I'm looking for an inexpensive solution to interface a Digital
Multimeter to a Mac. I have found several brands of DMM's with Serial
Interfaces, but of course they only come with Windows software :-(

Ideally, I'd like a DMM with a USB interface and a Mac driver. Can
anyone give me a pointer to some possible alternatives?

Alternately, I'd settle for a USB A to D Converter with some driver
software. Last choice would be a PCI card with the appropriate
drivers.

Thanks

--
Nelson

In article <c7l1ph$sdc[at]library2.airnews.net>,
Nelson <nelson[at]nowhere.com> wrote:

> I'm looking for an inexpensive solution to interface a Digital
> Multimeter to a Mac. I have found several brands of DMM's with Serial
> Interfaces, but of course they only come with Windows software :-(
>
> Ideally, I'd like a DMM with a USB interface and a Mac driver. Can
> anyone give me a pointer to some possible alternatives?

The DMM vendors offer a programming manual. I have one from Tek. The
control codes for a DMM are not complex, so one needs only the ability
to read and write short serial strings to a serial port. The serial
port can be on a PCI card, or one can use one of the many USB-serial
converter pods, such as the one from Keyspan.

Joe Gwinn

In article <c7l1ph$sdc[at]library2.airnews.net>,
Nelson <nelson[at]nowhere.com> wrote:

> I'm looking for an inexpensive solution to interface a Digital
> Multimeter to a Mac. I have found several brands of DMM's with Serial
> Interfaces, but of course they only come with Windows software :-(

I've used Keyspan USB <-> RS232 converters, and the programmer's
reference manual for the devices to get similar devices going on Macs,
but then, I'm a programmer.

> Ideally, I'd like a DMM with a USB interface and a Mac driver. Can
> anyone give me a pointer to some possible alternatives?
>
> Alternately, I'd settle for a USB A to D Converter with some driver
> software. Last choice would be a PCI card with the appropriate
> drivers.

If you can live with 20hz .. 20 Khz, +/- 1 volt, 2 channels, you
can just use the audio line in ports. If your Mac doesn't have
audio line in, Griffin Technology makes a cheap audio <-> USB
device.

You might look at:

http://www.phidgets.com/

There is also <http://www.pasco.com/>, a company that makes fairly
inexpensive USB sensors for the school market.