Post by thread:[PIC] Serial LCD fakery?

Ok, so that subject probably doesn't make much sense. Here is what I'm considering though. I've recently begun playing with LCD Smartie (http://lcdsmartie.sourceforge.net/) which is a really cool little program that lets you dump all sorts of data from your computer out to an LCD. Stuff like monitoring your CPU load, the weather, news, email, etc. I've also been playing with PalmOrb (http://palmorb.sourceforge.net/) which is another program that lets your Palm PDA emulate a Matrix Orbital display. This works well, but I'm having trouble figuring out a place to leave the Palm permenantly on my desk. It's pretty large for just a simple display. I have a bunch of HD44780 compatible LCD displays. LCD Smartie will support them natively if I wire them up to the parallel port of the computer. I don't really want to do it that way though. I don't want to have to run so many wires, plus it takes the one parallel port on that computer. LCD Smartie also supports Matrix Orbital and Crystalfontz serial displays. What I'd love is to be able to use a PIC to emulate one of the above displays and pass the data on to the parallel display. I remember once seeing a couple of serial to LCD articles (though of course I can't find them now) but I'm unsure if they are emulating one of the above two methods. Any suggestions/pointers? My googling has only turned up a bunch of PC case mod sites whose electronics knowledge seems to be limited to wiring up LEDs to the 5V rail so their computer goes faster. You know, like racing stripes make a car go faster. Josh -- A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. -Douglas Adams

Josh, A project I have wanted to undertake but didn't feel up to the challenge. ( I'm pretty much one of those guys that Wouter and Olin describe as someone who shouldn't be writing code.) BUT, I'm not so bad at research I can't vouch for it but this implies it can emulate: http://www.hvwtech.com/pages/products_view.asp?ProductID=109 this looks promising: http://hyper.sunjapan.com.cn/~hz/PIC/mo-lcd/index.html The instruction sets are in some of the pdf's on the respective mfg's websites. I'll be here ready to cheer you on :) Dave Josh Koffman wrote: {Quote hidden}> Ok, so that subject probably doesn't make much sense. Here is what I'm > considering though. I've recently begun playing with LCD Smartie > (http://lcdsmartie.sourceforge.net/) which is a really cool little > program that lets you dump all sorts of data from your computer out to > an LCD. Stuff like monitoring your CPU load, the weather, news, email, > etc. I've also been playing with PalmOrb > (http://palmorb.sourceforge.net/) which is another program that lets > your Palm PDA emulate a Matrix Orbital display. This works well, but > I'm having trouble figuring out a place to leave the Palm permenantly > on my desk. It's pretty large for just a simple display. > > I have a bunch of HD44780 compatible LCD displays. LCD Smartie will > support them natively if I wire them up to the parallel port of the > computer. I don't really want to do it that way though. I don't want > to have to run so many wires, plus it takes the one parallel port on > that computer. LCD Smartie also supports Matrix Orbital and > Crystalfontz serial displays. What I'd love is to be able to use a PIC > to emulate one of the above displays and pass the data on to the > parallel display. I remember once seeing a couple of serial to LCD > articles (though of course I can't find them now) but I'm unsure if > they are emulating one of the above two methods. > > Any suggestions/pointers? My googling has only turned up a bunch of PC > case mod sites whose electronics knowledge seems to be limited to > wiring up LEDs to the 5V rail so their computer goes faster. You know, > like racing stripes make a car go faster. > > Josh

Hi Dave, Well, the first link seems to just be a commercial product. Not bad, but not enough info to roll our own! The second link is much more promising. I will study it a bit further. Maybe I'll whip one together and give it a test. The guy has some other interesting stuff on his site, even a USB version. I will let you know when I have figured out more. I notice you have a Rogers account. Where in Canada are you? Josh -- A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. -Douglas Adams On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 12:52:43 -0500, Dave Lag <spam_OUTdavescomputerTakeThisOuTrogers.com> wrote: {Quote hidden}> Josh, > A project I have wanted to undertake but didn't feel up to the challenge. > > ( I'm pretty much one of those guys that Wouter and Olin describe as > someone who shouldn't be writing code.) > > BUT, I'm not so bad at research > > I can't vouch for it but this implies it can emulate: > www.hvwtech.com/pages/products_view.asp?ProductID=109 > > this looks promising: > hyper.sunjapan.com.cn/~hz/PIC/mo-lcd/index.html

Thanks for the link Bob. Sadly, I can't do C, but it'll go in my bookmarks for the future :) Josh -- A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. -Douglas Adams On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 10:14:32 -0800 (PST), Bob Blick <.....bblickKILLspam@spam@sonic.net> wrote: > Josh writes: > > > I remember once seeing a couple of serial to LCD > > articles (though of course I can't find them now) but I'm unsure if > > they are emulating one of the above two methods. > > Perhaps one of those was mine: > bobblick.com/techref/projects/lcdterm/lcdterm.html > I don't know how close it is to either of the displays you mentioned, but > the code is well commented and in C, so it's easy enough to modify.

> Any suggestions/pointers? My googling has only turned up a bunch of PC > case mod sites whose electronics knowledge seems to be limited to > wiring up LEDs to the 5V rail so their computer goes faster. You know, > like racing stripes make a car go faster. Just do it. Writing a blurb of code which takes serial data and puts it out to an LCD is NOT rocket science. YOU can do it. And probably in less time than it'll take to find and borrow someone else's work. The real problem is getting your PIC to speak the same language as the CrystalFontz one. I don't know if the communication is bi-directional or not; the easiest way to figure out what's going on is to watch the data coming out of LCDSmartie with another computer running Hyperterminal (or some other, more advanced terminal program that'll understand the non-ASCII-character content). I guess I haven't really provided anything you didn't know, but seriously, I KNOW YOU CAN DO THIS. Three years ago I made a PIC program that took data from a serial port and displayed it on a serial port. I'm not a guru or anything now, but I'm a far sight farther along than I was then, and I still pulled it off. Mike H.

Thanks for the pep talk Mike :) Turns out I've found some and I am modifying it. This is my first LCD project with a PIC and the last thing I need are too many parameters. I hope to learn from this code, then start building LCDs into my future projects by the dozens! Josh -- A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. -Douglas Adams On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 19:21:36 -0600, Mike Hord <mike.hordKILLspamgmail.com> wrote: {Quote hidden}> Just do it. Writing a blurb of code which takes serial data and puts it out > to an LCD is NOT rocket science. YOU can do it. And probably in less > time than it'll take to find and borrow someone else's work. > > The real problem is getting your PIC to speak the same language as the > CrystalFontz one. I don't know if the communication is bi-directional or > not; the easiest way to figure out what's going on is to watch the data > coming out of LCDSmartie with another computer running Hyperterminal > (or some other, more advanced terminal program that'll understand the > non-ASCII-character content). > > I guess I haven't really provided anything you didn't know, but seriously, > I KNOW YOU CAN DO THIS. Three years ago I made a PIC program > that took data from a serial port and displayed it on a serial port. I'm > not a guru or anything now, but I'm a far sight farther along than I was > then, and I still pulled it off.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Josh Koffman" <.....joshybearKILLspam.....gmail.com> Subject: Re: [PIC] Serial LCD fakery? > Thanks for the pep talk Mike :) Turns out I've found some and I am > modifying it. This is my first LCD project with a PIC and the last > thing I need are too many parameters. I hope to learn from this code, > then start building LCDs into my future projects by the dozens! Josh If you are going to go with a "normal" LCD instead of the expensive serial jobbies, I have an LCD lesson mostly written. There are a few things I still want to add, and it hasn't been reviewed yet, but the main stuff is there. It kind of assumes you read the previous lesson which is on the AmQRP web site. This one is still a couple of weeks away from publication, but I would be happy to send you a draft. --McD

> Thanks for the pep talk Mike :) Turns out I've found some and I am > modifying it. This is my first LCD project with a PIC and the last > thing I need are too many parameters. I hope to learn from this code, > then start building LCDs into my future projects by the dozens! Actually, when I wrote my previous message, I was kind of assuming knowledge of standard parallel LCDs. A good source of info is http://www.epemag.wimborne.co.uk/lcd1.pdf http://www.epemag.wimborne.co.uk/lcd2.pdf Great articles in a very matter-of-fact way. I wish I could find such information on every topic I needed to understand. Mike H.

Well, just thought I'd send out a little update. I managed to get the code at http://hyper.sunjapan.com.cn/~hz/PIC/mo-lcd/index.html to work with some minor tweaking. One of the weirdest things was that MPLAB kept complaining that _DATA_CP_OFF in the config line was undefined. Just for the record, I was running this in MPLAB 5.30, it seems MPLAB7 uses a different project file format and I didn't feel like converting it all just yet. In any case, it seems to be working ok. It is freezing up on me a fair bit, but at the moment I'm going to chalk that up to the fact that it's all wires and breadboard, which probably isn't the best for reliability. Now I'm on the search for some larger LCDs. Anyone have a good surplus source for 20x4 and 40x4 LVDs or VFDs? Yes, I know about Crystalfontz, but if I get them surplus there are usually a bunch more goodies I can rationalize into an order. I've checked BGMicro and Electronics Goldmine without much success. Once I choose some LCDs I'm probably going to redesign the PCB he has posted at his site. He has both pinouts on one board, which is nice, but I think that's what forced him into two layers. I'd like to stick with single sided if possible as I will be making them myself. Anyway, questions and comments welcome, as always. Josh -- A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. -Douglas Adams

----- Original Message ----- From: "Josh Koffman" <EraseMEjoshybearspam_OUTTakeThisOuTgmail.com> Subject: Re: [PIC] Serial LCD fakery? > Now I'm on the search for some larger LCDs. Anyone have a good surplus > source for 20x4 and 40x4 LVDs or VFDs? Yes, I know about Crystalfontz, 40x4's are going to require 2 - 44780's, so they are going to be a little weird. Prolly 20x4's are going to be a bunch cheaper, anyway, but they are certainly going to be easier to deal with. DigiKey has a Lumex STN for $24, not such a bad price for a 20x4. The Optrex DMC20434, which is a very nice display, is cheaper still, but unfortunately they don't stock it so you gotta buy a ton of em. --McD

> Now I'm on the search for some larger LCDs. Anyone have a good surplus > source for 20x4 and 40x4 LVDs or VFDs? Yes, I know about Crystalfontz, > but if I get them surplus there are usually a bunch more goodies I can > rationalize into an order. I've checked BGMicro and Electronics > Goldmine without much success. Ebay. I got 3 2x24 EL backlit displays for $12 once. I also think eio.com may have something worth checking out... Just checked eio.com (actually, now it's http://www.shopeio.com). 4x16 $10, 4x20 $15, 2x40 $15, others. Some modules are pricier than others, but those three jumped out at me first. eio.com is also a moderate to good place to look at for electronics info and I believe they have some forums which may or may not provide any useful discourse on our particular addiction. I found the previously listed LCD pdfs through eio, orginially. Mike H.

Some years ago I configured a Linux machine for a customer with LCDProc (http://lcdproc.omnipotent.net/?continue=yes). That time we had used Matrix Orbital because it used to come with a 5.25" bracket for mounting it in 5.25" server bay. Matrix orbital is EXPENSIVE!! Later, I tried the same thing with PIC-N-LCD and it worked just fine. PIC-N-LCD stuff might still be available with http://www.bgmicro.com. At the server end you don't need any complex programming. All you need is a scripting language (PERL / csh / bash), com port device name and some RE experience. Get the data from /proc partition, extract/format it and dump it on the /dev/ttyS? (or similar) device. For $14.95 you can get a VFD from bgmicro that has both serial and parallel interface. The BG Micro part numer is ACS1385. http://www.bgmicro.com/pdf/page4.pdf Another serial LCD is LCD BUG and can be found @ http://www.bgmicro.com/pdf/lcd1027.pdf -- Chetan Bhargava Web: http://www.bhargavaz.net Blog: http://microz.blogspot.com On Mar 30, 2005 8:08 AM, Josh Koffman <joshybearspam_OUTgmail.com> wrote: {Quote hidden}> Ok, so that subject probably doesn't make much sense. Here is what I'm > considering though. I've recently begun playing with LCD Smartie > (http://lcdsmartie.sourceforge.net/) which is a really cool little > program that lets you dump all sorts of data from your computer out to > an LCD. Stuff like monitoring your CPU load, the weather, news, email, > etc. I've also been playing with PalmOrb > (http://palmorb.sourceforge.net/) which is another program that lets > your Palm PDA emulate a Matrix Orbital display. This works well, but > I'm having trouble figuring out a place to leave the Palm permenantly > on my desk. It's pretty large for just a simple display. > > I have a bunch of HD44780 compatible LCD displays. LCD Smartie will > support them natively if I wire them up to the parallel port of the > computer. I don't really want to do it that way though. I don't want > to have to run so many wires, plus it takes the one parallel port on > that computer. LCD Smartie also supports Matrix Orbital and > Crystalfontz serial displays. What I'd love is to be able to use a PIC > to emulate one of the above displays and pass the data on to the > parallel display. I remember once seeing a couple of serial to LCD > articles (though of course I can't find them now) but I'm unsure if > they are emulating one of the above two methods. > > Any suggestions/pointers? My googling has only turned up a bunch of PC > case mod sites whose electronics knowledge seems to be limited to > wiring up LEDs to the 5V rail so their computer goes faster. You know, > like racing stripes make a car go faster. > > Josh