Fun with LCD's

[Case]

Say hello to TWO Planner EL displays (Electro Luminescent)

http://fearstyle.com/lcdsPic1.jpg

http://fearstyle.com/lcdmodelpic.jpg

I will post soem more images soon I have been working on two projects one for each.

One is a multipurpose display for my daily tasks and another for my entire Sal****er tank with a controller to automate allmost all the chores id normaly have to do by hand with a sexy readout :)

[Case]

To give you guys a quick idea what they look like on this is some one else i know he has his hooked up to his PC using LCD Studio and simmiler SED Controller http://fearstyle.com/beta1.jpg

[pastrychef]

Whoa! That looks stunning!!! Do you have a link to how that was done? I'd love to have something like that on my desktop...

[Al]

That does look very cool Case, I'm now thinking of uses for it (any excuse for more gadgets).

[Case]

These LCD's are powerd by a SED chip ironicaly the epson SED im using is used in dot matrix printers so its feeding from a paralel port and thinks its a printer and its actualy how it draws the data on the screen... :)

Im goign to postm ore photos and more details of what i did were and the sed controler board that was made up maybe tonight or tomarow... Right now girlies are pulling me out for drinks and omg when shes got friends its REAL hard to turn her down...

[Case]

http://www.c3fx.net/img/lcd/sed2-small.JPG

Ok your looking at the custom PCB that i had made up from a friend he goes by C3FX on the LCD boards i hang out on.

EL160.80.50 (pending support for a 160x80 display)
EL160.120.39 (should work by design, but I don't have one to test with)
EL320.240.36HB
EL480.240-PR2
EL640.200-SK

the design on this board is real nice as you can see it will supply the LCD power from a standard floppy drive style power cable on the left and also take the SED power from this connection. The top left set of pins are for the dara feed to the parerlel port. Built in reset button. the JP7 jumper is a simple way to put the LCD in test mode. To do this normaly you have to cross 2 of the wires on the ribbon cable to the lcd and this can be a pain so this makes it easier.

The ribbons have a custom headder made by Samtec they only sell in large Qty's but if you go on thier website you can request free samples custom built to your spec and they just over night them to you free :)

[Case]

http://fearstyle.com/stuff/scolllcd.jpg

Initialy i had some problems as you can see here... This was due to the fact the controller software i was using at the ff the PC was LCD Studio and was not properly configuring the LCD's size corectly so i had to edit config files to the correct size of the panel

At first i thought i wired the LPT cable wrong...

JP1-1 (/RD) goes to LPT-17
JP1-3 (/WR) goes to LPT-1
JP1-5 (/CS) goes to LPT-14
JP1-7 (A0) goes to LPT-16

JP1-9,11,13,15 (ground) go to LPT-18 thru 25

JP2-16 (2,4,6,....) are D0-D7 go to LPT-2 thru 9, starting at JP2-2 to LPT-2 and so on.

So you can see its a bit tedious and i had to double check it. When you configure your software on a PC you have to state what pins are doing what. So its important to know ahead of time when you make the cable up.

Just so you guys know im just givign a quick over view of what I did right now I will give a better detaield step by step as i get all the data together.. its just scatterd all over the place and I am still working on a final version of all of this.

[azn1art]

Any Idea where I can find this board? I might add it to my Xbox.

[Case]

The controller or the LCD?

The controller is custom made with SED1135 Chip you can buy any were these boards all all hand made.

The LCD you can find used on ebay they rip them out of old equipment all the time but BUYER BEWARE the LCD MUST COME WITH THE POWESUPPLY she needs the PSU that is on the back of this thing thats why the back of the LCD is so beafy looking its the PSU and can be removed but worth money so they tend to try to scrap the LCD sell it for 20 bucks and sell the PSU to a vendor.

[Case]

Just found the packing slip on the Samtec cables... The model #'s you make your self on thier website to determin how the spec of the cable is

For these LCD's you need the following: TCSD-12-D-12.00-01-N

Thats for the longer cable version

[azn1art]

Just found the packing slip on the Samtec cables... The model #'s you make your self on thier website to determin how the spec of the cable is

For these LCD's you need the following: TCSD-12-D-12.00-01-N

Thats for the longer cable version

Ok Thanks, Time to start searching..

[Case]

wish you luck the planar EL lcd's are sweet

[Hoomamooma]

Wow, that's pretty awesome. I've seen some before but they are always way smaller than that.

[Case]

Yea the large Planar are stunning and a eye popper when you see them The responce time on them are amazing too infact they are far faster than the sed chip im using so Id love a better controller but thats a whole nother headach

[Hoomamooma]

Oh, I didn't even think about the response time! It's good to hear that it performs as well as it looks.

[Case]

I should post a video but id have to make that and im being lazzy

[jacubilloro]

WOW! That is one really nice LCD you have!!!
I've played before with a nokia 3310 LCD screen, and a standart 2x 20 character LCD, but this is so much more interesting.
I don't know why, but I tend to get scared by large graphic LCDs...

[Case]

These things are a lot of fun trust me its worth the work and the trouble to get her running

[jacubilloro]

I have one old LCD on my junkbox, but I was never able to get any info about it or the controller... What a shame.

[Case]

What is the model # on the LCD and mfr might need to make a controller

[jacubilloro]

Right now I'm at work, but once I get home I will look for it and tell you the #s.
Looks like you are some expert ont his subject.

[Case]

nahh i just a electronic geek i like to tinker :)

[jacubilloro]

Me too... Al should create an electronics section here...

[Case]

I think he should id fill it in a heart beat you have no idea... I have tons of notes apon notes apon notes...

[jacubilloro]

If you think about it it would be better to have an electronics section on HackADay forums...

[Case]

No because last thing i need is 3 more forums i have too many i belong to now..

[jacubilloro]

So then, how do I tell Al to create this new section???

[Case]

Sugestions section make a thread.

[Alan the Great]

Speaking of LCDs -- I was taking apart my old game boy color (i do that sort of thing; don't lie you all do it too) and found that the color LCD screen is in perfect working order, and the ribbon cable detatches/reattaches from the board easily. it just clicks right in and out. Keeping in mind that i'm only an amature electronics geek, having only made a few iPod accessories, any suggestions?

Here's a picture; maybe not the highest quality, but whatever. As previously mentioned, the screen pops right out.
http://img224.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dscf0001qo7.jpg

[jacubilloro]

Google for gameboy hacks.
I bet there are tons of cool projects using this LCD.
Or you can also just give me the screen... :)

[Alan the Great]

I looked there first... it's all for advance and DS and stuff. I really don't know anything about LCD screens, tho, or i'd do something cool with it. Maybe a computer readout, like at the beginning of the thread.

[jacubilloro]

Check my reply on your thread about the mp3 player LCD :)

[Case]

get me a model # i might be able to find you a controller

[Alan the Great]

Thanks for the offer, but stuff like that is just a google away.... thanks anyway tho. I'll edit this with a model number later, anyway.

Edit: The LCD seems to mostly run from a specialized CPU. I can't see a model number. Also, Nintendo tends to be kinda...secretive about stuff like this.
http://forum.sharpsma.com/viewtopic.php?t=17&sid=40e14655397331de1823e883e5af7e22

[Case]

Screw nintendo.... ill see if i can find a data sheet and if any one has controller sugestions

[Alan the Great]

lol, thanks.... if i can't get it working, i might just give it away or use it as a *gasp* game boy screen.

[Case]

well I found wiring information for gamyboy LCD's of the non color kind, im working on the color LCD Wiring diagrams so yes its most likely possible.

Jsut dont do what this one noob did and tried to sodder with the +5 line conected and fried it on one forum i came across...

[Case]

http://www.devrs.com/gb/files/gameboy2.gif

Above is the schematic and the link below is the docs needed...

http://www.devrs.com/gb/docs.php#faqs

Edit:

According to Jeff Frohwein's GameBoy FAQ it is possible but complicated. The LCD interface to GameBoy is very similar to other large screen LCDs in that a CRT controller is really required. The reason for this is that all 23,040 pixels (160x144) have to be written or "refreshed" 60 times a second the same way that a TV has to constantly redraw or else there won't be any picture. This is required even if what your trying to display is static and never changes. This is all the info I have at the moment. I am still looking into some form of a controller board/chip for this.

[Alan the Great]

Thanks, i'll see what i can do... might be a bit beyond me, but i'll give it a shot.

Edit: I really don't know much about LCDs, and this appears to be a very difficult one anyway, so if i could i'd send one of you the screen to the gbc. But it was a gift, so i can't do that. Complete subject u-turn: Old monitor = crt controller?

[jacubilloro]

Case:
Here is the info for the misterious LCD I have.
It's a HITACHI (At least that's what it says on the pcb...) LMG6782XNFR.
Some other numbers on the pcb are:
97-34021-1
NPH-2180
67-2130-01
E85464
F1020-80022
I was going to take some pictures of it, but It seems my camera is damaged... :(
Ok Case, it's your turn now to amaze me with info about how to control this sucker.

[Case]

Jac, ill take a look tomarow im being a lazzy bum at the moment :)

if your lucky you wont need to get a controler adn wire stight out to a lpt or usb but we will see

[Case]

no way u can get a pic? and ur not sure witch is the model #? also do u know what kind of LCD it is?

for thoeso f you who want to buy LCD's u can look around here http://business.search.ebay.com/LCD_Electronic-Components_W0QQcatrefZC12QQcoactionZcompareQQcoent rypageZsearchQQcopagenumZ1QQfromZR10QQfsooZ1QQfsop Z1QQftrtZ1QQftrvZ1QQkeywordZonQQsacatZ4659QQsaprch iZQQsaprcloZQQstrkwZQ20lcd

I would sugest gettign the model numbers and figure out what you want to do with it and see how easy or hard it will be before buying any thing.

I am a sucker for the blue graphical LCD's :)

[jacubilloro]

Ok, For a picture, it's not the exact same one, but it's practically the same:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Lot-of-4-Graphical-LCD-Displays_W0QQitemZ260023986630QQihZ016QQcategoryZ2 6206QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
It looks like the big ones.
I'll try to fix my cammera and take some pic of it.

[Alan the Great]

OK, I want to get into LCDs.... I think that for my first project, I'm going to make a readout of my computer's CPU temperature and speed, using a screen something like this.
http://cgi.ebay.com/HD44780-20X4-Character-LCD-Display-with-BLUE-backlight_W0QQitemZ320020575462QQihZ011QQcategoryZ 26206QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Comments, oh LCD masters?

Edit: I have no idea how to use these things, and the web site that i found is confusing. Do any of you have any suggestions for an LCD newbie such as me? If i can figure out how to edit text on them in real time, i can set one up to display the CPU data.

[Case]

Jac: im workin on it... see if u can get me a positinve confirmation on whats the model #

Alan: well my question to you is how comfterble are you with soddering and general electronics building? Generaly with a LCD it will come down to at the very least getting ribbon cable, stripping it and sodderign the leads fro ma electronics diagram and makign a cable end for it either to a prarlel or usb port.

At the very most unless you have some insain LCD that has special requirements like the gameboy color, is buying a bunch of electronic components to create a controller for the LCD with cables to connect it... Getting it to work on a computer is not the hard part. If the LCD is in good condition its not all that hard.

With that being said they do sell un finished kits for you to do and also in the next few days ill be posting a bunch of electronics tutorials on the forum in the DIY section to help you guys understand and read schematics being that some people have all ready asked how to do that and were to learn. So other than books that i can recomend im going to post a ton on information for general electronics for creating your own things..

Now if your comfterble with being able to handle this and want to learn I would sugest looking up on various LCD websites and i will link tons soon enugh... and see what projects people have done with what comonly availble LCD's so you will have a easy time finding what parts you need and a good rule of thumb to follow.

[Alan the Great]

I'm pretty good with electronics/soldering, and i can read a schematic, i just don't know anything about LCDs. Thanks for the heads up; I'm gonna get a cheap LCD from Hong Kong that would cost 20 bucks at the local electronics shop (queale) and play around with it. Looking forward to those tutorials; thanks for being such a help to everyone in these forums.

Edit: I've been reading up on it, and I now understand how to control these. For anyone just starting out (like me), I found an easy-to-understand tutorial on setting one up with your computer.

http://lcdsmartie.sourceforge.net/

[Alan the Great]

Why is no one talking on this thread anymore?

[Case]

Im not a big fan of the plain old charector based LCD's graphic LCD's are far more entertaining :)

also im not too fond of thier software i liek to use LCD Studio for my PC easier to make plugins for it

[Alan the Great]

Yeah, but i can't afford one of those; so nyaah.

[Case]

They arent very expensive at all http://cgi.ebay.com/Blue-backlight-128x64-graphic-LCD-module-KS0107_W0QQitemZ230021975459QQihZ013QQcategoryZ363 32QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/JE-AN-128x64-Graphics-LCD-Display-Module-led-B-L_W0QQitemZ270023079854QQihZ017QQcategoryZ72349QQr dZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Standard-Graphic-LCD-Module-Blue-White_W0QQitemZ170023790455QQihZ007QQcategoryZ2620 6QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/Crystalfontz-128x64-Graphic-LCD-module-CFAG12864B-YYH-N_W0QQitemZ120025662129QQihZ002QQcategoryZ26206QQr dZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[Alan the Great]

Thankyouthankyouthankyou I Was Looking On Ebay For Those And Couldn't Find A Single One For Under 30 Bucks!!!!!! Thnx Alot Now I Have A Few Ebay Stores I'm Going To Stop Shouting Now

[Case]

lol yea when your on ebbay looking for any electrical components do your search from inside the

Home > Buy > Business & Industrial > Industrial Electrical & Test > Electronic Components (http://business.listings.ebay.com/Industrial-Electrical-Test_Electronic-Components_W0QQcatrefZC4QQfromZR40QQfsooZ1QQfsopZ1 QQsacatZ4659QQsocmdZListingItemList)

Section basicaly thats were you can find any thign ur lookin for component wise so i go to that section and than search... so if you type graphic LCD you will get what your lookin for.

thats also were you get LED's cheap in packs of 1000 :)

Heres a example 1 1/2 pound of un used resistors (http://cgi.ebay.com/Big-Lot-Resistors-1-1-2-pound-Never-Used_W0QQitemZ300020880315QQihZ020QQcategoryZ36338 QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)...

[Alan the Great]

Yeah... funny thing is, that's what i did. Just found a bunch of crappy ones, but now that i know those stores, i can find them. BTW, i won the ebay auction.... lcd gets here in 7-15 days.

[Case]

cool witch one did you get?

[Alan the Great]

http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=011&item=320020575462&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWN%3AIT&rd=1

[Case]

cool cant wait to see her running :)

Id sugest getting a header and sodder it on instead of soddering wires directly from mouser... so you can connect and disconenct the cable easily makign it cleaner and easier to work with.

[Alan the Great]

lol, probably not as much as i do....

I'm fortunate enough to have an electronics supply store a couple of blocks away, so that's probably what i'm going to do. Are there special headers that are made for LCDs? that would take a lot of the chance for errors out of soldering to a cord. Considering the small screen, i'll probably have several different screens that start up with winamp, firefox, etc.
I found an old drive bay cover, so i'm going to make a setup like this.
http://img390.imageshack.us/img390/9575/thingyzl7.th.png

[Alan the Great]

The tracking isn't working, so i'm just hoping that it'll get here soon.... lots of pics when it does.

[Case]

usualy with ebay electronics ifind a ton of stuff that comes from china and japan even batteries all ways gets here in weird packaging and no way to track it but yet to have any problems so dont worry yet :)

[Alan the Great]

lol thanks, i wasn't planning too.... though i do have a bit of a weird history with ebay... come to think of it, that might have been with something from asia too.

[Case]

See a good shipper over seas knows to lable it as a "Gift" its less likely to get inspected and delayed

[Alan the Great]

Yeah; i think the last thing i got from asia was labled like that... it was a disc brake set for a mountain bike; but it doesn't fit on bikes over here. Turns out European size standards are different then Canadian.

[Case]

yea it is... I am hard ass with dick brakes for bikes theres only a few i trust things can go way to wrong if they fail...

[Alan the Great]

Actually, i've never heard of dick brakes... sounds painful.
I'm going mountain biking in a few minutes, so i'm not going to leave a really long post.

[Case]

lol i ment disc :)

But ive watched guys were the brakes failed goin down a rocky traverse makes me want to cry...

[Alan the Great]

I left a post here, but it didn't take. I forget what it said, but here's an all-purpose, new and improved, teflon-coated post with a 454ci hemi and a blender.

[Case]

what where and the who now....

[Alan the Great]

I hear the new version has an integrated Virtual Daschund.

[Alan the Great]

WOOT IT CAME IT CAME IT CAME...

soon follow-up post with lots of pictures.

[Alan the Great]

It doesn't work.... for some reason, the info is getting sent to the backlight. What i mean by that is, i can see the backlight dimly flickering on and off whenever something scrolls in LCD Smartie. The thing is, my wiring is fine and the module is HD44780 compatible.

[Case]

Check the wriiting check that your are outputting corectly from the applacatation and also try LCD Studio and make sure the driver is installed correctly.

[Alan the Great]

Just to be on the safe side, i'm re-wiring it to a parralell extension cord. Easier to read the schematic, anyway. All this happens as soon as i get a solder sucker, hopefully today.

[Alan the Great]

Same issue as last time.... if i unplug it from the molex, the backlight gets brighter and dimmer as the text scrolls on the computer. If i plug it into the molex, the squares either just sit there, turn on and off with the text on screen, or disappear completely. I'm investigating a contrast issue....

[Case]

well lets test the LCD it should have atest pattern run that if its ok than we know the LCD works... some itmes its a bit tricky with the software end id recomend trying LCD studio

[Alan the Great]

I did; its only good for graphical LCDs it appears. Whenever it's scrolling, the backlight flashes on and off in time with it. The test pattern does appear. Can someone please unplug their LCD from the power but LEAVE IT IN THE PARALELL and tell me if the backlight flashes when text scrolls... right now, i'm testing something out with the contrast to see if that's the particular wiring screwup that's causing this.

[Alan the Great]

i, um, found the problem............

it's wired up perfectly. But... its reversed.

I'll fix it later tonight, if i have time. It's 9:11 PM here right now.

[Alan the Great]

I fixed the wiring. It's perfect now. And guess what?
I turned on the computer and LCD Smartie with the lcd plugged in, and saw nothing. I turned the potentiometer around and saw shining, in all its glory....


a FUCKING TEST PATTERN. PLEASE give me a hand here, SOMEONE.

BTW, the backlight still flashes. Don't know why. LCD Smartie is configured right, and LCD Studio doesn't seem to do anything but graphical LCDs. It's now been about a MONTH of me trying to get an LCD into my computer.