Author Topic: LCD recomendation?  (Read 5434 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline HDL_CinC_DragonTopic starter

  • Supreme Robot
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,261
  • Helpful? 5
LCD recomendation?
« on: December 09, 2007, 09:58:08 AM »
Can anyone recommend an LCD from Link that I could use fairly easily with an ATMega8?
Thanks in advance!
United States Marine Corps
Infantry
Returns to society: 2014JAN11

paulstreats

  • Guest
Re: LCD recomendation?
« Reply #1 on: December 09, 2007, 10:06:06 AM »
Most lcd's allow you to connect to them using serial communications now so any of them would be okay.
If you buy one of the cheaper ones, you will only be able to display text and maybe 8 custom characters which is fine for basic feedback. If I were you i'd save up and get a more expensive graphic display lcd, the reason being that if you use your robot for mapping and path following, you can use a graphics lcd to actually see the map that the robot is building.
I'm currently saving up for one of PS2 displays from sparkfun - but you probably wont be able to control it with an ATMega8. (ive got an arm7 ready for it)

Offline HDL_CinC_DragonTopic starter

  • Supreme Robot
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,261
  • Helpful? 5
Re: LCD recomendation?
« Reply #2 on: December 09, 2007, 10:11:35 AM »
lol well im just slapping together a Christmas list and Ive wanted an LCD for quite some time now :P

What about the LCDs that graphing calculators use? like the TI-83's and TI-84's. What if I was able to find one of them, are they fairly easy to interface? Would I be able to use a seperate ATMega as a dedicated controller for the LCD and just pass a string/char variable from the main MCU to the LCD's MCU(the other ATMega) via a gnd wire and a signal wire?

And yes I know im hooked on ATMegas b/c theyre one of two MCUs that I have experience with and I like them a lot :) plus theyre easyish to manage :P


Thanks for the fast reply :)
United States Marine Corps
Infantry
Returns to society: 2014JAN11

paulstreats

  • Guest
Re: LCD recomendation?
« Reply #3 on: December 09, 2007, 10:39:57 AM »
here are a few that you could use

http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail?name=475-1204-ND

http://rocky.digikey.com/scripts/ProductInfo.dll?Site=US&V=475&M=OS128064PN10MY0B10

It would probably be best to use another atmega to drive one, so your main program doesn't slow down too much. If you are using it for text, you can pre-program the driver atmega with the relevant graphical info. If you want to use it for displaying mapping info, I would use the main atmega store its data in external eeprom/ram and then the lcd driver atmega take data from the eeprom/ram. The driver atmega can also be used for other non critical functions.

When choosing an lcd, make sure that you will be able to solder to it properly, you will probably find that the lcd's used in calculators will use them flimsy plastic film type connectors that will be hard to connect to

Offline HDL_CinC_DragonTopic starter

  • Supreme Robot
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,261
  • Helpful? 5
Re: LCD recomendation?
« Reply #4 on: December 09, 2007, 10:16:58 PM »
Thanks for the info on that :) Ill do a little more research and such and try to pick the best one to use for my projects

Right now I think I only want a basic text LCD capable of only alphanumeric stuff. But im pretty sure that I will want full graphical ability sometime in the near future such as for displaying the robots map. Thanks :)
United States Marine Corps
Infantry
Returns to society: 2014JAN11

Offline Admin

  • Administrator
  • Supreme Robot
  • *****
  • Posts: 11,703
  • Helpful? 173
    • Society of Robots
Re: LCD recomendation?
« Reply #5 on: December 13, 2007, 02:13:32 PM »
I've been considering getting one too . . . I would need one that can do custom graphics for various foreign language alphabets . . .

Anyone know an easy way to convert graphics to serial commands for a LCD? Perhaps a program?

I've only seen complex manual ways to do it . . . but I got an ~80 character Thai alphabet to put into my bot . . .

Offline HDL_CinC_DragonTopic starter

  • Supreme Robot
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,261
  • Helpful? 5
Re: LCD recomendation?
« Reply #6 on: December 13, 2007, 02:33:18 PM »
well I guess you could program an alphabet into a memory registry(56k EEProm for ~80 chars at 1nibble each?)  and then have one eeprom for each language so if you need to reprogram for just a single language you only have to edit a single eeprom. So then send lets say "0x01 0b0101 0b1100 0b1100 0b0111" to the main language driver MCU which says "ok, he wants to pull characters in position 0101, 1100, 1100, and 0111 in that order from language 0x01" so then it takes those characters program in the eeprom of that language and then sends that character to the LCD driver.

I hope I said all that correctly, im multitasking out the wazoo right now lol
either way, I think you might get the idea as to what I was saying :P
United States Marine Corps
Infantry
Returns to society: 2014JAN11

Offline Ro-Bot-X

  • Contest Winner
  • Supreme Robot
  • ****
  • Posts: 1,431
  • Helpful? 25
  • Store: RoBotXDesigns.ca
    • Ro-Bot-X Designs
Re: LCD recomendation?
« Reply #7 on: December 13, 2007, 02:44:00 PM »
I think for start you can get a 16 X 2 LCD DISPLAY W/ LED BACKLIGHT, CAT# LCD-124
For showing the map you can go for the 256 X 128 LCD PANEL, CAT# LCD-101

By the way, Admin, when can we have a tutorial on showing the map on a 256x128 display like that?
Check out the uBotino robot controller!

Offline HDL_CinC_DragonTopic starter

  • Supreme Robot
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,261
  • Helpful? 5
Re: LCD recomendation?
« Reply #8 on: December 13, 2007, 03:18:14 PM »
Ill take your rec and add the 124 to my wishlist :)
... or just buy it :P



-EDIT-
what are your thoughts on this:
http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/item/LCD-107/365/24_CHARACTER_X_2_LINE_LCD_W__EL_BACKLIGHT,_USED_.html
only thing that bugs me is that its used.
« Last Edit: December 13, 2007, 03:40:04 PM by HDL_CinC_Dragon »
United States Marine Corps
Infantry
Returns to society: 2014JAN11

Offline airman00

  • Contest Winner
  • Supreme Robot
  • ****
  • Posts: 3,650
  • Helpful? 21
  • narobo.com
    • Narobo.com - Mechatronics and related
Re: LCD recomendation?
« Reply #9 on: December 13, 2007, 06:17:31 PM »
-EDIT-
what are your thoughts on this:
http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/item/LCD-107/365/24_CHARACTER_X_2_LINE_LCD_W__EL_BACKLIGHT,_USED_.html
only thing that bugs me is that its used.

Its not a serial LCD so you cannot use only one pin on your MCU

I prefer serial anyday ( not cereal    :D )
Check out the Roboduino, Arduino-compatible board!


Link: http://curiousinventor.com/kits/roboduino

www.Narobo.com

paulstreats

  • Guest
Re: LCD recomendation?
« Reply #10 on: December 13, 2007, 06:25:18 PM »
you need at least 6 free i/o ports on your mcu to use it (4 bit mode) and 10 i/o ports for 8 bit mode. You could tie the read/write pin and use 1 less wire but youd be better off with a serial display

Offline Admin

  • Administrator
  • Supreme Robot
  • *****
  • Posts: 11,703
  • Helpful? 173
    • Society of Robots
Re: LCD recomendation?
« Reply #11 on: December 13, 2007, 06:32:32 PM »
Quote
By the way, Admin, when can we have a tutorial on showing the map on a 256x128 display like that?
The $50 Robot + UART tutorial is 95% of the work. Then just do rprintf statements as needed by your specific LCD choice (the manual will explicitly say what you need to send).

Quote
well I guess you could program an alphabet into a memory registry(56k EEProm for ~80 chars at 1nibble each?)  and then have one eeprom for each language so if you need to reprogram for just a single language you only have to edit a single eeprom. So then send lets say "0x01 0b0101 0b1100 0b1100 0b0111" to the main language driver MCU which says "ok, he wants to pull characters in position 0101, 1100, 1100, and 0111 in that order from language 0x01" so then it takes those characters program in the eeprom of that language and then sends that character to the LCD driver.
Lets say it takes me 5 minutes to code each custom character, for 80 characters thats 6.7 hrs! I was hoping for a program that lets me draw the character and automatically determines the coding for me . . .

paulstreats

  • Guest
Re: LCD recomendation?
« Reply #12 on: December 13, 2007, 06:41:54 PM »
maybe you could make a program out in javascript and use it as another tool for the website.

I can see it being just a table filled up with picture boxes with onClick events that change the colour black/white.

ad.
most lcd's have a small amount of onboard memory for custom characters (if it displays a custom character, and you change the custom data - the display updates the new data automatically so you can also do some basic animating)



Offline HDL_CinC_DragonTopic starter

  • Supreme Robot
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,261
  • Helpful? 5
Re: LCD recomendation?
« Reply #13 on: December 13, 2007, 08:06:50 PM »
5 mins per character? What are you? human? pfft
United States Marine Corps
Infantry
Returns to society: 2014JAN11

Offline Ro-Bot-X

  • Contest Winner
  • Supreme Robot
  • ****
  • Posts: 1,431
  • Helpful? 25
  • Store: RoBotXDesigns.ca
    • Ro-Bot-X Designs
Re: LCD recomendation?
« Reply #14 on: December 14, 2007, 05:06:44 AM »
I would use a ATtiny26 to drive the LCD, then send serial commands to it from the ATmega8. This is a cheaper method to get a serial LCD.
Check out the uBotino robot controller!

Offline bukowski

  • Robot Overlord
  • ****
  • Posts: 219
  • Helpful? 0
Re: LCD recomendation?
« Reply #15 on: December 14, 2007, 10:57:19 AM »
Hey admin, ive seen some touchscreen LCD's that you can program custom characters in by "drawing" them onscreen. They worked pretty well, they were used as interfaces with CNC machinery at an aerospace co.

This is the first one Ive found online, I dont know if you can rip the coded data out of them, but you might want to look into it.

Offline bukowski

  • Robot Overlord
  • ****
  • Posts: 219
  • Helpful? 0
Re: LCD recomendation?
« Reply #16 on: December 14, 2007, 06:59:07 PM »
Fudge.
I forgot to post the link!! Im so smart.

Datasheet:
http://www.multilabs.net/Files/ezDISPLAY_2_0_User_Manual_Rev_A.pdf

Offline Admin

  • Administrator
  • Supreme Robot
  • *****
  • Posts: 11,703
  • Helpful? 173
    • Society of Robots
Re: LCD recomendation?
« Reply #17 on: December 17, 2007, 08:40:13 PM »
sparkfun just posted two affordable FULL COLOR serial LCD's!

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8537#

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8542

man, we never had all these neat thingies back when i was a young whipper-snapper (5 years ago)


Offline airman00

  • Contest Winner
  • Supreme Robot
  • ****
  • Posts: 3,650
  • Helpful? 21
  • narobo.com
    • Narobo.com - Mechatronics and related
Re: LCD recomendation?
« Reply #18 on: December 17, 2007, 08:47:00 PM »

man, we never had all these neat thingies back when i was a young whipper-snapper (5 years ago)


LOL     :D

cool color LCD , thats on my "Cool Stuff to Buy When I Get Extra Cash" list
Check out the Roboduino, Arduino-compatible board!


Link: http://curiousinventor.com/kits/roboduino

www.Narobo.com

Offline HDL_CinC_DragonTopic starter

  • Supreme Robot
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,261
  • Helpful? 5
Re: LCD recomendation?
« Reply #19 on: December 17, 2007, 10:42:08 PM »
That is indeed a great find :) but a bit higher than affordable for me lol. Affordable according to my wallet is anything that costs less than a school lunch lol
United States Marine Corps
Infantry
Returns to society: 2014JAN11

Offline ed1380

  • Supreme Robot
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,478
  • Helpful? 3
Re: LCD recomendation?
« Reply #20 on: December 18, 2007, 07:24:25 AM »
thats sweet. man i need to learn C, cant do anythig cool without it
Problems making the $50 robot circuit board?
click here. http://www.societyofrobots.com/robotforum/index.php?topic=3292.msg25198#msg25198

paulstreats

  • Guest
Re: LCD recomendation?
« Reply #21 on: December 18, 2007, 07:46:20 AM »
I want to use the 4.3" psp display that they stock.
$69
24 bit color
 :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)
They also sell the touch screen layer that fits on top of it

 


Get Your Ad Here

data_list