Author Topic: USB to I2C adapter and EVAL boards?  (Read 6403 times)

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Offline AcHmed99Topic starter

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USB to I2C adapter and EVAL boards?
« on: August 28, 2013, 06:37:57 pm »
I’m looking at the ADP1048 which is a digital PFC controller for interleaved and bridgeless boost PFC. The chip looks interesting but the USB to I2C adapter for loading the register settings from the GUI is a little pricey over $300.00.

I’ve found plenty of cheap as in 20 to 50 buck USB to I2C adapters which make me wonder what’s the difference with the AD one that it’s so pricey. TI even has one for some of their evaluation boards for only 50 bucks. What do they all use some propriety protocol or something?

Anybody ever use any of these EV boards that require USB to I2C and if so were you successful with a cheap adapter from digikey.
 

Offline DavidDLC

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Re: USB to I2C adapter and EVAL boards?
« Reply #1 on: August 28, 2013, 06:56:20 pm »
Just use a FT232H board for I2C communication, but you need to write the code for it.

I thinnk the software development is what makes this adapters expensive. Hardware is not that difficult a simple FT232H or a Microcontroller with I2C will make the job.

David.
 

Offline plesa

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Re: USB to I2C adapter and EVAL boards?
« Reply #2 on: August 28, 2013, 07:49:53 pm »
http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=1406&dDocName=en028600

It is about 45USD and if you have a PIC18F2550 available you can built on your own, schematic and firmware is available on Microchip website above.
 

Offline DavidDLC

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Re: USB to I2C adapter and EVAL boards?
« Reply #3 on: August 28, 2013, 07:53:43 pm »
Bus Pirate will also make the work, and it already has an interface to work with I2C.

http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/Bus_Pirate

David.
 

Offline jonmarx

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Re: USB to I2C adapter and EVAL boards?
« Reply #4 on: August 28, 2013, 07:55:09 pm »
Be a bit careful with some of those cheap USB-to-I2C adapters.  I bought one based on the FTDI FT201X IC only to discover that it could only act as an I2C slave.  For your application I assume you need a master.

Have you considered using a Bus Pirate?
 

Offline plesa

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Re: USB to I2C adapter and EVAL boards?
« Reply #5 on: August 28, 2013, 08:44:09 pm »
Bus Pirate will also make the work, and it already has an interface to work with I2C.

http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/Bus_Pirate

David.

Cons of BusPirate is the terminal, is there any PC application with GUI?
 

Offline mrflibble

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Re: USB to I2C adapter and EVAL boards?
« Reply #6 on: August 28, 2013, 09:23:30 pm »
How about this versatile USB to quite a few protocols adapter. Costs only $25 at digikey. "All" that is required is typing some verilog/vdhl code. ;)

Although to be fair, I2C master is probably easier to do with a microcontroller. Especially if you need multi-master and multi-speed, that's totally annoying to implement yourself.
 

Offline jonmarx

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Re: USB to I2C adapter and EVAL boards?
« Reply #7 on: August 28, 2013, 10:21:26 pm »
It's not quite the same one as I had but I think it is still only a slave because the clock (SCL) signal is described as an input.  Also I just spotted on page 12 of the FT200XD data sheet: "The FT200XD device only operates as a slave..."


 


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