Wireless Boe-bot controller with LCD

FRC2370

I am waiting on the 2-axis joystick and the 2 RF transceivers to arrive to make my boe-bot wireless, and i thought I'd add a DEBUG terminal screen to the base control board, but what code do I use to make the Serial LCD 2x16 act as the DEBUG terminal??

bsnut

Welcome to the forums FRC2370.

You have a great idea in using a LCD display as debug terminal. In order to write the code we need to know what Boe Bot that you have. So, do you have a Propeller or a Basic Stamp Boe Bot?

bsnut

Here's the PDF for the display that you have27976-7-9-ParallaxSerialLCD-v3.0.pdf, which provides you code for Boe Bot that you have.

FRC2370

Its a BASIC Stamp Boe-bot. Im really stumped on how to make it work as the debug terminal

FRC2370

Could you help with the program? I couldnt find anything in the PDF about using it as a debug terminal

Mike Green

You can't use an LCD with the DEBUG statement without hacking the Board of Education, but the DEBUG statement is just a special case of the SEROUT statement and you can use that. See the example on page 3 of the documentation.

RDL2004

Most stuff you can display with DEBUG can also be sent to the LCD, you just have to use SEROUT instead of DEBUG. You have to make sure the baud settings are correct (both in your program and on the LCD itself) or you'll get garbage on the LCD instead of what you expect.

Like DEBUG, there are cursor positioning commands that can be sent to the LCD to control the formatting.

Here is a program I made several years ago to use with the Parallax 2x16 back lit display.

'{$STAMP BS2}
'{$PBASIC 2.5}


counter VAR Byte

TxPin     CON   8            'set LCD data pin as pin 8
Baud19200 CON   32           'set baud rate as 19200 (SEROUT 32)



DEBUG CLS, "Beep Beep"      'display while speaker beeps.
FREQOUT 10, 200, 3000        'indicates program (re)start
PAUSE 50
FREQOUT 10, 200, 2000
DEBUG CLS

DEBUG "PROGRAM RUNNING..."
DEBUG CR, "Starting LCD Display"
DEBUG CLS


HIGH TxPin
PAUSE 100                  'allow time for LCD to initialize

SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, [12] 'formfeed (move to 0,0 and clear display)
PAUSE 500
SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, [17] 'backlight on
PAUSE 500
DEBUG CRSRXY, 0,0, "LCD Display"
DEBUG CR, "initialized"
SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, ["LCD Display"]
SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, [13] 'carriage return (move to next line, position 0)
SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, ["Initialized"]
PAUSE 800


SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, [12] 'formfeed (move to 0,0 and clear display)
PAUSE 50
DEBUG CLS
DEBUG CRSRXY,0,0, "Flashing light"
DEBUG CR, "on LCD display"
SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, ["Flashing light"]
SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, [13] 'carriage return (move to next line, position 0)
SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, ["on LCD display"]
PAUSE 500

FOR counter = 1 TO 10
  SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, [18] 'backlight off
  PAUSE 500
  SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, [17] 'backlight on
  PAUSE 500

NEXT

  SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, [12] 'formfeed (move to 0,0 and clear display)
  PAUSE 50
  DEBUG CLS
  DEBUG CRSRXY,0,0, "Changing to"
  DEBUG CR, "flash loop"
  SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, ["Changing to"]
  SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, [13] 'carriage return, move to next line, position 0
  SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, ["flash loop"]
  PAUSE 1000


  SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, [12] 'formfeed (move to 0,0 and clear display)
  PAUSE 100
  DEBUG CLS
  DEBUG CRSRXY,0,0, "Running light"
  DEBUG CR, "flash loop"
  SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, ["Running light"]
  SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, [13] 'carriage return (move to next line, position 0)
  SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, ["flash loop"]
  PAUSE 500


DO

 SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, [18] 'backlight off
 PAUSE 500

 SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, [17] 'backlight on
 PAUSE 2000

 SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, [18] 'backlight off
 PAUSE 500

 SEROUT TxPin, Baud19200, [17] 'backlight on
 PAUSE 1000

LOOP

FRC2370

So what code would I need to use the LCD as the debug terminal with SEROUT?

RDL2004

There is no magic code, the LCD displays what you send to it, just like DEBUG does. The only real difference is you have to specify the Pin and the Baudrate. You really need to read the documentation for the LCD display and also all the information in the Basic Stamp Editor Help files about the SEROUT command.

DEBUG "Message Here"

SEROUT Pin, Baudrate, ["Message Here"]

If the LCD is set to 9600 and connected to pin 8 on a Basic Stamp 2, then it would look like this:


SEROUT 8, 84, ["Message Here"]

FRC2370

Alright thanks, this was a big help