VFD/Graphic LCD Question

**blacklancer** · 06-28-2006, 06:28 PM

I searched, but I'm lame and couldn't find anything

anyways, I wanted to see if anyone has setup a carpc strictly for mp3's using a VFD/Graphic LCD as a screen. Just curious to see people input on this.

I also found www.simmetry.com, who has Touch Screen Graphic LCD's, which looked pretty cool to me. I was thinking you could set it up for Next, Previous, Volume, etc.

Let me know what you guys think. Thanks.

**piabu** · 06-28-2006, 07:43 PM

Originally Posted by blacklancer

I searched, but I'm lame and couldn't find anything

anyways, I wanted to see if anyone has setup a carpc strictly for mp3's using a VFD/Graphic LCD as a screen. Just curious to see people input on this.

I also found www.simmetry.com, who has Touch Screen Graphic LCD's, which looked pretty cool to me. I was thinking you could set it up for Next, Previous, Volume, etc.

Let me know what you guys think. Thanks.

I considered something along these lines:
headless carPC with no Video or touchscreen

The general view on this board seem be that carPCs necessarily come with VGA/graphic displays and using one of the frontends to manage the display.

If you want only mp3 functionality, it would be easier just to get an MP3 player and hardwire it into the car.

**DarquePervert** · 06-28-2006, 08:52 PM

Originally Posted by piabu

The general view on this board seem be that carPCs necessarily come with VGA/graphic displays and using one of the frontends to manage the display.

Considering that the early adopters of this hobby only had character LCDs to use, the newer VGA touchscreens are favored for the ability to actually see the OS. They provide for far mroe functionailty.

Nothing wrong with a character (or graphic) VFD/LCD. I intend to implement one into my ultimate plan, as well.

**scott_fx** · 06-28-2006, 09:02 PM

some front ends actually have character lcd/vfd support, i know that centrafuse does for sure (i actually ahve two vfd's just sitting in my room tempting me to install them

**blacklancer** · 06-29-2006, 11:28 AM

i have a screen in my car right now, but its an alpine cva-1006

i have a spare pc laying around, and i was just thinking about adding it for mp3 reasons. i have an mp3 player right now, but it doesn't hold 80gb

whats a decent video card that i could plug into the rca jacks on my headunit?

**Rob Withey** · 06-29-2006, 12:36 PM

Originally Posted by blacklancer

anyways, I wanted to see if anyone has setup a carpc strictly for mp3's using a VFD/Graphic LCD as a screen. Just curious to see people input on this.

Of course you can. Take a look at my first install here. First display was a dot matrix graphic lcd. Second display was a 20x4 character VFD.