LCD serial LCD backpack is about to go on sale

[ian]

I'm sending the sales page now. I think it'll be $16.95. That's USB and serial LCD control, USB upgradable, for the same price as the SparkFun serial-only backpack.

Backlight can be set from software. You may be able to hack it for software contrast control too. There's a solder jumper that connects the contrast voltage to the second PWM pin on the PIC. I didn't trust this to work for every LCD so it is disabled by default, but the potential is there.

USB and serial backpack for simple HD44780 character LCD screens. A few nice features set it apart from the usual serial-only LCD backpacks:

*USB and serial control of characters LCDs
*Supported in common software (LCD Smartie) as 'matrix orbital' display
*Adjust backlight from software
*Couple extra pins for buttons
*500mA fuse
*USB upgradable
*Open source (CC BY-SA)

Resources
Manual

[arhi]

"about to drop" ? you are saying price is about to drop?

btw one question wrt this device, how come I2C is not broken out, I use i2c slave board to drive lcd's for years, works like a charm (and I prefer it to i2c port expander as you can make it "smart" and ofload your main mcu)

[ian]

About to go on sale...

I didn't think about SPI or I2C, those would be great additions.

[arhi]

About to go on sale...

I didn't think about SPI or I2C, those would be great additions.

I have somewhere a project with two different 16F's one with hardware and one with software i2c implementation .. need to find where they are :) haven't used them for a while but I generally like to put i2c bus on my projects and add all output devices on i2c bus (lcd almost always)

[adamoutler]

Well? When is it going on sale? I'd like to get one...

You say LCD backpack... Is there an LCD included, or do I have to provide my own?

This is within my realm of interest. It would be nice to add this to an arduino project like LCD.println("foo"); or LCD.Scroll("bar"); it would make debugging very easy and quick without establishing a serial connection... maybe as a output device for the web platform, or last email received in evolution...

[ian]

Hi adamoutler,

I actually thought it was available now, but I don't see it in our catalog. I'll contact Seeed.

LCD is not included, it is just the backpack/driver board.

USB support is solid, but the serial UART input is still a work in progress. Actually, a serial-only firmware works great, but I've not blended it into a combined USB/serial firmware yet.

It would be quite easy to use for debug. It uses the simple matrix orbital protocol. A few bytes set it up, then you can send text just by sending characters out the serial port (serial.write("Hello world") ...Maybe? not very familiar with the arduino libraries).

[billse]

Ian,

Seems the board has finally shown up on seeedstudio. But it has been filed as a Nokia color lcd controller.

doesn't seem like i can post the url.

hopefully there is stock soon :)

[ian]

Thanks for the update. You're right, they're selling it as the Nokia knock-off LCD.

The HD44780 will be 16.95, same price as SparkFun serial-only backpack. They are moving it to a new page now.

The color nokia backpack is being sold at cost as scrap because we could never find a good supply of the displays. They're available for anyone who wants them, they should work, but there is no support whatsoever (well, I'll help in the forum, but no exchanges).

[ian]

Correct page and wording now online:
http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/usb-an ... th=163_169