Stand Alone LCD

jasonlaronde

New member
I have a speaker demo unit that currently has 12 channels. It uses a simple 12-position rotor switch to switch between speaker sets on the wall and sends 3v to an LED to indicate which channel is on.

I'd like to know if there is an LCD that can be connected via serial or usb and programmed to display a message when each channel is active. Untimately i'd like to display the speaker name and price. I guess what i'd need is the ability to flash an lcd with either serial or usb and send a pin on the LCD high with the lead that is currently going to the LED.

Thanks!

PS- In the future what Id really like to to is use one of CrystalFontz keypads like the 635 with a built in keypad and be able to trigger 12 separate relays using the Programmable I/O on the keypad using a menu system. That way my staff could program the channel labels on the LCD with the onboad keypad and customers could navigate the speaker wall using the Up/Down arrows...

Any insight as to how I'd acomplish this? I know the onboard memory isn't that big but all I need to display is the speaker model name and price.... or at least the "CHANNEL 1" thru "CHANNEL 12" lables...

Jay
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CF Tech

Administrator
There is no simple way to do this. You would need some "smarts" somewhere in the system. A PC, or some embedded computer or something, then there would be the programming involved. Probably not feasible for a one-off.
 

jasonlaronde

New member
Custom firmware for a 635 using the 8 outputs from the LED's and 4 from the fan controllers would give me 12 controllable outputs and create an all in one solution without the need for external outputs.

All the firmware would have to do is display the channel lable "CH 1" thru "CH 12" and send the appropriate pin high... Hi current relays would do the rest of the work...

I program HTML and not firmware so I can't speak for the complexity.

Jay
 

CF Tech

Administrator
Ya, it is just hard to find someone who has the expertise to work on the module. We would have to charge an arm and a leg to do it here, and I do not have know of anyone else that would work on it. A similar project tried to fly over at http://www.pscodeveloper.com but there were no takers.
 

jasonlaronde

New member
what would constitue an arm and a leg? I have a spare kidney....

The cost is the cost and it's a project we've been looking at for a while...

Since none of use have the technical expertise the we need to go to the manufacturer...

We can fab the rest but as long as when we plug it in, the right pin goes high when we select that channel, thats all we ask...

The ability to individually name each channel via a fancy menu system would be more of a v.2 type idea

Thanks,
Jay
 
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