Velleman K8000 - [K8000 Applications] - [I2C Bus Scanner]
My I2C bus scanner is a tool to find all I2C chips that are connected to the K8000's I2C bus. The tool is an aid to solve communication errors.
The working principle of the scanner is very easy: it sends any of the 127 possible I2C addresses to the bus and listens if a chip respond with an acknowledge pulse (ACK). This means the addressed chip is present and working. When no acknowledge pulse is given the I2C address is not in use or there is a communication error.
The scanner displays all found I2C devices in a list. A short function description appears: the software comes with a little database with all known addresses and their purposes.
The scanner has a simple layout and is easy to use. I wrote the software in Visual Basic 5. The source code is available for free. The DriverLinx PortIO driver has to be installed on your computer.
Information
This scanner requires the Velleman K8000 card as the interface between your computer and the I2C bus. I have also created a standalone version of my scanner, using a PIC16F628 microcontroller. This scanner doesn't require the Velleman K8000: it is a dedicated circuit with 7-segment displays to display the codes. Read more about it.
Copyright ©1998-2022 Vanderhaegen Bart - last modified: August 24, 2013
