Editing Introduction

== About Smart Box ==

Smart Box has been designed to allow you to monitor the environment and control external devices using your computer.
Smart Box is itself a small computer which has sockets to allow the connection of many types of sensors and other devices.
Because Smart Box does not have its own keyboard or monitor it receives all its instructions via the cable which connects Smart Box to the ‘host’ computer.
The ‘Serial’ port at the back of Smart Box is connected to the serial port on your computer.

== The ports ==

Smart Box has a number of different sockets which are used for the external connections.
These are divided into two types, the sensor ports and the output ports.
The sensor ports are used to measure external signals.
Smart Box can handle both analogue and digital sensors.
Analogue sensors produce a signal which can vary continuously and sometimes very rapidly, for example the signal from a sound sensor can change several thousand times every second whereas a temperature sensor may change relatively slowly.
Smart Box can also be used with digital sensors.
These will only switch on or off.
A pressure mat or a thermostat which switches at a preset temperature are examples of digital sensors.

The output ports are used to switch on and off external devices such as lamps and motors.
The 8 ‘Digital Outputs’ can each be used to switch on or off a low power device such as a buzzer or lamp.
The motor outputs have a greater power capability and can also be used to drive a DC motor forward and reverse.

== Rear panel == 

On the rear panel of Smart Box you will find more connectors.
The power inlet socket is used to connect the mains cord.
This socket includes a fuse holder.
In the unlikely event that this fuse should need replacing ensure that only the correct type is used.
The rear panel also houses the serial port and the ‘reset’ button, which is used to reset Smart Box if the host computer is powered up after Smart Box.

== Software ==

Once Smart Box is connected to the host computer, you will need to load appropriate software to be able to program Smart Box in the way you require.
The Smart Box package includes the Smart Move control software.
This package is intended to provide a powerful environment for writing programs to control models and other devices which you have attached to Smart Box.
It also allows some capture of the data from sensors and quite sophisticated data logging can be programmed.
See the [[Smart Move]] section for further details.