Author Topic: help programming a serial LCD on $50 robot  (Read 1654 times)

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Offline Alfa_ZuluTopic starter

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help programming a serial LCD on $50 robot
« on: July 11, 2010, 12:32:46 AM »
hey,

I've done a little searching here on SoR but couldn't really find what I was looking for, I'm wanting to use the MCU from the $50 robot to output data to a 16x2 digit LCD, I have this one in mind, http://www.robotgear.com.au/Product.aspx/Details/428

can someone please either point me to another topic here that can teach me
or
Advise if this LCD will work for my needs and how they work, so far I know that serial connection means that I need to supply it was a + wire, a ground and a signal wire. However i have no idea what this signal is or how to program my ATmega8 to display text and values.

Thanks in advance  :D

EDIT: I've been doing some more reading on serial TTL interfaces and, correct me if i'm wrong but would a 16x2 LCD screen
need to receive 32bits of data, one for each character? but I'm still unsure how to send it commands and/or characters.
« Last Edit: July 11, 2010, 03:40:44 PM by Alfa_Zulu »
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Offline waltr

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Re: help programming a serial LCD on $50 robot
« Reply #1 on: July 12, 2010, 12:14:12 PM »
Did you go to Sparkfun's web site to download the data sheet on the serial interface? It explains what you need to send to display characters.
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Offline Alfa_ZuluTopic starter

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Re: help programming a serial LCD on $50 robot
« Reply #2 on: July 12, 2010, 08:06:18 PM »
ok thanks
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Offline Alfa_ZuluTopic starter

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Re: help programming a serial LCD on $50 robot
« Reply #3 on: July 12, 2010, 11:33:28 PM »
ok, I've looked at a 4 digit serial 7 segment display. I've read the datasheet and I think I know how to send the values I want displayed in a 4 byte signal. but when using an Atmega MCU do I have to use any special code to configure it to output a TTL Serial signal?  ???
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