Which LCD does Graphics+text

[Kosti]

Hello,
I'm not sure if you have answered this in your Forum elsewhere, as I'm interested and new to this LCD display stuff.

My first issue is I'm after a display that will do both graphics and text and to be HD44780 compatiable ?

Does a 16x2 do graphics and text or just the 20X4 and above.

Do I have an option for serial/parallel at these dimensions, doesn't this matter? Which is better ?Why?

What are the available colors that this type of 20x4 would come in.

Main issue, can I get it sent downunder (AUSTRALIA) or do you have a dealer here in Australia, Sydney, Melbourne etc

I saw your blue 16X2 CFAH1602B-TMC-JP can the character display color be changed from white to black ? Do you have a 20X4 with the same colour scheme ?

P.S. Sorry for asking so many questionsm hope you can point me in the write direction

Regards
Kosti
Sydney Australia

Crystalfontz LCD Blog

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[Uller]

HD44780 controllers cannot do graphics. They're alphanumeric-only. The only custom graphics possible are the eight 5x7 custom characters you can upload.

Regarding S vs P, parallel displays are considerably cheaper, but it's not ready-to-run out of the box. To attach them to a PC, parallel displays need either a "backpack" converter board (four companies make them that I know of for serial, and there's a USB one in development by Skylab PC) or to be wired directly to a DB-25 hood and plugged into the parallel port. And in the case of the parallel port, you won't be able to use the software out there for it if you're running a NT kernel system (NT4, Win2K, WinXP) unless it's been explicitly written for it.

Serial, on the other hand, is just a matter of plugging in a two-headed serial cable and setting a baud rate.

CrystalFontz' serial 20x4s AFAIK are only in standard black-on-green transflective positive. There's no way to change the character color in a display of that type, unfortunately - that's a transflective negative display, and what you're actually seeing is a pure white backlight shining through blue LCD liquid. Blue is hard to get right in transflective positive, unfortunately

Brent will have to handle whether or not there's an Australian or NZ distributor.

 

[Kosti]

Hey Uller,

Thanks for taking the time to point out a few things regarding the S vs P and some limitations of the HD44780.

I guess I'll have to check which LCD is suited for what I want to do, which is basically motherboard monitoring of heat, etc, seeing music artists would be a bonus.

Can you tell me, as I have seen some displays do EQ / Bar graph type displays when using under winamp, I think it was O/Cmod.com, can't remember, so is this just using a block to show music levels ?

If that's the case then I wouldn't require the graphic type.
Cool
Thanks again.
PEACE

 

[Uller]

If you mean these:

Then yes, a CrystalFontz unit will do fine. Those shots were actually taken with a 634 (serial 20x4).

 

[CF Tech]

Main issue, can I get it sent downunder (AUSTRALIA) or do you have a dealer here in Australia, Sydney, Melbourne etc

We are happy to ship to Australia!

For orders less than 2 pounds (1Kg) in weight, the ship rate is $30. This covers the vast majority of orders -- LCDs, cables, brackets, etc.

For international orders: simply place your order on our secure online ordering system and write "pre-approve shipping costs to Australia for $30" in the "Special Instructions" box on the checkout page to expedite your order. Otherwise, we will contact you with your order details prior to shipping to confirm shipping costs.

Here is the page with our complete international shipping policies:
http://www.crystalfontz.com/products/shipping-int.html

Please email us with any order-specific questions that you may have.

Thank you.

 

[Kosti]

Thanks guys for the replys, You will be sure to hear from us soon.

A friend is trying to gather the numbers to place an order as we don't want to be hit by import tax . His name is PapaSmurf and has posted here, questioning about frieght and costs etc. I have sent this thread to him via mail, so hopefully your will be sending stuff downunder.

Cheers

PS. I went to our local radio shack store here in Sydney and bought a cheap LCD to give it a whirl and see if I can get it to work. It's a standard 16x2 Dot Matrix LCD module with a built in LSI controller, KS0066, now I hope this is HD44780 compatiable , I guess I'll have to try and see. I asked the guy at the store and he could even tell me if it was a S or P type or if it was compatiable..

Anyway, thanks again and you'll be hearing of more for here in Oz.

Laterz

 

[CF Tech]

The KS0066 is a Samsung controller that I believe is generally compatible with the HD44780.

 

[Uller]

I hope it's compatible with 44780, since it's the chip on the CFAH parallel units ( It don't explicitly say so in the datasheet anymore, but it used to, and the initialization flowcharts are nearly identical to the samsung documentation )

About the only difference is that it runs at 300kHz instead of 250kHz, so it's got a slightly wider margin for timing.

 

[Kosti]

It really works

YEP, Finally finished wiring up the 16x2 LCD LSI controller KS0066.

**** this thing really works. I wired the LCD as per a diagram that I saw on this forum, I grounded the contrast (VO) and grounded the Read/Write Select (R/W) as I will only be writing. I also grounded pins 18-25 parallel, although I guess I could leave these unconnected.

15, 16 has been left unconnected as it doesn't have a backlit option on this LCD.

WOW, this is running something, now to figure out what to display as there are so many options.

PS> crystalfontz, I believe we have placed an order with you guys, hopefully they arrive with no hassles, can't wait for the 634 type LCD, oh yeah and the blue one.

Thanks again
Will keep intouch
Kosti