I am new to this whole concept. I have just recently began the process of putting a PC in my car to play MP3's. I'm really in the research phase of this project. I already have a spare PC (small form factor) ready and built and ready to go. I'm just waiting on my power converter to arive in the mail.
My question for now is: I want to attach one of those little 40X4 LCD displays to my dashboard. From the reading I've been doing, almost all of the installs I have seen have required some sort of rewiring and soldering of wires to get these things to work. Now, I am NOT an electrician. I'm a computer nerd, but not an electrician. I really don't feel comfortable doing that. Is there anyplace where I can buy one of the LCD's that just has a serial or parallel cable that just plugs into the PC? The simpler the better in my opinion.
I'd probably be willing to do the wiring if I had instructions. Are there any good step by step instructions out there?
Thanks.
SirCyRo
give it a shot yourself, it aint that hard!
to be honest, if your not too keen to get into things electrically minded maybe your a bit over your head before you begin? All these things are trial and error anyway and you do learn from past mistakes......
Project - GAME OVER :(
Yeah - I learnt by trial and error to not leave my 40 x 4 lcd on the floor. My little brother decided to kick it about like a football and now all it displays is crap...
Ahh well - the wiring should take you about 10 minutes odd but make sure you can mount it where it aint gonna get bust first - think it through!
The wiring is really easy, but if you want to fork out about 3 times as much you can probably buy a pre built matrix orbital serial display. To wire up the displays, here is a few essential tools:
- A display (makes sense really...)
- A Beeping Multimeter so you can check your solder joints
- Some wire (I just cut up old cat5 network cable)
- A soldering iron (again pretty essential)
- Parallel cable to cut up and fix to the lcd (or just the ports)
- Potensiometers (variable resistors) of the correct values (get linear not logaritmic scale ones)
- Pliers
- Header to fix to the character display (likely to be 8x2)
Or reverse gender of the conector currently on there
- Solder, and something metal and not too precious (e.g. old saucepan) to rest your soldering iron on
- Beer (to celebrate with when you plug everything in and see trippy winamp plugins)
Beer Warning
Unless you're feeling pretty wasted already, don't drink while soldering a display. You will either burn youself or the display. However, beer is esential for when everything is working...
Anyway, I will be posting more info on my review site when I get everything sorted. If you need any more info, post here or pm / email me
Andrew
Mediabox Hardware Project
Current Stage: A complete redesign, although not much happening right now!
Mediabox Software Project
Status: Writing Sync Software (still) and playing around with interface
To do: Far too much!
I don't think I'm in over my head. I've got 5 computers, 3 of which I built myself. But building PC's is pretty simple. Anything like that is simple when Wire A is designed to plug into Plug A. But when there is no WireA, and I have to build it myself, I get a little nervous.
I'm not afraid of doing it. I just need to be educated on how to do it. Like what wires go where.
I am fairly confident I can get the computer in the car and have it play MP3's through the Aux portion of my stereo. I can get the Winamp and Macro Magic setup, with multiple playlists. But I wanna see what's playing, so I need some help with the display.
Posting Permissions
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks