Category: Analog to Digital Converters

Select ProXR Series controllers are equipped with eight on-board analog to digital converters.  ADCs can be used to read many kinds of analog sensors as well as switches.  ADCs are available on all ProXR Lite series controllers as well as ProXR series that begin with ZAD in the part number.  This section of our tutorial will not apply to ProXR series with part numbers beginning with ZUXP. ADCs are very sensitive to voltages, as their entire purpose is to convert a voltage from 0 to 5 volts into a value from 0 to 255 when using 8-Bit conversion mode (10-Bit mode converts

ProXR controllers use eight 10K resistors to “pull” the inputs high (+5V) or low (Ground).  The integrated resistor network will ensure all inputs are always connected to ground or 5V using the “Pull Up/Down” jumper (as labeled on the circuit board).  Installing the jumper in the “Up” position will pull the analog inputs to 5V through the 10K resistor.  Likewise, installing this jumper in the “Down” position will pull the inputs to ground.  The default jumper setting is in the “Up” position.  This will allow the analog inputs to directly connect to switches, which is very useful if you need

The following commands demonstrate the 8-Bit AD8 command set. Read All 8 Analog Inputs with 8-Bit Result per Channel:

The following command will return 16 bytes of data.  Data is arranged in numeric order (C1-C8) from channel 1 to channel 8.  Each channel is represented as a 10-Bit value (MSB and LSB).  The Checksum is represented in the CK column. Converting MSB and LSB into an Integer: The tables above demonstrate how 10-Bit data is communicated using 8-Bit values.  To convert the 8-Bit values into a usable integer, follow this simple formula: Analog Value = (MSB x 256)  + LSB Analog Value = (3 x 256) + 255 Analog Value = 1023