On Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 5:48 PM, Mohan Sundaram <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 12:15 PM, Arun Venkataswamy <[email protected]> wrote: >> On Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 11:58 AM, 0 <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> > >>> > I do know of a few projects doing the same, but I want an India specific >>> > project which can use locally sourcable components. >>> > >>> >>> Can you provide us the links, if any ? It will help in getting a better >>> understanding on the project. >>> >>> >> Old project based on LPT port, mostly non existent today: >> http://www.mv.com/ipusers/cdwalker/lpt_driver.html >> >> A mature project: >> http://ssl.bulix.org/projects/lcd4linux/wiki/CoolStuff >> >> Another one: >> http://lcdproc.org/ > > For the hardware, look at CrystalFontz.com. I agree these are > expensive. I've integrated these for headless machines in 2001. These > used to come at $60-100 then. > > I work with LCD displays now. We can get displays at a price points of > under $10 for 20x2 and 16x2 displays. Most of these controllers come > with SPI and UART interfaces. Look up http://www.trulydisplays.com or > http:/www.everbouquet.co.tw. > > In the US, there is a DIY electronics site called Sparkfun > http://www.sparkfun.com and in India, we should get some such from EFY > site powered by element14. > > It would be a good thing to take cheap displays, make a USB to SPI > convertor board, a bay mountable fixture possibly with buttons. > Overall cost budget should be pegged at $12-13 which is achievable. > Typical components and prices are LDO $1.5 ( 5V to 3.3V), a > microcontroller with a USB device (PIC or MSP $1.5) and board would > cost approx $1 with passives. > > We may need a library to be written to provide high level functions to > be able to write formatted text etc or interface this to lcdproc. > > I've a hardware company that will work on this hardware for a small > payment, if someone can sponsor this. If someone can anchor the > software on the PC side, define the APIs to be implemented in > hardware, we could have a reasonable thing going. > > -- Mohan Sundaram
I think the PIC18/24 is better to go with as Microchip has a library that supports multiple display drivers from Ilitek, Solomon, Philips etc. This will give us the flexibility of choice of LCD modules that one would want to use. PIC also has a processor series in DA series which has an inbuilt display processor/driver. Only the display glass needs to be bought and interfaced. This is a little more expensive as its pin package is larger to interface to the glass. I'll recommend the first approach - likely to be cheaper and less hardware bound. -- Mohan Sundaram _______________________________________________ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
