Salvaged linear encoders & BG Micro video display ($38.00)
Chris_D
Posts: 305
Hi guys,
While tinkering with the Propeller, I thought I would share a couple of hardware related items...
1) 5.6" lcd display from BG Micro that accepts composit video in.· I purchased that for $37.99 and the related power supply for $8.95.· It has 4 wires comming out of it, +V, G, Video, and ground. If you don't connect the ground to the same ground as the video, the display is horrid.· Once hooked up properly to the Prop-demo board, it works pretty good.· Resolution is okay, viewing angle is okay, color brightness is okay, none of which remotely compares to a laptop screen or similar, but it is okay for a lot of stuff.
2) Linear encoder strips salvaged from an Epson printer and the related pick-up.· Depending on the model, some Epson printers have a linear encoder strip, some have rotary encoder discs, and some printers have both.· I added the linear encoder strip and pickup to a small CNC machine I am building.· Both encoders I grabbed have a small circuit board which holds the pick up head along with the required resistor and even a CAP.· The downside is that the connectors to this board are small, flat cable connectors so you have to be creative to use the boards as is in order to wire them up to something.· The linear encoder strip provides 720 counts per inch using the Prop's Encoder object.· I don't know about the encoder disc yet as I have not tinkered with that yet.·
With spring garbage pickup just around the corner for most communities, you might be able to find a few trashed printers for free and get yourself some nice little components that are great for robotics etc.
Chris
·
While tinkering with the Propeller, I thought I would share a couple of hardware related items...
1) 5.6" lcd display from BG Micro that accepts composit video in.· I purchased that for $37.99 and the related power supply for $8.95.· It has 4 wires comming out of it, +V, G, Video, and ground. If you don't connect the ground to the same ground as the video, the display is horrid.· Once hooked up properly to the Prop-demo board, it works pretty good.· Resolution is okay, viewing angle is okay, color brightness is okay, none of which remotely compares to a laptop screen or similar, but it is okay for a lot of stuff.
2) Linear encoder strips salvaged from an Epson printer and the related pick-up.· Depending on the model, some Epson printers have a linear encoder strip, some have rotary encoder discs, and some printers have both.· I added the linear encoder strip and pickup to a small CNC machine I am building.· Both encoders I grabbed have a small circuit board which holds the pick up head along with the required resistor and even a CAP.· The downside is that the connectors to this board are small, flat cable connectors so you have to be creative to use the boards as is in order to wire them up to something.· The linear encoder strip provides 720 counts per inch using the Prop's Encoder object.· I don't know about the encoder disc yet as I have not tinkered with that yet.·
With spring garbage pickup just around the corner for most communities, you might be able to find a few trashed printers for free and get yourself some nice little components that are great for robotics etc.
Chris
·
Comments
A word of warning - I was messing with a more recent HP model today and discovered the hard (i.e., messy) way that it has a place where the ink nozzles are cleared (I assume), leaving a sticky mess of ink that will get onto everything in sight if you're not very careful. There was a heckuva a lot of ink in there. Fortunately I got it on my hands, not my clothes.
That display from BG Micro I think I have seen it mentioned in other threads. Recently I started selling a 3.0" display with a 320x240 and a composite video (NTSC/PAL) driver PCB for US$44.95. I can't beat that price from BG Micro unfortunately. Is the display from BR Micro new or pulled from other eqiupment?
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Timothy D. Swieter, E.I.
www.brilldea.com - Prop Blade, LED Painter, RGB LEDs, 3.0" LCD Composite video display, eProto for SunSPOT
www.tdswieter.com
Yes, others here have mentioned it but no one seemed to admit buying one.· I believe they are new but highly suspect these are not up to "high quality" standards and therefore rejects.
Chris
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Timothy D. Swieter, E.I.
www.brilldea.com - Prop Blade, LED Painter, RGB LEDs, 3.0" LCD Composite video display, eProto for SunSPOT
www.tdswieter.com
I think the displays are used, there are minor scratches on mine.
If the resolution were 640x480 it would be prefect.
Post Edited (Bill Drummond) : 3/15/2009 7:01:38 PM GMT
I thought the same thing too, till I noticed that the screen has one of those sticky clear films covering it
640 X 480 would be super!
I notice in your photo, around the edges of the image area, it appears to be just plain black.· Mine seems to have bands of color in the boarder areas.· I also notice that your white on black looks better than mine.· The only combination I got to look good was black on white back ground.· I suspect I am not programming the display call correctly though.· By chance, would you mind posting the code for yours so I can explore a bit more about it?
Chris
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Timothy D. Swieter, E.I.
www.brilldea.com - Prop Blade, LED Painter, RGB LEDs, 3.0" LCD Composite video display, eProto for SunSPOT
www.tdswieter.com
the code is just a modified version of "TV Text Demo v1.0"
''*************************************** ''* ''*************************************** ''* TV Text Demo v1.0 * ''* Author: Chip Gracey * ''* Copyright (c) 2006 Parallax, Inc. * ''* See end of file for terms of use. * ''*************************************** CON _clkmode = xtal1 + pll16x _xinfreq = 5_000_000 cr = $0D lf = $0A VideoPin = 12 rows = 13 cols = 40 OBJ text : "tv_text" PUB start | i 'start term text.start(VideoPin) text.str(string(9,91," TV Text Demo ",93,cr,cr,"On a 5 inch LCD display From BG Micro.",cr)) text.str(string("----------------------------------------")) text.str(string("Text is crisp and clear with no jitter,",cr)) text.str(string("The viewing angle is not super critical.")) text.str(string("It gets a little warm, I would guess",cr)) text.str(string("the power usage is about 15 watts.",cr)) text.str(string("I can read the display without using my",cr)) text.str(string("reading glasses, that's difficult on my",cr)) text.str(string("digital cameras.",cr)) text.str(string(cr,"For 38 bucks it's a pretty good deal")) {{ I changed this in TV_Text so colors 0 and 1 were the same, I'm just using the default color 0, though. The color param needs to be changed to colors 1-8, you can't use string(0,"some text"); ' fore back ' color color palette byte $07, $2A '0 white on blue byte $07, $2A '1 byte $07, $9B '2 byte $04, $07 '3 byte $3D, $3B '4 byte $6B, $6E '5 byte $BB, $CE '6 byte $48, $07 '7 }} {{ ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ TERMS OF USE: MIT License │ ├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation │ │files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, │ │modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software│ │is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: │ │ │ │The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.│ │ │ │THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE │ │WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR │ │COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, │ │ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘It's a serial keyboard, the chip is a Picf18xxx using the internal oscillator, sure wish I could find a 8x8 keyboard that size,like those used in language translators/dictionaries.
Post Edited (Bill Drummond) : 3/16/2009 4:13:03 PM GMT
Next weekend I will try that and see if I get the same results. I suspect not, but then again those bands of colors around the boarder on mine could be just a bad video cable too.
Chris
·· In my Z80 days I needed an 8x8 matrix for my decoder which was really just a 74LS374 and a 74LS244.· In any event the Commodore C=64 and C=16 keyboards are both configured in that manner.· In fact the SIP connector on the cable has the rows/columns all in line.· These can often be gotten surplus or from dead computers.· If I had a source for a small quantity of new ones I would probably scoop them up.· Radio Shack was selling the surplus C=16 units some years ago in a clear bag.· I think the extra 2 lines went to the CAPS LOCK key IIRC.
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Chris Savage
Parallax Engineering
Bean.
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There is a fine line between arrogance and confidence. Make sure you don't cross it...
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note: if the wall wart doesn't supply enough current the display will shut itself down after briefly turning on. Fat pixels = fat wall wart.
I did the graphics with Corel Draw. It's wired with 30ga wire and I ain't showing nobody the bottom side.