Wixel + Arduino + SPI

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1

Hi,

I want to use a accelerometer wich works with SPI communication. I already have an arduino uno working on other stuff but some of the SPI pins ( 10 and 11 ) are already used for something else. This arduino is sending data to a C# app on my pc trough USB and I would very much like to add the accelerometer readings to this application . I have a spare wixel so I tought I could use it to read the accelerometer with one of the wixel’s USART. I don’t want to add an extra USB cable to hook up the wixel to the pc so I tought I would send the data to my arduino UNO and ultimately to the PC. This would obviously make use of the TX and RX lines of both wixel and arduino and I’m not sure it is possible for the arduino uno to use its serial pins while having a serial port already openned with the built-in USB to serial converter. I bought a pololu’s wixel shield with the accelerometer, does this shield allow the wixel to communicate with an arduino uno without interfering with its already working Serial PORT ? Plus, is it possible for the wixel board to run a SPI connection and send the data to the arduino at the same time ?

2

Hi.

The Wixel certainly has enough processing power to run an SPI connection and send that data to the Arduino. It is also possible to set up two independent serial communications systems with the Wixel as well, though it is not very simple and requires some hardware modifications to the Wixel shield.

However, you might consider a simpler method of attaching your accelerometer to the Arduino. If you have three pins available on the Ardunio, you can implement a software SPI connection to your accelerometer. This would be much simpler and have less connections.

-Derrill