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Cheap LCD's — Parallax Forums

Cheap LCD's

Nick McClickNick McClick Posts: 1,003
edited 2008-07-21 20:29 in Propeller 1
Went to the pinball convention this weekend. Saw an ad for HSC electronic supply, went to their website and saw a few LCD displays that seemed quite cheap.

320x240 color LCD with backlight and inverter
The interface to this looked like a nightmare (Technical data). But $19.00 is cheap!

2x24 LCD display
$7.50, looks like it's based on the HD44780, which is already an object in the object exchange. There's a 2x16 version, too, for $3.50.

2.4Ghz RF232 OEM card.
Basically, it offers a drop in wireless TTL serial interface. They're selling the best board, which has 'up to 2 miles' of range. (technical data) Each transeiver is $25, which sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Thought I'd share, I'm sure many of you know other good sources. HSC seems to offer generally good pricing and a lot of uncommon components. They also have some cheap used equipment in the equipment specials section.

Jameco & Newark are great when you need consistent and significant supply, but never seemed very price competitive for hobbyists. While I'm on the subject; A few other good suppliers I know about;

Small Parts. Mech. stuff mostly. Bearings, joints, gears, etc.

TechShop. Pay for a membership and use their fancy tools

HDB. Less components, more finished stuff

Anchor. Good selection. You can phone in orders, but it's mostly a walk-up style store in Santa Clara

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Concentrate on understanding the problem, not applying the tool

Comments

  • RaymanRayman Posts: 14,162
    edited 2008-07-21 19:20
    The 320x240 LCD interface actually doesn't look that bad.

    But, I don't think it's color!· Looks like 4-bit grayscale to me...
  • Nick McClickNick McClick Posts: 1,003
    edited 2008-07-21 19:51
    totally right - It's FSTN, which is a monochrome display. It looked okay, but it doesn't sound fun to try to figure out the signalling format. The other LCD's look pretty straightforward

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    Concentrate on understanding the problem, not applying the tool
  • jazzedjazzed Posts: 11,803
    edited 2008-07-21 20:29
    Funny that HSC "Halted Specialty Components" would be mentioned here (but not unusual given their bent).
    If you've ever visited their warehouse, it will become clear after some inspection what the "Halted" means.

    For example, I once saw a great collection of "foot mice" there ... the kind of mouse you control with your
    foot instead of your hand [noparse]:)[/noparse] One might guess that carpal tunnel syndrome would have been less of an issue
    if that took off, but the designers didn't consider much the potential achilles heel of that "halted" product.
    That is just one of hundreds of halted or just obsolete products there. I've seen some I helped design too [noparse]:)[/noparse]
    The corny to the highly successful all have representation at Halted the valley's tech junk/grave yard.

    Halted is figuratively one step away from the land-fill in Silicon Valley. They will buy anything remotely techie,
    and re-sell it. They even have Basic Stamps there. If you use their advanced search, you will see the
    typical Parallax product representation in Silicon Valley retail. Propeller and Javelin never make the list ...
    makes me wonder if one could score a commission for getting good retail placements here.

    Added: To be On Topic ... I bought an Audiovox, 8" LCD Monitor & DVD Player (D1817) for TV testing.
    I also tried various Headrest LCD's and liked the Valor 700 the best ... not cheap, but great TV video.

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    Post Edited (jazzed) : 7/21/2008 8:53:28 PM GMT
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