FREE LCD display bounty
pedward
Posts: 1,642
About 10 years ago I purchased (30) 5.7" LCD displays from WeirdStuff. At the time I gambled that I was better at Google than them, and I won!
I am offering to give away 5 (or more) Sharp LQ6NC02 compatible Goldstar brand LCD displays. These are brand new LCDs and I will include the backlight inverter with them.
These displays accept Composite input or Analog RGB with negative composite sync. They also do overlays on Composite with 8 color RGB. The display is 720H by 240V with an RGB delta configuration. The glass measures 6 inches and the active area is 5.7 inches.
I have attached the datasheet for the display.
Here's the bounty part:
Bounty 1
I will give 1 or more displays to someone who designs and publishes an OSHW driver board for the display. They have a 20 pin connector and require +5 and -8v to drive, along with several trim pots for various things. They consume 155ma at 5v and 120ma at -8v, the backlight is 6W CCFL. The driver board must have a DC-DC power supply to run the board at 3.3v to 12v input, this can be relaxed to +5v minimum perhaps, but the intent is to be able to drive them with the Propeller. The LCD connects with a 21mm x 1mm pitch 20 conductor single sided push-fit ribbon cable. The backlight inverter is 12v at 500ma and should be powered from the same board.
The board must have RGB and Composite inputs so you can use either a modified VGA or the NTSC SPIN objects.
A second LCD display will be awarded if the Contrast, Brightness, and Video select inputs can be controlled by the Propeller. This would require a couple of digital Pots or PWM control, the Pots are cleaner because you can use I2C or SPI. Also, a relay or FET driver for software control of the backlight power is desired.
The idea with the other 4 displays is that we can get a batch of the driver boards cobbled up so they can do something useful. I will probably spring for a group by of bare PCBs so the other folks can play too.
Bounty 2
I would like to see the CNC 3D printer/motion controller project use one of these displays.
This bounty is for a modified VGA.spin object that will properly interface with the LCD in 720x240 RGB mode.
This modified object should also work with the driver board to control Contrast and Brightness.
Bounty 3
This bounty is for OSD display on the LCD. This LCD has the ability to do an OSD overlay on top of a composite signal. The simplest way of using this is displaying a camera video signal on the Composite input and overlaying text data from the Propeller. This is 3 bit, 8 color data that has to be synced with either the external sync outputs of the LCD, or from the Composite signal, if generated by the Propeller. This would mean you have a main and sub display (debug output on OSD maybe?) if the Propeller is driving both inputs. For external video this would be for something like telemetry from a Quad copter or something overlaid on the video from the onboard camera.
Bounty 4&5
These bounties are for the coolest idea submitted, the proviso is that you have to actually make it happen!
I am offering to give away 5 (or more) Sharp LQ6NC02 compatible Goldstar brand LCD displays. These are brand new LCDs and I will include the backlight inverter with them.
These displays accept Composite input or Analog RGB with negative composite sync. They also do overlays on Composite with 8 color RGB. The display is 720H by 240V with an RGB delta configuration. The glass measures 6 inches and the active area is 5.7 inches.
I have attached the datasheet for the display.
Here's the bounty part:
Bounty 1
I will give 1 or more displays to someone who designs and publishes an OSHW driver board for the display. They have a 20 pin connector and require +5 and -8v to drive, along with several trim pots for various things. They consume 155ma at 5v and 120ma at -8v, the backlight is 6W CCFL. The driver board must have a DC-DC power supply to run the board at 3.3v to 12v input, this can be relaxed to +5v minimum perhaps, but the intent is to be able to drive them with the Propeller. The LCD connects with a 21mm x 1mm pitch 20 conductor single sided push-fit ribbon cable. The backlight inverter is 12v at 500ma and should be powered from the same board.
The board must have RGB and Composite inputs so you can use either a modified VGA or the NTSC SPIN objects.
A second LCD display will be awarded if the Contrast, Brightness, and Video select inputs can be controlled by the Propeller. This would require a couple of digital Pots or PWM control, the Pots are cleaner because you can use I2C or SPI. Also, a relay or FET driver for software control of the backlight power is desired.
The idea with the other 4 displays is that we can get a batch of the driver boards cobbled up so they can do something useful. I will probably spring for a group by of bare PCBs so the other folks can play too.
Bounty 2
I would like to see the CNC 3D printer/motion controller project use one of these displays.
This bounty is for a modified VGA.spin object that will properly interface with the LCD in 720x240 RGB mode.
This modified object should also work with the driver board to control Contrast and Brightness.
Bounty 3
This bounty is for OSD display on the LCD. This LCD has the ability to do an OSD overlay on top of a composite signal. The simplest way of using this is displaying a camera video signal on the Composite input and overlaying text data from the Propeller. This is 3 bit, 8 color data that has to be synced with either the external sync outputs of the LCD, or from the Composite signal, if generated by the Propeller. This would mean you have a main and sub display (debug output on OSD maybe?) if the Propeller is driving both inputs. For external video this would be for something like telemetry from a Quad copter or something overlaid on the video from the onboard camera.
Bounty 4&5
These bounties are for the coolest idea submitted, the proviso is that you have to actually make it happen!
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Comments
Sounds like fun, if only the time were available. As to bounty 3, I would be curious if the unit would allow t switch back and forth between the two input types. They don't appear to be mixed, rather only switched. The "fun" part of this would be extracting the sync from the composite assuming it is NOT from the same prop as the OSD will be and syncing up the OSD signal to the composite so that the display remains stable even though switching between signal sources. Gen-lock I think I've heard the term is.....
As to 1,2,4&5, should have no shortage of takers for those as this is a very nice and versatile display.
Good luck on this one,
Frank
-Phil
I don't have a huge need for 30 of these, I had proposed a similar bounty (mostly 4&5) years ago to the Megasquirt crowd to stimulate some neat car telemetry/visualization stuff, but nobody bit at a free LCD display. The only proviso I put was "no MP3 car ideas".
I suspect the RGB inputs would be significantly better quality than NTSC because of the typical dot crawl issues with a composite signal.
Unfortunately, 4.45" x 3.45" is a little tall for my target center console insert area.
Also, the projects would be easier to do if people had displays to work on before they start.