HMI Touchscreen Recomendation

Steve M

Can any one recomend a touchscreen, ·or maybe an LCD and keypad, ·for the basic stamp family (I have a BS2 now, but·would be willing to buy a different one if it made the interface easier).

I need to input a handful of different numerical values (about5~6 characters each). and I would like to be able to see these inputs on a screen of some sort.

A friend recomended BCD thumb wheels but I don't have enough I/O pins for that option.

I am completely new to this stuff so please - keep it simple.

Thank you in advance.

Steve



·

Ugha

It all depends on how much your willing to spend.

If you want a nice all-in-one package, the 4x20 Serial LCD with Keypad Interface looks nice.
It costs $99.95 and I think you also have to buy the keypad($19.00) and cable($9.00).

If you want a little cheaper, there's the 2x16 Serial LCD (Backlit) for $29.95 and you can wire
up your own keys using input pins on the stamp and various resistors and a capacitor to allow
multiple keys per pin. This is not the option you want if you want the ability to press multiple
keys at once though.

If you want a real cheap all-in-one there's the LCD Terminal Appmod ($14.95). It only has a
2x8 screen and I think no backlight, but it's a good value considering it contains 4 built-in
buttons. You can make do with the 4 or add your own using the multiple key trip I mentioned
before.

Note that I don't have any of these, but I plan to buy the LCD Terminal Appmod as soon as I
get a chance.

Steve M

UGHA,



Sorry, I should have addressed that. Our budget for this display is about $500.00.·The 20 X 4 display would be an absolute minimum and would rather have a· keypad with some type of screen, or even a touch screen.

Most importantly it needs to be easy to interface.

Thanks a lot for your help -- this is good info,



Steve

PatM

$500 is a lot for a display but you can get quite a bit for that kind of money.

A Text only display isn't likely to be a touchscreen, thats usually found on graphic LCDs. Do you need graphics?

What about colour? I can think of two serially interfaced touchscreen products off the top of my head.

First is the ezLCD line from Earth LCD http://store.earthlcd.com/ezLCD·that come in 2.7" and·5.6" sizes. They also have a 10" model but I haven't looked to see how it is interfaced yet.

Second is comfile's IntelliLCD http://www.cubloc.com/product/02_05.php·. Its 7" and uses plain RS-232. The nice thing with this one is the integrated SD card drive which you can store images and data on. You can also create scripts that control the LCD and just send a serial command to execute the script. I do most of my menus this way as it is a LOT faster than sending all the commands for buttons and lines over the serial connection.

Both come without a Bezel but the 5.6" version of the ezLCD has an optional panel mount kit.

I have the IntelliLCD and it works great. Nice bright screen and the unit is easy to interface with. The touchscreen works perfectly.

They also have the CuWin (which is basically the IntelliLCD) that you can program directly using your favorite Windows compatible language (VB, C, etc). The IntelliLCD and CUWin are both Arm9 computers running Windows CE 5.0. The IntelliLCD has a dedicated application so you cannot (easily) replace this with your own application. The CUWin doesn't have the dedicated application and has a very nice bezel plus it adds RS-485 and ethernet to the IntelliLCD base.

I'm sure there must be lots of black & white (or grayscale) touchscreen displays out there but I've never really been interested in them so I don't know any links.
·

Duffer

Steve M,

If you're looking for an all-in-one solution that you can easily use with the Basic Stamp, have a look at 4D Systems's brand new uOLED-32028-PMD3T. http://www.4dsystems.com.au/prod.php?id=25

Brilliant color, text, graphics, touchscreen and an easy to use serial interface. And the price is less than half of your budget.

Duffer


Post Edited (Duffer) : 2/27/2008 1:25:53 AM GMT

Steve M

PatM & Duffer,



Thanks so much for all the info.

It looks like one of these displasys will do what I need. To answer the question -- no,·I don't need the graphics funtions, I just need the text.

I don't know but I'm guessing that the text only displays would be easier to work with?????

This is my first project and I'm trying to keep it as simple as I can.

So anyway I've got some homework to do -·I'll study the links that you listed.

Thank you again for all your help. I do appriciate it very much!

Steve