graphic LCD displays.. RS232 smart displays?

[DanD]

Hello,

I am planning a project who's long term goal is to display gauges w/ real time movement on a graphical display. exactly how ambitious is this goal? i'm almost afraid to ask.

in my searching ive found some RS232 smart displays w/ built in graphical instruction sets. are these useful? are they worth the price? can they do waht i watn? ie animation and not just load up bitmaps?

If that is too much, i could make do w/ a decent sized LCD w/ large digital readouts.

i need some help in planning this out.. any input would be much appreciated. thanks

 

[Oznog]

There are many mid-sized graphical monochrome/monotone LCDs which have onboard controllers such as the SED1330 or T6963. With a controller, you have a bunch (about 12 I believe) of wires and write to particular screen memory locations. The controller handles all the screen updates so there is no speed limitation and the controller does not need RAM to buffer the video screen.

There are a few full color modules, but they're all very small because they're made for cell phones, PDAs, etc.

You've gotta have a controller. A uController generally does not have enough RAM to hold a video frame and can't shift out the row/col signals at the needed rate. External RAM is too slow.

Driving a real display- like a VGA- requires a somewhat advanced controller chip, probably external video RAM, and you don't have many easy/cheap options here.

 

[elcopart]

Look here: **broken link removed**
amd click om "LCD Terminal".

 

[kjennejohn]

Try this:
https://comfiletech.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=10

$200. Does really high speed serial. Supports 256 custom user created characters. Use any graphics paint program to create a bar graph and/or "fuel guage" display in all possible variations. Then tell the monitor where to display which guage variation based on input. Et voila! Animation! Be careful of the high voltage for the back light!

Another possibility from them is:
https://comfiletech.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=14

$360. Lotsa whiz-bang. Has 82 I/O inputs. Does white characters on blue background. Has an integral touch-screen. Very ooh-ooh and chic. This is a standalone device you can program in their proprietary BASIC. It's probably vast overkill for you. But it sure does give me ideas...

End two cents.
kenjj

 

[BeeBop]

Ha,
Kenjj,
I've often drooled over the first link you posted when visiting stores that stock Comfile's stuff. Such shops usually have several of Comfiles controllers on a bus with a half dozen or so different displays, presenting the data in different ways. I have a couple of their serial character displays, which are super easy to use, and very well made.
Comfile is one Korean company which tries very hard to offer English support, and I have come to use a lot of their products. How did you find their site?

Regards,
Robert

P.S.
Have you ever clicked the [Korean] link? They have some products listed there which are not listed on the English site.

 

[Oznog]

I'm not sure what you want to do:
If you want to hook up a microcontroller, there is usually no reason to use a serial adapter. Just use a cheap LCD and wire straight to the controller. The adapters are very expensive, relatively slow, and the capabilities are in some ways quite low.

If you want to use a microcontroller to allow a computer to control an LCD with a serial port, you can get one of the aforementioned serial adapters or you can program a microcontroller to do this task (these adapters typically are just a microcontroller).

 

[kjennejohn]

I came across some mention of it in the Parallax SX forum. Looked interesting. The $99 CUBLOC kit looks good. But I already have several $100 kits I put away after I got the LED to blink.
I am now saving my money for the Parallax Propeller processor. Eight brains, no waiting! Eight LEDs blinking in EIGHT DIFFEERNT PATTERNS! Oooh! I want to see the initial user reviews first.

No, I haven't clicked on the Korean site. I should check that out.

Later!
kenjj

 

[TKS]

Well

In fact there are very easy to use displays,

for my kitcar i used the electronic assembly Edip 240x128pixels..

It can do BMP bitmaps (Black/white)

the trick is that you progrm the display with what you want (the bitmaps startup sequences anything you like.

Then with command you just load the bitmap you want or you draw a line

or put some text in some place..

you can even upload your own fonts to it.


Tks

 

[Oznog]

I came across some mention of it in the Parallax SX forum. Looked interesting. The $99 CUBLOC kit looks good. But I already have several $100 kits I put away after I got the LED to blink.
I am now saving my money for the Parallax Propeller processor. Eight brains, no waiting! Eight LEDs blinking in EIGHT DIFFEERNT PATTERNS! Oooh! I want to see the initial user reviews first.

No, I haven't clicked on the Korean site. I should check that out.

Later!
kenjj

Parallax (and probably CUBLOC) modules are complete crap IMHO, bordering on scam depending on your perspective. They're taking a very capable line of PICs, took the cheapest one, put it into an unnecessarily complex and slow interpreted system, and charged a bundle for it. Just get a PIC18F1320 or PIC18F4620, free copy of MCC18 compiler and MPLAB, $99 for the best programmer & ICD out there, supply 5v and you've got an enormously fast and powerful system.

Are you serious or joking about saving for the Propeller? What possible job do you have that would make this useful? I've been trying to figure out what this was even made to do.

 

[BeeBop]

Oz,
for the most part I would agree, however, it was a 'pic basic' module that got me started. It was a pair of 16F877s in a little box, and while it was too easy to use, and I had an introduction to micro controllers without having to decide too much. I found out I wanted to go farther, and that using a PIC with assembly, and the fantastic free tools which microchip supplies was worth learning.
Before the pic basic module, I had tried a project using an 89at2051, but the programmer supplied with the chip only worked on a computer with a Korean OS, and just crashed my machine. At that time, I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I almost gave up at that point, but thought I would try these basic modules. (That was about three years ago, and my Korean language skills were very low, so I couldn't ask any questions about what I wanted to buy!) Once I had done a few simple projects with the pic basic, I had the confidence to move on.
The same goes for the serial displays; if you are just going to use the thing once, then the ease of use can be worth the rather large layout. If, on the other hand you will use things over and over, then it really is worth climbing the curve. My first LCD was a 20x4 serial character, that cost me 40 USD. For that much now, I would almost be able to buy 2 128x64s with backlight, so it makes no sense. I did almost buy the graphic lcd from comfile, but the 200 bux gave me pause. (and I'm glad it did!)
The pic basic module wasn't a waste, either, as I have passed that on to a young nephew, hoping to get him into it.
But yes, for the most part, these people are making a ton of cash on something which can be had for a lot less.
Regards,
Robert