Society of Robots - Robot Forum

Software => Software => Topic started by: Alfa_Zulu on July 11, 2010, 12:32:46 AM

Title: help programming a serial LCD on $50 robot
Post by: Alfa_Zulu 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 (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.

Title: Re: help programming a serial LCD on $50 robot
Post by: waltr 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.

Title: Re: help programming a serial LCD on $50 robot
Post by: Alfa_Zulu on July 12, 2010, 08:06:18 PM

ok thanks

Title: Re: help programming a serial LCD on $50 robot
Post by: Alfa_Zulu 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?  ???