Hi, I'm buying a pair of CrystalFontz graphical serial LCD's in the near future, I was just wondering if it would be possible to run both at the same time? What my plan is, is to have both LCDs mounted side by side near the top of my case. Then, perhaps while WinAmp is playing or something, I could have a VU meter and spectrum analyser for the left channel display on the left LCD, and right SA/VU mryrt display on the right LCD for the right channel. I just don't know if it's possible to do this? I quick search of the forums didn't turn up anything, so I'm left clueless. Any help would be appreciated, thanks. ArsoN.
If you have two serial ports yes, wether you can run two versions of the software at the same time i dunno about. Chrix/Cheese will be able to give you a better idea.
Amother solution, have 2 seperate LCD software programs. Each is assigned a different serial port. Thats if you cant get 2 of the same waorking (hint: have the software installed in 2 seperate folders to make things easier.).
Dude, you are a genius, I never thought CrystalFontz had a forums (I have to admit, I never really payed attention much to the site other than specific display information), but, the software they supply (CrystalControl) suports multiple LCDs. Damn, I wish I'd thought of that. Anyway, for anyone else browsing looking for the same answer in the future, here's the link.
You could also try and 'plex two onto one port, allough you would only be able to update one at a time a VU meter isn't a big bandwidth hooger. One other thing, don't be affraid to role your own, making a VU meter winamp plugin, is sooo simple, there is an example in the SDK!
In the first post, you said "graphical" "serial". We sell "graphical" and "serial" but not a "graphical + serial". Which specific model are you looking at?
Arson> post pix if you manage to pull that off! crystalfontz> why are you 128x64 graphic LCD's sooo small and you 4x20 USB character sooo big
Essentially, what TheAnimus is referring to is the Chip Select line, which basically turns something on or off. By using this (assuming whatever you're driving HAS CS lines), you can connect all the data lines together (probably using some glue logic). Then, using some conveniently spare lines, you hook each CS line up to its own output from the PC, and essentially use them to enable one device at a time - that way, even though the data is going to both devices, only one will be listening (or talking back) at any given time. You could be really clever, and set a single control line up so that a logic 1 would enable one device and disable the other, and vice versa - easy to do with a little logic. I'm not sure that made any sense, but after a day of trying to teach various uninterested students to program, my brain has had it.
