TFT

[hjl4]

Is it possible to drive an old TFT lcd display from laptop with a PIC?

According to datasheet, it should be possible.

But I am confused with clock input syncronizing horizontal and vertical signal.

Here is pinout for display.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Is it possible to drive an old TFT lcd display from laptop with a PIC?

According to datasheet, it should be possible.

But I am confused with clock input syncronizing horizontal and vertical signal.

You're essentially having to program a PIC to be a video card, it looks like it could be possible at slower data rates? - I'm presuming using a slower clock speed would work OK?.

The clock controls EVERYTHING about it, and just like a clock on a syncronous serial interface, clocks each byte of data into the display - for it to work, everything has to be syncronised to the clock signal (which presumably would be generated by the PIC?, and be no where near the 40MHz in the data sheet).

 

[hjl4]

Ok Nigel,

It's what I thought. Clock speed is the trick here.

I was thinking, since this display will be used for numerical and alphabetical character display only, that a slower clock speed should be OK.
Not quite sure, as this is a first for me.

Trying to make digital readout for my mill. I just thought I could update a bit by having tft display instead of small lcd or even 7 segment LED's.
I'll try and see @ 20Mhz with old PIC 16f877. As you notice half of the pins are ground, so 16f877 has plenty of pins for driving.
I'll let you know if it works.
I also kept the power supply and pc board in back of display, and also the driver board . Unfortunately it has no way to interface with PIC.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Someone Electro]

Those displays are known not to be useful fonr nothing else than spare parts.

Also it would be hard to to since the dispaly wahts it pixel by pixel.

IF you want a display get an graphical LCD that is ment to be concted to a MCU.It kinda has its own "graphics card" that can display text and draw lines and varuis objects. It can also be driven pixel by pixel.But those kind of LCDs are not very cheap.Meaby an small 2X16 charecter LCD?

 

[hjl4]

I understand Someone Electro,

It won't be easy, but I'm trying to go beyond the pixel by pixel rule.
There must be a way.
This project is for myself.It may take a while to make it work, as I also have projects to take care of at work.
Maybe a year. But I tell you, if it works everyone would want it right?
After all thousands of these displays are thrown out each year.
Maybe I will find a way to interface original graphics card with PIC.

We'll see.

Thanks for reply.