 output lines from a command line on the host right out of the box. The firmware and application software are open, so you can use them as starting points for your own when you want to make it do unique things later.

Olin Lathrop
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The most easy solution would be FT232 GPIO pins. Exactly 4 afaik :)

Tomas D.
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  • No. Connect the diodes to USB power and ground. Turn them on by turning on the computer. Turn them off by turning off the computer (set BIOS to not supply the USB port with power at power-off). A silly solution, of course :) – Vorac Nov 27 '13 at 13:35
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Here is a little board I designed which will do what you want, with a few changes to the software. A PICkit or some other PIC programmer will be required.

Leon Heller
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