Visual Basic .NET - Piezo Buzzer Bricklet

This is the description of the Visual Basic .NET API bindings for the Piezo Buzzer Bricklet. General information and technical specifications for the Piezo Buzzer Bricklet are summarized in its hardware description.

An installation guide for the Visual Basic .NET API bindings is part of their general description.

Examples

The example code below is Public Domain (CC0 1.0).

Beep

Download (ExampleBeep.vb)

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Imports Tinkerforge

Module ExampleBeep
    Const HOST As String = "localhost"
    Const PORT As Integer = 4223
    Const UID As String = "6tU" ' Change to your UID

    Sub Main()
        Dim ipcon As New IPConnection() ' Create IP connection
        Dim pb As New BrickletPiezoBuzzer(UID, ipcon) ' Create device object

        ipcon.Connect(HOST, PORT) ' Connect to brickd
        ' Don't use device before ipcon is connected

        ' Make 2 second beep
        pb.Beep(2000)

        System.Console.WriteLine("Press key to exit")
        System.Console.ReadLine()
        ipcon.Disconnect()
    End Sub
End Module

Morse Code

Download (ExampleMorseCode.vb)

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Imports Tinkerforge

Module ExampleMorseCode
    Const HOST As String = "localhost"
    Const PORT As Integer = 4223
    Const UID As String = "6tU" ' Change to your UID

    Sub Main()
        Dim ipcon As New IPConnection() ' Create IP connection
        Dim pb As New BrickletPiezoBuzzer(UID, ipcon) ' Create device object

        ipcon.Connect(HOST, PORT) ' Connect to brickd
        ' Don't use device before ipcon is connected

        ' Morse SOS
        pb.MorseCode("... --- ...")

        System.Console.WriteLine("Press key to exit")
        System.Console.ReadLine()
        ipcon.Disconnect()
    End Sub
End Module

API

Since Visual Basic .NET does not support multiple return values directly, we use the ByRef keyword to return multiple values from a function.

All functions and procedures listed below are thread-safe.

Basic Functions

Class BrickletPiezoBuzzer(ByVal uid As String, ByVal ipcon As IPConnection)

Creates an object with the unique device ID uid:

Dim piezoBuzzer As New BrickletPiezoBuzzer("YOUR_DEVICE_UID", ipcon)

This object can then be used after the IP Connection is connected (see examples above).

Sub BrickletPiezoBuzzer.Beep(ByVal duration As Long)

Beeps with the duration in ms. For example: If you set a value of 1000, the piezo buzzer will beep for one second.

Sub BrickletPiezoBuzzer.MorseCode(ByVal morse As String)

Sets morse code that will be played by the piezo buzzer. The morse code is given as a string consisting of "." (dot), "-" (minus) and " " (space) for dits, dahs and pauses. Every other character is ignored.

For example: If you set the string "...---...", the piezo buzzer will beep nine times with the durations "short short short long long long short short short".

The maximum string size is 60.

Advanced Functions

Function BrickletPiezoBuzzer.GetAPIVersion() As Byte()

Returns the version of the API definition (major, minor, revision) implemented by this API bindings. This is neither the release version of this API bindings nor does it tell you anything about the represented Brick or Bricklet.

Function BrickletPiezoBuzzer.GetResponseExpected(ByVal functionId As Byte) As Boolean

Returns the response expected flag for the function specified by the function ID parameter. It is true if the function is expected to send a response, false otherwise.

For getter functions this is enabled by default and cannot be disabled, because those functions will always send a response. For callback configuration functions it is enabled by default too, but can be disabled by SetResponseExpected(). For setter functions it is disabled by default and can be enabled.

Enabling the response expected flag for a setter function allows to detect timeouts and other error conditions calls of this setter as well. The device will then send a response for this purpose. If this flag is disabled for a setter function then no response is send and errors are silently ignored, because they cannot be detected.

See SetResponseExpected() for the list of function ID constants available for this function.

Sub BrickletPiezoBuzzer.SetResponseExpected(ByVal functionId As Byte, ByVal responseExpected As Boolean)

Changes the response expected flag of the function specified by the function ID parameter. This flag can only be changed for setter (default value: false) and callback configuration functions (default value: true). For getter functions it is always enabled and callbacks it is always disabled.

Enabling the response expected flag for a setter function allows to detect timeouts and other error conditions calls of this setter as well. The device will then send a response for this purpose. If this flag is disabled for a setter function then no response is send and errors are silently ignored, because they cannot be detected.

The following function ID constants are available for this function:

  • BrickletPiezoBuzzer.FUNCTION_BEEP = 1
  • BrickletPiezoBuzzer.FUNCTION_MORSE_CODE = 2
Sub BrickletPiezoBuzzer.SetResponseExpectedAll(ByVal responseExpected As Boolean)

Changes the response expected flag for all setter and callback configuration functions of this device at once.

Sub BrickletPiezoBuzzer.GetIdentity(ByRef uid As String, ByRef connectedUid As String, ByRef position As Char, ByRef hardwareVersion() As Byte, ByRef firmwareVersion() As Byte, ByRef deviceIdentifier As Integer)

Returns the UID, the UID where the Bricklet is connected to, the position, the hardware and firmware version as well as the device identifier.

The position can be 'a', 'b', 'c' or 'd'.

The device identifier numbers can be found here. There is also a constant for the device identifier of this Bricklet.

Callbacks

Callbacks can be registered to receive time critical or recurring data from the device. The registration is done by assigning a procedure to an callback property of the device object:

Sub Callback(ByVal sender As BrickletPiezoBuzzer, ByVal value As Short)
    Console.WriteLine("Value: {0}", value)
End Sub

AddHandler piezoBuzzer.Example, AddressOf Callback

The available callback property and their type of parameters are described below.

Note

Using callbacks for recurring events is always preferred compared to using getters. It will use less USB bandwidth and the latency will be a lot better, since there is no round trip time.

Event BrickletPiezoBuzzer.BeepFinished(ByVal sender As BrickletPiezoBuzzer)

This callback is triggered if a beep set by Beep() is finished

Event BrickletPiezoBuzzer.MorseCodeFinished(ByVal sender As BrickletPiezoBuzzer)

This callback is triggered if the playback of the morse code set by MorseCode() is finished.

Constants

Const BrickletPiezoBuzzer.DEVICE_IDENTIFIER

This constant is used to identify a Piezo Buzzer Bricklet.

The GetIdentity() function and the EnumerateCallback callback of the IP Connection have a deviceIdentifier parameter to specify the Brick's or Bricklet's type.

Creative Commons Licence The content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.