Interfacing your arduino with a C# program

Ever wanted to make your own application (*.exe) to work with your arduino (or other serial communicating device)?

This instructable requires:

  - Visual Studio 2008 or later* (I am using 2010 RC, some options may differ between versions)
                       OR
  - Visual C# Express Edition 2008 or later*


  - An Arduino (Any type) or other kind of serial communicating device
  - A basic knowledge of the C# Language
 

* An earlier edition of VS may work, but I am not sure if it has the SerialPort library.

Step 1 Create a new application

Open Visual Studio and create a new Windows Forms Application. Then when form 1 comes up, add as many controls as you would like, starting with the SerialPort class.

If you are adding the Arduino support to your pre-made program, then just add the SerialPort class. If you are more advanced, you may want to make a plain code file with just the SerialPort library, so that you don't keep defining it.

Comments

[uncledj]

I am c# programmer, I waste a lot of time try the c# in ardunio, at the end, I give up. mainly, many HW library is not equip as ardunio library, even I know how to convert back to c# code. But what is the point for my objective, learn the language or make sth happen in ardunio, and is stupied idea add extra code in the assamble code.

[Techno Dancer]

I'm not quite sure what you mean. C# is run on the computer, and the Arduino runs standard Arduino code, which uses the serial library to communicate with the PC.

[bassman76jazz]

nice job

[redryno1221]

Awesome I've been looking for a tut on just this...