Connect picaxe / computer / internet - budget solution?

 

am a newbee to picaxe working with mac soft- and hardware

& i spent a a lot of  time looking for the following:

 

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i would like to ...

 

- transfer in- output data from simple components 

(such as a IR LED used for light/dark detection )

 

- .... via picaxe

 

- ... to windows and mac computers

 

in order to ....

 

- pass them on to a website 

  or eMail them

 

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i already had a look at ...

 

- arduino/processing configurations

(e.g. some amazing "twitter" variants 

posted on instructables,  hack-a-day, etc. ... )

 

- additional external server projects

(as on picaxeuser.co.uk

 - e.g. very impressive webcams 

driven by websites and controlled by 'site users ...)

 

- Nordic RF, Cellular, Zigbee, Bluetooth, XBee

WiFi, FM Transmitter and Receiver, General TX/RX 

sending/receiving configurations

(btw. - there is a very interesting comparison

of these on sparkfun --->

http://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/128 )

 

- very elaborate software solutions

(using combinations of php, processing, python

and other scripts)

 

all of them being highly impressive

and, most important of course: working well

 

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but -

is there any quite easy-to-configure

and

budget way which does not require ...

 

-  additional, external servers

 

-  platform specific software

   (windows/mac/linux only)

 

- the implementation of several software packages

 

 

and runs with e.g. ...

 

- a 08M2 picaxe (or larger).... 

 

- probably cheap component(s)

(such as the Nordic RF mentioned on sparkfun)

 

- a minimum of software requirements

 

- a software/software component which is easy to install

and configure (Visual Basic Macros doesn't seem to run

once i created them via word on my mac)

 

?

 

 

 any hints are highly appreciated ...

 

As I understand your question

you want to be able to pass the state of an IR LED for light/dark detection. That is it? Does it need to be wireless? DanM posted a blog about the inexpensive radio tx/rx pairs. If it can be wired then you will only require a MAX232 chip or similar and a pair of wires. Beyond that, some software to read the data the PICAXE is spitting out and you are done.

yes & thanks …

thanks a lot -

“Key-fob” transmitters really sound like a good & cheap option :

 

i would prefer a wireless connection -

the component (a - picaxe-based- sensor)

is positioned ca. 5 meters away from the computer

(too much danger of a potential cable mess-up since

the sensor will be moved now and then )

 

will then proceed to …


find a wiring diagram and coding for these & picaxe chips

(hope they will work with 08M2 ones)

and find out about how the coded signal works

+

need to learn about how to receive/convert the signals

on a mac/win computer 

 

which could turn out to be the most time-consuming as well as tricky part to solve

http://www.picaxeforum.co.uk/showthread.php?18901-connect-picaxe-computer-internet-budget-solution

 

thanks for this link, again - i was desperate to find a cheap component!

yes & thanks …

 

looks like i posted this twice when answering birdmun … apologies!