hey all! just bought a 20x4 lcd off the old flea-bay http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/20x4-LCD-Modu...oryZ4660QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem thats the auction aaaaaaanyway. i want to run this display outside of my pc case, sitting right next to my main lcd, and was wondering what kinda enclosures people are using for externally mounted LCD's, so.....would people be so nice as to post pics of their lcds? also, if anyones got any idea of how to mount one of these into ANYTHING that i can find around the house would be much appreciated. im leaning towards the idea of a small case of some sort, an empty food one or something? also, would it be possible to run 2 hd44780 based lcds off ONE parallel port, and have them displaying data independently? i.e, one showing time and stuff, the other winamp and sys stats. THANK YOU AGAIN BIT!!!
Yes, but not without some external circutry. Also, you would probably have to write your own programs. Everything else should go in modding.
the hd44780 only has enough memory for 4x20 lines, 4x40 have to use two chips, with every data line connected together, except for the enable line. You could probably make a parallel port splitter that routes the first enable normally, and the second has the two swapped or something. You would set up the software to use a 4x40 hd44780 lcd, and the way the data was displayed would be a little wierd, what the sofware says is on lines 1&2 would probably cover the entire first LCD, and 3&4 would be the second. Or you could just get a USB parallel port converter, assuming the software supports those things.
Hi Bixie_62, Yes its me again. Try looking at http://www.lcdgallery.net/?f=view&display=20&start=0&order=desc&by=rating for pictures of LCD casings done by others. No its not possible to have two LCD's connecting to one parallel port displaying different data. ARM
oh it is, but you would reqire some external circuitry and your own LCD software. essentialy you would multiplex the two displays. so unless you good at programming, forget it
There used to be a guide on bit tech for mounting an lcd externally, it used a mic like this one: with the end cut off, this was then glued to the back of an electronics enclosure the housed the LCD. A good place for enclosures is: Teko Enclosures They also give away free samples for you to test the product before you put in a large order, which is always handy
hey all! thanx for that zerokool! will chase it up once the lcds in my hands! also... ive actually had an idea for a mount, which would look really really good next to my monitor. but...i dont have access to the machine tools or materials (acrylic!) does anyone know of a member who can/will/sells a service whereby they will machine some acrylic for you to a spec? thanx
It is possible to drive multiple LCDs from the same parallel port WITHOUT any additional hardware - all that is required is that you use a different pin on the parallel port to drive the 'E' pin on the LCD module. As long as the software can use multiple pins to provide the 'E' signal(s) no changes are required to the software either (The Linux boys already have LCDProc that can drive up to 6 displays). 4x40 displays already use two port pins for the 'E' signals as a HD44780 can only address up to 80 characters and therefore 4x40 LCDs contain two HD44780 chips each requiring its own 'E' signal. It is therefore possible to wire two (for example) 4x20 LCDs using the 4x40 connection strategy and drive them as a conceptual 4x40 display. In such a configuration the left hand half of the top line of the conceptual 4x40 would appear on the top line of the first 4x20 LCD, the left half of the second line of the conceptual 4x40 would appear on the second line of the 4x20, the right hand half of the top line of the conceptual 4x20 would appear on the third line of the 4x20 and the right hand end of the second line of the conceptual 4x40 would be displayed on the bottom line of the 4x20. The second 4x20 would be handled in a similar manner but this time using the data from the bottom two lines of the conceptual 4x40. The wiring for the data pins on both LCDs would be the same, i.e. D0-D7 on LCD 1 would be linked to D0-D7 on the second LCD and then to the appropriate pin(s) on the parallel port. Similarly the R/S amd R/W pins would be linked and then go to the appropriate parallel port pins. The 'E' pins (normally referred to as 'E1' [parallel port pin 1] and 'E2' [parallel port pin 17]) however would not be joined, one would go to the E1 pin in the 4x40 wiring strategy and the other would go to the E2 pin. Such an arrangement will display the data correctly but scrolling may not work correctly - if the conceptual display line 1 is set to scroll it is possible that the 4x20 will scroll data from line1 to line 3. This depends upon the software used - if it can handle scrolling half of a line (on the conceptual 4x40 device) then all will work correctly otherwise the scroll from line 1 to 3 will occur. It is also possible that not all systems will be capable of handling the loading imposed by two (or more) LCDs but the only way (that I know of) to find out is to try it. Finally, using such a configuration does mean that (for a two display system) the 'refresh' rate for each display will be half of that for a single device and thus it is possible that display flicker may be experienced - it all depends upon the basic refresh rate offered by the driving software. Good luck if you try this arrangement.
lol so 2 lcds off the same port is out of the question now.... what im going to be doing soon is moving my main pc into the other wing of our house, on the ground floor, and hook up to net wirelessly. the 1x16 display will be attached to this. the 4x20 will be attached to a PII box in my room, full of ram and hard drive space. now, what im stuck on is OS ive got access to win98se, win 95, xp home and linux (of course!) is there anything that will allow me to boot straight into an os to use the machine STRICTLY as an MP3 player? any ideas? any guides? will google in a sec. and once again, thank you arm, johnh and EVERYONE ELSE! r
On the mouning front mine is mounted in a double wall plug box with a blanking panel, leaves room for the wireing also got a couple of switches for some led's, a fan bus and the power/reset switches mounted right below it. Total cost less than a few pounds from B&Q was going to spray it black but never got round to it.
two lcds is easily possible on one port ask the makers of lcd smartie {and other apps} to add port polling pins and extra menu items then you can have a stobe output {3bit bin 3 pins of the port } up to say a max of 8 lcd becouse the max refresh of an lcd is 250 hz there will be more issues added connected to each lcd addition is the problem that extensions take time to program and makers need feedback direct to them to gauge wanted accepts to aps front ends and file {any port} addressing
hey well the idea of running 2 lcds has gone out the window. but anyway,ive managed to successfully backlight my 1x16!!and its nice!lol with some nice blue leds, looks a little ghetto, but hey, it does its job!
hehe well its here!! BUT it gets DAMN HOT! my temp probe told me 52c after 10mins runnning and im only supplying it the specifiied 5v contrast is dodgy, gna wire in a few 1k pots later on ta
What resistor do you have on the backlight? It sounds like you're not limiting current to the backlight enough.
aaaaaah i dont have a resistor on the backlight that mite explain something ive got access to 470ohm and 1k resistors, would either of these be suitable? thanx (will turn backlight off for now)
They're both a bit big. Something in the region of 10 to 33R would be ideal. Will need to be rated 0.5W though.
hey well just bought 2 10r resistors, and 2 33r resistors. also a 10k pot. how do i wire the 10/33r resistors in? just inline with the positive line of the backlight? thanx
