Thread: has anyone fooled with the 40x4 LCDs?

I wrote some code to control a 40x4 with dual 44780 controller chips on it. I wrote a small class in Delphi to control the LCD from Windows. You have to treat the display as two separate displays. In your string output routines you have to use the 2nd enable line for the display rows connected to the second controller. I believe the first controller chip handles the odd rows and the second controller handles the even ones.

My interface was different than your application -- I was using a serial interface I developed so I could run a single piece of cat 5 network cable to the front of the car to connect a keypad and LCD plus provide a regulated 5V.

I once got a hold of about 6 old SCSI drives from some Sun 3 computers -- 200 MB each -- I made a custom cable that had non-standard wire colors. To make a long story short, by the time I realized what had happened, I had crossed the +5V and +12V lines on all 6 drives!

I can dig up the code I wrote to help you if you need. Beyond the serialization / deserialization code the interface is the same as what you are doing.


--Jason
http://www.m2pc.com

[This message has been edited by jjohnson (edited 01-06-2000).]

Testing, 1, 2, 3...