A small PIC project, need a little help

[psecody]

Well the other day while sitting through my government class I stumbled across a webpage where a guy made a crude video game system using a pic to output a composite signal to a tv. That got me to thinking about how I would go about outputting to an LCD monitor (like a computer monitor). I have a 22" lcd that my grandma had on her computer that she stupidly left plugged in during a storm and after it she couldn't get it working again. I've taken it apart and looked at all the circuitry and nothing seems to be fried (key word being seems). Now when you plug it in the lights come on and it seems to go in standby and if you plug it into a computer the screen lights up white but never changes and eventually goes back into standby. I only have the standard connector so I can't test the DVI or the HDMI inputs on the monitor but I was wanting to test them. So I was planning on sending the monitor a signal from a pic through either the DVI or HDMI (or both). But I cannot find for the life of me how to do this, or even how the signals are sent. Could anyone shed some light on how these two signals are transmitted? Thanks.

I also plan to experiment with this portable computer idea I had when I was in high school and as I can't find any electronics projects that seem to interest me at the moment I think I'll play around with that idea and see what I can get working on it and knowing how to output signal to a monitor would be helpful there too.

Thanks again for any help or suggestions, I appreciate it.

 

[kchriste]

A large PIC project, you need some advice

Bad idea! I wouldn't even attempt it with a working monitor let alone trying to debug with a monitor that you aren't even sure is working.
Borrow a Laptop or other source with a working HDMI or DVI port to test it. Can you get anything to display using the monitor's built in menu system? ie: Contrast, Brightness, Gamma, etc menu choices. If not, then trying the HDMI and DVI ports is a waste of effort.

 

[psecody]

Yeah I couldn't get any of the menus to..well I don't know I can't see them and it does weird things like after I press the button to bring up the menu if I press any of the other buttons it cancels out the menu, but I still can't see it.

So I was just wanting to mess around with that idea because I had the monitor laying around and hated to throw it away. But still is it possible to output from a pic to an lcd? Say like one of the screens of those portable dvd players from walmart? I was thinking about using the one that comes with two screens that you mount on the headrests in a car. I already have a use for one of them, I'm going to make it so I can connect my video game consoles to them so I can play them on the go or really mainly so I can play them on the couch haha I like portables more than ones on a tv because I can move. But I figured I would use the other to try and interface with a pic, any ideas on how to do that? Happy Thanksgiving to all by the way. Thanks again

 

[birdman0_o]

Was her house struck by lightning? Shouldn't the LCD have protection circuitry?
Dunno I find it weird.

 

[psecody]

yeah trying to get an explanation from my grandmother is like pulling teeth. I have no clue what happened to it she just said it stopped working after a storm so I was assuming that she wasn't smart enough to have a surge protector on it or something. I was going to test it with the other cables (DVI and HDMI) but I'm kind of the typical broke college student and didn't have the spare cash for the cables. Then I thought since it's just taking up space in my room I might as well use it to mess with along with a pic. I'm not dead set on fixing it, though it would be nice. But really I was trying to find articles of how to display stuff on the monitor from a pic. Every article I'm linked to is about the 2x16 lcd's for hobby use and I can already use those but I'm pretty sure its not the same deal on a monitor as it is on one of those.

 

[kchriste]

But still is it possible to output from a pic to an lcd?

Here's a method using the VGA interface:
PIC 16F84 Microcontroller VGA interface
Usually you get a small LCD such as AtomSoft did which is better suited for small projects and PICs. Full 640x480 VGA resolution (That's 38.4Kbytes just for monochrome!) is a bit much for the PIC.