[EE]Where can I find an 8 line by 16 character Hitachi 44780 based LCD?

[Wallace Yang]

Dear all,

Where can I find an 8 line by 16 character Hitachi
44780 based LCD?  It would be preferable but not vital
if it had a low power-consuming backlight LED.

Thanks.

Wallace Yang
U of T
Electrical Engineer, new grad
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[Jason Harper]

Wallace Yang wrote:
> Where can I find an 8 line by 16 character Hitachi
> 44780 based LCD?

I do not believe that any such thing exists.  The 44780 only supports
two lines of text; character displays with four lines either use two
44780s, or treat the bottom two lines as the right sides of the top two
lines.  Either way, the LCD columns have to be split in the middle, so
that the top and bottom halves of the display can be driven separately.
To do an 8-line display, the columns would have to be split into four
pieces, and it would be extremely difficult to make external connections
to the two middle pieces.

To get your 16x8 text display, you'd probably have to use a graphics LCD
module - 96x64 pixels would be sufficient if you used a 5x7 font with
one pixel spacing between characters.
        Jason Harper
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[Mike Hord]

> Where can I find an 8 line by 16 character Hitachi
> 44780 based LCD?  It would be preferable but not vital
> if it had a low power-consuming backlight LED.

Not too likely.  The biggest I've seen is a 4x40; anything
larger than 2x40 or 4x20 requires 2 44780s to drive it.

If you ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE 8 lines, 16 characters
per, you may need to look into using a graphical LCD
instead, and just drawing text.  I've never done it, but I
gather it's not too difficult.  In fact, I've heard some people
say that once they got over the hurdle of starting with a
graphical LCD, they use them for EVERYTHING, even
apps which only need text.

Mike H.

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[Alan Smith-10]

I'm going to explain best I can in simple terms....and I think there have been some on the list that has either looked at this or implemented it.
 
Essentially looking at using the existing celluar phone system to transmit data back and forth to remote modules.  Each remote unit would have a PIC (duh) collecteing data and storing it, where it would "phone home" now and then reporting what it found.  These are remote sites, so having a phone line there (that would be easier then) to call is not always possible.
 
So, questions:
1. Is CDMA the most widely used system in the states?  ie....want to make sure there is a service provider that can be interfaced with.
2. What does it take, given that a CDMA (or like) module is used, to interface to a cell system?  Obviously need a phone number established, but are they serial interfaced so you can activate it, dial and connect via that method?
 
OR
 
Are there cell phones now (my phone calls....gets calls.....has a voicemail box..so im not into tech phone gadgets) that have a built in serial port that you can simply do all of that just using the PIC UART.....dial....send serial data....hang up.
 
Think what I'd really like to see is to be able to log into a server and just dump the data...there isnt alot of it to transmit so even 56K would be more than enough.
 
 
Perhaps I am over simplying the whole thing.....

               
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[Spehro Pefhany]

At 04:30 PM 6/15/2005 -0400, you wrote:
>Dear all,
>
>Where can I find an 8 line by 16 character Hitachi
>44780 based LCD?  It would be preferable but not vital
>if it had a low power-consuming backlight LED.

I've never seen one with more than 4 lines, but of course that doesn't
prove anything.

The HD44780 has only 80 bytes of RAM, which limits the number of characters
(even when used with the HD44100 external expander chip).

So, such a display would have to have two HD44780s and two enable lines.

You could also use a graphic LCD module.

Best regards,

Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..."            "The Journey is the reward"
[hidden email]             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com
->> Inexpensive test equipment & parts http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZspeff


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[Peter Onion]

On Wed, 2005-06-15 at 16:00 -0500, Mike Hord wrote:

> If you ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE 8 lines, 16 characters
> per, you may need to look into using a graphical LCD
> instead, and just drawing text.

Like this ....

http://www.btinternet.com/~Peter.Onion/PhaseData/p002148.jpg

You'll see three font sizes on there.  Smallest gives 18x8 characters.
Middle size is 12x4 and largest is 4x2 (only digits in the font though)

>   I've never done it, but I
> gather it's not too difficult.  In fact, I've heard some people
> say that once they got over the hurdle of starting with a
> graphical LCD, they use them for EVERYTHING, even
> apps which only need text.

Yup, once you have a library written it's really easy.

Peter



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[Alan Smith-10]

OK...course right after I post....got thinking....of course.....cell phones have been interfacing with serial ports for a while...and sure enough there are cables...to plug into a usb port.  And drivers.
THats the hard part now.....the interface protocol.  Are there published specs on these?  


               
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[Mike Hord]

> THats the hard part now.....the interface protocol.  
> Are there published specs on these?

Please line-wrap your messages!  Just hit return
every 80 chars or so.  Makes life easier for some.

Check out www.bitpim.org.  It's an open-source
cellular phone interface program.  I gather that it
does both cell phone as a modem as well as
accessing phone book and ringtones.  I think the
modem part is called "BitFling".  I could be wrong,
though.

At any rate, looking at the protocols they used for
the PC program MAY give you some idea of how
to do ith with a PIC.

Of the four phone models I've used with BitPim
(LG VX6000, VX4400, VX8000 and VX7000),
all four supported a USB-to-Serial bridge, and
all seem to convert the signal to serial internally
anyway (i.e., Windows "sees" the phone as an
extra serial port).  The VX4400 didn't even support
native USB.

Good luck!

Mike H.

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[Marcel Birthelmer]

As far as I know (based on some USB/phone links as well as some PCMCIA cards)
they're generally just set up as a serial link with the actual I/O being Hayes
codes.
- Marcel


alan smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

> OK...course right after I post....got thinking....of course.....cell phones
have
> been interfacing with serial ports for a while...and sure enough there are
> cables...to plug into a usb port.  And drivers.
> THats the hard part now.....the interface protocol.  Are there published
specs
> on these?  
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Discover Yahoo!
>  Have fun online with music videos, cool games, IM & more. Check it out!



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[Bob Axtell]

below.

alan smith wrote:

>I'm going to explain best I can in simple terms....and I think there have been some on the list that has either looked at this or implemented it.
>
>Essentially looking at using the existing celluar phone system to transmit data back and forth to remote modules.  Each remote unit would have a PIC (duh) collecteing data and storing it, where it would "phone home" now and then reporting what it found.  These are remote sites, so having a phone line there (that would be easier then) to call is not always possible.
>  
>
What you are asking is happening right now. The PIC works great as a
data logger.

>
>So, questions:
>1. Is CDMA the most widely used system in the states?  ie....want to make sure there is a service provider that can be interfaced with.
>  
>
GSM and CDMA are split on useage in the USA. However CDMA is the more
advanced system, especially for data transfer work.


>2. What does it take, given that a CDMA (or like) module is used, to interface to a cell system?  Obviously need a phone number established, but are they serial interfaced so you can activate it, dial and connect via that method?
>  
>
The CDMA module must  be approved by the FCC and also approved by the
particular carrier you want to use. Pretty simple to activate, a
cellphone number is activated and the service established.

>
>OR
>
>Are there cell phones now (my phone calls....gets calls.....has a voicemail box..so im not into tech phone gadgets) that have a built in serial port that you can simply do all of that just using the PIC UART.....dial....send serial data....hang up.
>  
>
I have no idea.

>
>Think what I'd really like to see is to be able to log into a server and just dump the data...there isnt alot of it to transmit so even 56K would be more than enough.
>
>  
>
You can adjust the CDMA module to accept anything from 9600 to 115kb.
These are pretty smart modules. At first, its a few AT commands,
then your PIC requests PPP access, providing an destination IP
address#:port# as well as an account name and password. You can then
pass whatever is needed. Once you get past the 500pg manuals, its just a
primitive PPP account by means of a simple modem.

Look at www.wavecom.com .

>
>Perhaps I am over simplying the whole thing.....
>  
>
why not oversimplify? Make everybody else do the work- I'm old and tired.

--Bob

>
>---------------------------------
>Discover Yahoo!
> Get on-the-go sports scores, stock quotes, news & more. Check it out!
>  
>


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[Denny Esterline]

I don't believe such a critter exists, but this might be an alternative:
<http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=26206&item=752335761
5&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW> (watch for link wrap)

It's an 8 line by 24 character text only lcd driven by an on board 8051
variant with a serial interface. I bought a couple from him a while ago for
a project that was canceled.

-Denny

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

> Dear all,
>
> Where can I find an 8 line by 16 character Hitachi
> 44780 based LCD?  It would be preferable but not vital
> if it had a low power-consuming backlight LED.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Wallace Yang
> U of T
> Electrical Engineer, new grad
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[michael w brown]

From: "Wallace Yang"


> Dear all,
>
> Where can I find an 8 line by 16 character Hitachi
> 44780 based LCD?  It would be preferable but not vital
> if it had a low power-consuming backlight LED.

I doubt that they exist.  You might enjoy the abilities of something
based upon a Toshiba T6963 chipset as they usually have graphics and
text capabilities.  IIRC, the display I have can do 240H*128V pixels
graphically AND 16 lines * 40 chars text (or 16 lines * 30 chars)
simultaneously.

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[Stephen R Phillips]

--- Wallace Yang <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> Where can I find an 8 line by 16 character Hitachi
> 44780 based LCD?  It would be preferable but not vital
> if it had a low power-consuming backlight LED.
>
> Thanks.
>
As many have stated your best solution is a graphic LCD you can use a
128x64 for this purpose quite nicely. You do have to store your
character data in some sort of memory. Surprisingly you only need 480
bytes. This gives you 96 5x8 symbols for font data. This is assuming
that
1) you don't need custom symbols
2) you don't need anything biger than a standard 5x7 font.
3) you are using the ASCII symbol set from 32-127.
The standard 128x64 controler makes this kind of thing very easy.
you will get 21x8 instead of 16x8 though. If this is not a problem go
for it.  The cost in volume is very similiar to a 4x20 LCD. The added
flexibility though is priceless.

Stephen R. Phillips was here
Please be advised what was said may be absolutely wrong, and hereby this disclaimer follows.  I reserve the right to be wrong and admit it in front of the entire world.


               
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