On Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 5:48 PM, Mohan Sundaram <[email protected]> wrote:
> 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. > Yes, the cost is one of the reasons why it is better sourced here. > 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. > I will take a look at these links. The 16x2 lines are available here at ritchie street from Rs.150/- but these are all parallel interface. No serial interface. > > 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. > Sparkfun : My favorite shop! Inside India, they have a distributor in Cochin. > > 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. > Yes. Sub $15 is my target too. > > 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. > > A nice little project for a EC or EEE student who is interested in Linux/Programming. > 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. > > Great! I will get in touch with you off-list... Regards, Arun _______________________________________________ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
