LCD Panels

[AlexDring]

I am trying to learn about LCD panels. How are they programmed and the basic functions on how they work.

I am interested in doing some tinkering with electronics and would like to see if I can add little LCD displays on my projects, but I get confused about what they are about and what drives them. Any help would be appreciated, maybe a training manual or anything. Thanks.

 

[Comcokid]

I assume you are refering to the small LCD modules that generally have 1 or more alpha-numeric lines by 8 to 16 charcters.

These displays have a controller chip built-in and are controlled by a serial or parallel interface.

There are a lot of hobbyist sites where people list information about how to use these. Look at a site, and begin searching the web for the termonology they use. A quick site I found:

http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~ih/doc/lcd/

I Don't know if how good a site it is.

If you are talking about graphical LCD displays, this is a different issue.

 

[AlexDring]

Comcokid

How different is it from graphical to character. Some of my projects I want the graphics on them, and understand them to be in depth. I just wonder if I have to buy and hardware to code the LCDs, that wont happen. I know the wife wont let that one fly.

I did find a site called EarthLCD, and they have ezLCD. It appears to be pretty resonable in price, but I am a little confused again on how you program the LCD. From what I got out of the site you do the coding from a computer. Is that possible or am I smoking my lunch? Ever deal with these people or concept?

 

[richs]

Hi-

Many of the LCD displays are based on the Hitachi controller
and has become almost a "de facto" standard. Most of them
do allow for doing "graphics". There are several good
examples on the web. Many use the PIC microcontroller.

There have also been some rather long threads here on this
website devoted to just such a display. But I think
that it was alphanumeric, not graphics. I'm pretty sure
that the Hitachi datasheet will show graphics.

I would suggest getting the critter up and runing in
alphanumeric mode first, then changing over to the graphical
mode to get things sorted out in a linear fashion.

And you can get away without having the wife notice the
hardware budget. A PIC programmer you build will set you
back less than $20.00. At microchip, they will let you
sample up to 5 devices for free (but it does take a long
time to get there) and they can be bought quite
inexpensively (like $3.50 or so for a middle of the
road'er that I used for my LCD display). My LCD display
which was a 2X16 was only about $7-$9 again mailorder U.S.

So we are not talking about a huge bit of money.

Now that I think about it, there WERE some articles on
interfacing that used a PC's printer port. Even less
money.

Wander over to google and do a search on Hitachi and LCD
and you will find quite a number of sites.

There are also some square LCD displays used on cell phones
that are starting to show up on some of the websites.
That might be more interesting for your needs.

Hope that this helps.

Cheers,

Rich S.

 

[AlexDring]

richs-

Do you have a link to the microchip that offers up to five samples. That would be great if I could get that. Were would I go to find a PIC programmer as you called it? Is it a person or hardware that I purchase?

 

[richs]

Hiu AlexDring-

The pic programmer is a little bit of hardware and a
little bit of software to put the program that you
generate into the microcontroller.

I use a "classic Tait" programmer (a professor that did
one of the early serial programmers for the pic. The
schematic and link to download site is:

http://ottawarobotics.org/articles/picprog/picprog.html

I built the breadboard in a couple of hours and has served
me well.

You can also find several low cost programmers ranging
from about $20.00 up. A quick search on google will yield
several of them. I like the one that I built, works for
me. YMMV.

You can go to the OEM of the pics for the 5 free samples

http://microchip.com

I think that if you click on the "sample" tag, it will
get you there. Please note that it took a LONG TIME to
get my samples.


There is also a very active group at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/piclist

And we can help with any additional questions.

If you go to the download for the PIC programmer that
I mentioned above, the fellow who did the programmer
software also has a very nice tutorial that you can
go through. Of course, there are also many many books
on the subject of PICs.

Enjoy.

Cheers,

Rich S.

 

[earthlcdceo]

The ezLCD is an intelligent lcd that can be controlled by any computer or microcontroller with high level commands even with a Basic Stamp. See how here:

http://www.earthcomputer.com/basicstamp.html

 

[automatic2]

couple of older panels I have are the Hitachi base. a 4 bit data bus and if I remember a 3 bit address. You can download any graphical character set but the device is alpha/numeric so you can only display within the display allowances, meaning a horizontal space between the two lines of display.