Member Avatar for TheMightySpud

Hi all,

I'm hoping someone can help out, or at least give me a yes or no answer and possibly point me in the right direction.

What I'd like to do is control a physical on/off switch (relay?) to turn on some led's.

My ideal solution would be to write a little vb.net program that I could use (in conjuction with a touch screen monitor) to control said switch/relay.

My first question would be is this type of thing possible?

If it is, I would assume the switch would need to be connected to the serial port of the motherboard (I have seen things that allow you to control software through hardware switches/buttons connected through the serial port in the past, so can only assume that the reverse is possible)

I hope someone can help out.

Thanks in advance,
TheMightySpud

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Member Avatar for Firstgamefreak

I don't know if this is possible, If you can connect it through a USB cable you might possibly be able to use RAW USB data to program it. But what your talking about is some really high level programming. Your actually taking software on a computer and creating a program that transmits data through a cable and turns on and off individual led bulbs. Here might be something for that RAW USB data http://www.hhdsoftware.com/usb-monitor another possible resource to look into http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SharpUSBLib/

Member Avatar for TheMightySpud

Hi,

Thanks for the reply, but I'm not 100% sure you understood what I was trying to explain (It may not have been explained very well if honest.)

I don't want to turn on/off individual LED's.......I will try to elaborate.

I have an led lightstrip that I have tested and can be powered via the pc motherboard, what I'd like to add is (after a little more research) a relay to be able to turn the strip on or off (I can do this with a physical switch, sure, but in an ideal world I'd like everything about the pc to be controlled via a touchscreen monitor (which I already have).

So essentially, what I am looking for is a software solution (vb.net) which will, when pressing an on screen button, will send a signal through the serial port to tell the relay to 'flip' its position (on or off).

Hope that makes a little more sense. :)

Thanks
TheMightySpud

Member Avatar for TheMightySpud

Umm.....forgive the ignorance, but that doesn't seem to be what I'm trying to do at all :-/ That looks like a complete 'I want to build a complete system from scratch' type of thing :-/

Member Avatar for cgeier

This is not an expert with this, but I believe you need to use a programmable microcontroller. Or a pre-built product that contains a microcontroller.

Member Avatar for Firstgamefreak

Okay, sorry I wasn't able to help lol. I'm glad that somebody was though :) lemme know if it works for you!

Member Avatar for Xavier_5

Another and easier possiblility: Here

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