I am newer to arduinos, and could use some help. I have a LCD screen hooked up to an arduino uno. I can get it to display whatever I type in, which is great. But, what i want it to display is a value from an excel spreadsheet. So, it will change depending on what is in that field. Or even better yet, from access. Is this possible? is there code to have the arduino pull information from an existing table? (assuming it is connected via USB, or, eventually, wifi). thanks!
2 Answers
Assuming your Excel spreadsheet or Access table is stored on your PC, you can write a PC program to read the file and send the data serially over the USB connection to the connected Arduino, which can display it on the LCD.
If the file is stored on an SD card instead, and you want the Arduino to access the file directly by reading said SD card (through an Ethernet shield perhaps), you need to make the file format a lot simpler than XLS to ease parsing; CSV is quite simple and suitable for a lot of tasks. The built-in SD library can be employed to read the data from the card, the Arduino parses the data and displays it on the LCD.
In general, I suggest you do more research.
answered Jun 20, 2016 at 22:40
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Why I came here =) I have been digging around, and found that exporting data is easy, but importing it is a whole new monster. Would it be easier to code the arduino in a way that it always reads from the same file location, same lines, same file, in lets say txt format. then access or excel just exports to the same place every time in txt format?– niva5171Jun 21, 2016 at 11:46
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It can be anywhere really. I can have access export the file to any location– niva5171Jun 21, 2016 at 12:04
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@niva5171 What I mean is, will the file be on an SD card connected to the Arduino or on your PC? The former will remove the need for a connection to the PC while the latter will remove the burden of storing the files and parsing them. Jun 21, 2016 at 12:31
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Sorry, it is on the network drive (So the PC). Right now any computer can access it. Right now through USB, eventually through WIFI– niva5171Jun 21, 2016 at 13:39
It is not the easiest thing to do especially if you are newer to arduinos but Roberto Valgolio has made an Arduino Excel interface: http://www.robertovalgolio.com/sistemi-programmi/arduino-excel
I have not worked with it yet but it's worth looking into it.
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Yeah, ive noticed that really quickly unfortunately, but if I can figure out how to do it, it could be a really cool advancement for my company. thanks for the link!– niva5171Jun 21, 2016 at 11:47