USB to USB flash Drive File Copier

[mackrackit]

About a year ago I had the bright idea of using a PIC and a VDIP1 to transfer file to a Burny 2.5 CNC controller. I could never get it working properly and gave up.

The Burny was never happy with the data being sent to it. My simulation software worked fine. I wonder if what newbie is seeing was the problem with the Burny?

Somehow the VDIP is sending "ghost" info??

[newbie]

hi guys thanks for the replies but i think i got it...
the weird characters were carriage returns ($0d).

i used this code..

CRET VAR BYTE
CRET = $0D
SERIN2 VinTXD,84,[WAIT(CRET),STR FILE1\12 \CRET,WAIT(CRET), STR FILE2\12 \CRET,WAIT(CRET),STR FILE3\12 \CRET,WAIT(CRET),STR FILE4\12 \CRET]

as you can see i waited for every occurrence of the carriage return and saved the characters found between them into an array of string.

the weird characters that you can see at the end of some files names in the lcd are i think blank or null arrays since i allocated 12 array places for every file name found but not all of them would be 12 characters long..some are less.

now could you suggest any better way of storing these file names?
because i think if i do it this way, my pic microcontroller would quickly run out of space to save all of the characters from the file names and if the flash drive inserted is very populated then the files names not saved in the array would not be displayed.

[Archangel]

If the file names are always the same, you could assign them each a number, and store the names in eprom, or if they have all the same name with a number, even easier, just display the name followed by the number received. Unless I am missing something due to inadequate supply of coffee .

[mackrackit]

You might try what Joe suggested before and pre-populate the arrays with a known value.

[newbie]

If the file names are always the same, you could assign them each a number, and store the names in eprom, or if they have all the same name with a number, even easier, just display the name followed by the number received.

here is the rule about the files from the vinculum:
Filenames are made up of an 8 character main part and an optional 3 character extension. The presence of a ’dot’ character in the filename indicates the boundary between the main part and the extension. The name may be up to 12 characters long, including the ‘dot’ character.

can you give me a sample code about this? I'm not that familiar with eproms.

You might try what Joe suggested before and pre-populate the arrays with a known value.

ive been thinking about doing that..but the thing is if the length of the file names is less than 12, i might have trouble retrieving only the arrays that were inserted with the file name characters. if i include the arrays that were not over written by the file name characters and still contains the pre loaded value, the vdip2 would respond "command failed".

[mackrackit]

ive been thinking about doing that..but the thing is if the length of the file names is less than 12, i might have trouble retrieving only the arrays that were inserted with the file name characters. if i include the arrays that were not over written by the file name characters and still contains the pre loaded value, the vdip2 would respond "command failed".

What if you populate the array with a character that would probably not be used in a file name, (~), and parse the array for that before the array is used again.

Or, have a "working" array. This would be one that stored arrays are parsed into for using.

Stored array with (~) character
Stored array re-written into sandbox array
Sandbox array is sent to VDIP
Start over with next stored array.

Maybe....

[newbie]

What if you populate the array with a character that would probably not be used in a file name, (~), and parse the array for that before the array is used again.

Or, have a "working" array. This would be one that stored arrays are parsed into for using.

Stored array with (~) character
Stored array re-written into sandbox array
Sandbox array is sent to VDIP
Start over with next stored array.

Maybe....

are saying its like this:
say you have an array named FILE1 with 12 array places, i will pre-load it with (~) so...
FILE1 = [~][~][~][~][~][~][~][~][~][~][~][~]

and then when i receive a file named "vdip.txt" from the vdip serially, then the array would be like:
FILE1 = [v][d][i][p][.][t][x][t][~][~][~][~]
am i right with this? please correct me if im wrong...

then when i want to send command to the vdip that i want to copy that particular file, i will be sending the "CPS" command plus the array of bytes stored in FILE1 including the bytes that contains [~] back to the vdip, but the vinculum is very strict with the spelling...if i include these bytes it will respond with "command failed" if only i could remove those unneeded bytes before sending it back to the vdip...

am i getting your idea right?