Velleman K8000

What is the Velleman interface card?

The K8000 is a computer interface board: a hardware card to control external electric devices with your computer. The card offers some analog/digital connections to do this.

The card runs on IBM compatible computers and is connected through a standard parallel cable (the old printer 25-pin printer cables). Actually the parallel port has become obsolete: you will hardly find it on new computers. Luckily there are some adapters available.

How is it controlled?

The card can be controlled from any programming language like VB, C/C++, Qbasic, Turbo Pascal. A disk with samples is shipped with the K8000. If you don't know how to program you can use my Power WinPLC software. It allows you to create K8000 applications very quickly.

Available connections

The K8000 provides you with sixteen digital I/O, eight 6-bit D/A , one 8-bit D/A and four 8-bit A/D channels.

Digital channels can only have 2 states: ON or OFF. Analog channels can have any value between 0 and 5 VDC. The mentioned bits specify the resolution of an analog channel. A 6-bit channel can have 64 possible values. A 8-bit channel can have 256 possible values. An 8-bit analog input with a maximum range of 5 VDC can measure in steps of 19 mV (= 5 VDC/255).

What does the K8000 look like?

The following photo shows you what the K8000 looks like. You can click any part of the photo to get a description of it. This application uses JavaScript: if it doesn't work JavaScript probably is not enabled in your browser.

Picture of the K8000 card

What can you do with this interface card?

It is almost impossible to summarize the possibilities of the K8000: There are just too many of them. Many people have used the K8000 to construct a cheap home domotic system. Others uses it to control an electric train. The K8000 is also extremely handy to build custom light computers...