USB pen drive with pic

[nicotec]

I intend to read a pen drive with pic; I need only to read/write in raw format sending address memory and then data.
I cannot use sd or mmc but I must use a normal pen drive.
Any solution?
Thanks and regards

[Ttelmah]

Realistically, not practical with most PICs.
Do a search here for 'USB master'. Basically, the normal USB PIC is a slave device, as is the pen drive. You need a master device to talk to the drive...
It _may_ be just about possible to generate a sort of USB master, _for a single known device_, but even small changes in the device, make doing it or a generic pen drive, totally impossible.
There are now PICs that can implement a master. Do a search on the Microchip site for 'USB OTG'. These are all 24FJ devices, or the 32MX devices, however code is going to be a lot of work.....

Best Wishes

[FvM]

I basically share the doubts regarding high software effort. But I assume, that a suitable designed mass storage device class host would be able to access different memory devices without difficulties.

Microchip has a package of USB design examples, also including this one USB Host - Mass Storage - Thumb Drive Data Logger. It's C30 code of course, but should be portable to PCD.

[test153]

You could use the FTDI Vinculum and connect it to a suitable pic.