[sdiy] Cheapo LCD display

[Eric Brombaugh]

Graham,

Yes, the $0.50/ea price was definitely part of what attracted me to 
these displays. Once you get over the mechanical hurdles they're pretty 
simple to use too.

Absolutely agree about the issues of keeping the elastomer & PCB pads 
clean. That was my major hiccup - fortunately once I figured it out it's 
a non-issue. I do wonder about how much extant LCD-based equipment is 
going to have long-term problems with this and end up being retired from 
service as unrepairable even though the fix is simple.

Eric

On 09/22/2009 05:45 PM, Graham Atkins wrote:
> Hi Eric,
>
> You can't complain much at 1$ for 2 displays.... About a year back I
> thought my well cared for Fluke 79 had a faulty display. Some of the
> display segments were unreadable perpendicular to the normal
> plane and could only be seen at a very acute angle. After finding that
> the display was no longer stocked by Fluke spares, I did some Googling.
> I found someone with a different fault but it gave me the idea
> to remove the display and elastomer strips from the main PCB and, like
> you, I cleaned everything with IPA. There appeared to be some
> oxidisation on the PCB pads. Re-assembled it all and it works perfectly
> again.
>
> Graham
>
> On 23 Sep 2009, at 01:22, Eric Brombaugh wrote:
>
>> A few months back I came across a website that described reverse
>> engineering an inexpensive surplus graphic LCD display. I designed my
>> own board for it incorporating an inexpensive Microchip dsPIC
>> processor and I've been testing it out for the last few weeks. More
>> details here:
>>
>> http://members.cox.net/ebrombaugh1/synth/dsPIC_lcd/index.html
>>
>> Probably the most interesting applications running on it now are
>> simple proof-of-concept real-time Oscilloscope and Spectrum analyzer
>> functions. They're crude but functional and pictures plus source code
>> are available at the site above. Could be prettied up and extended (or
>> even combined into a multi-mode device) and might make an interesting
>> DIY feature for a modular synth.
>>
>> Comments / questions invited.
>>
>> Eric
>>
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>
>
>