Simple Nokia LCD breakout board

Arup wrote a guest post about his Nokia LCD breakout board:

I designed a simple Nokia LCD Breakout board which allows you to interface any Nokia 6100 compatible display to microcontroller like PIC and AVR. The board itself provides 6.8volts for the backlight by a simple boost converter built up using a common 555 timer IC. There’s a switch to choose whether you want to work with 5V logic, or with 3.3V logic.

Reasons I started this project:

• Color Nokia LCDs are inexpensive.
• Currently available breakout boards are too costly. Sparkfun has one at 35$.
• With selected parts and the LCD, the total cost of parts comes in 5$. If we consider 1$ for board, then it barely costs 6$. **Cost may differ from countries to countries.

Features of this board:

• 5V and 3.3V logic selectable by a switch.
• Uses easy DIP components and also for the SMD components a room is provided such that parts from 0603 to 1206 and even 1809 can be soldered in same pad for some components. This eliminates the need of good experiences in soldering SMD components.
• The LCD is placed over small and SMD parts by a bi-sided foam tape. Large DIP and SMD parts as inductor, 555IC, switch etc are placed in other side.
• Can be placed on breadboard for interface by PIC, AVR etc and since the LCD uses SPI interface, you can use BusPirate to talk to it also.
• You can replace the parts with any near valued parts, about 10% tolerance will have no negative effect.

Compatible LCDs include Nokia 3100, 3120, 5100, 6100, 6610, 7210, 7250, 2600 (costs 3$), 1600, 2650, 2652, 3200, 5140, 6220, 6225.

Documentation and files are available in the forum, PCBs will be available soon.