Hey guys. New to the modding scene and I have been gathering materials for modding my Lian Li PC-60. I am really interested in modding in an LCD, and have purchased one already. A 20X4 to be exact. Bought it cheap so no wiring, but I have found all the wiring details thanks to you guys here at Bit-Tech and this excellent forum. However there is one thing I have not been able to find. Everything I have found has been for wiring through a D25 connector to connect to the printer port. Now I know you can buy LCD's with a USB controller, but I have not been able to find anything that shows how to wire one yourself. And yes I have searched for "LCD USB Wiring", "LCD USB Control", etc. Can anyone help point me in the direction as if this is even possible? Thanks.
Yeah, wiring a parallel or serial port version isn't all that bad, but once you get into USB, mine as well buy one premade.
Bah that isn't modding spirit It is understandable though. You'd think USB -> parallel would be easy, right? However, turning USB commands into parallel port commands is pretty hard if you want to DIY. I would recommend either searching for a ready-made daughterboard which does this for you (saves you circuit-bulding/programming) or just hook it to you LPT port
Do want a premade "add-on" card, or did you actually want to try and wire yourself? A quick search on dogpile.com for "HD44780 USB" yielded some stuff to look at: http://www.j-works.com/jsb815.html Prebuilt module for HD44780 character display http://www.beyondlogic.org/usb/usbhard.htm Go almost all the way down the page to the paragraph with "Code Mercenaries IOWarrior " This is just a couple, many more to look at
or you could use a uC and do it yourself. the question i have is WHY!? why do you want it on USB? also you can buy LPT adaptors for USB ment for printers, SOME of these will work. but once again WHY!?
Even if u can wire this thing yourself at a price cheaper than a ready-made USB module, what software are u planning to use with it? Are u a programmer and can roll your own? The ready-made USB software available out there are from Matrix Orbital and Crystalfontz, and neither of those USB converters mentioned by One~Zero specify compatibility with these two vendors (they are more for the experimenter than a practical product). If you are rolling out your own software, never mind. I would only attempt the USB converter route if there are no 25x4 or whatever format of your desire available ready-made, otherwise yer not saving $ and prepare to spend tons of time on the software. Parallel connection is not so bad, it's supported by ALL software, and with a spared PCI slots, buy yourself a $15 printer card with an internal header if u don't want to use your existing paralle port or do not want to run a loop-back cable from outside the case. U don't need all 25 wires of the DB25, at most 16 wires.
I want to know where I can buy these, and how do you know they work? From my experience all USB->LPT adapters create a virtual printer that your applications write to. All known parallel display software write to the printer's (hardware) registers directly, which they don't exist on a virtual printer. As to why, well, a single USB cable is reasier to work with than an ungainly DB25 cable, whether round or flat. I wired my own DB25 and it's lotsa work, if there was a flexible USB option I would have gone with that too.
Many USB-Parallel converters, such as the FT245BM, only give you the data bus, no control lines such as that used to drive the RS signal in most parallel LCD mods. So your best bet is to use a FT232BM or pre made USB-Serial adaptor, and a microcontroller to drive the LCD. Or use a USB microcontroller such as the new USB-ready 18F PIC's to drive the LCD directly, but this will require custom software and firmware. Serial LCD adaptors using PIC microcontrollers are available ready made, or you can download firmware and do the relatively simple hardware yourself.
I only wanted to point out that there are indeed 44780 USB versions out there, as BShep26 had mentioned that he couldn't find ANY when he did a search.
the hardware registers are memory mapped (380 default). the problem is (as said above) that they often miss out control lines. its very straight forward to use a RS-232 on a low end uC, even flash USB ready micros make usb a pain, hell usb is a pain.
so something like http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=381274&CatId=471 wouldent work? what about http://www.sealevel.com/product_det...5&USB_to_RS-232_DB9_Serial_Interface_Adapter_ to a pic micro that would do the serial-parallal? im just afraid that im not going to find software that can write parallal lcd data to a serial port...
That's fine, thank you. The more info the better. I just wanted to point out what to expect out of those items before one gives them the $.
Thanks guys. You have been a big help. The above reason by bobmister was one of the main reasons I was looking at going USB. I have so many of those ports and the cable is a hell of a lot easier to work with than a DB25. I rarely use my printer (mostly printing out guides and ideas from here ), but I am setting up a home network so I will more than likely move the printer over to gf's computer. The reason I had posted the question was I had not seen hardly anyone posting where they had done the mod with a USB controller. I know that there are already premade USB controllers out there, but where is the fun in that if you can't get your hands dirty?! Now I see that it is pretty hard and tedious and I really have very little programming experience, so it will be a no go on that end. Thanks for the help and I will begin a project log when I get everything started. See you around.
