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Interesting little 4 digit LCD TINY display! — Parallax Forums

Interesting little 4 digit LCD TINY display!

xanatosxanatos Posts: 1,120
edited 2014-09-11 18:20 in General Discussion
Here's a cute little thing:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/LCD-4-digit-i2c-interface-/281010186739?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item416d8329f3

Might have to get a few of these... unless Erco knows of a cheaper one for the size? :)

Dave
4dlcd.JPG
240 x 244 - 21K
4dlcd2.JPG
455 x 500 - 28K

Comments

  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2014-08-27 15:56
    Cute little display. No deicimal points, though, just digits

    -Phil
  • xanatosxanatos Posts: 1,120
    edited 2014-08-27 15:59
    Two words: Sharpie Marker :)
  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2014-08-27 16:02
    xanatos wrote:
    Two words: Sharpie Marker
    And a servo to move it side to side, another to raise and lower it, and a third to operate the eraser -- all for a programmable, floating decimal point.

    -Phil
  • xanatosxanatos Posts: 1,120
    edited 2014-08-27 16:04
    Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) wrote: »
    And a servo to move it side to side, another to raise and lower it, and a third to operate the eraser -- all for a programmable, floating decimal point.

    -Phil

    Sounds reasonable... :)
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2014-08-27 16:45
    Yes, if you want to do stuff the easy way why are you here? :)
  • davejamesdavejames Posts: 4,047
    edited 2014-08-28 14:20
    ...a bit over 1/2 inch on one side and just under a 1/2 inch on the other.

    That's tiny!

    Good for on-board counters instead of the vintage mercury-based elapsed time indicator.
  • Chris SavageChris Savage Parallax Engineering Posts: 14,406
    edited 2014-08-28 16:55
    Wait, this wasn't an erco post?!? :innocent:
  • Duane DegnDuane Degn Posts: 10,588
    edited 2014-08-28 18:08
    That is a nice size but it sure seems kind of expensive.

    Have you seen these OLED displays?

    At $5, I think they're an amazing deal. There's an object in the OBEX which works great with the displays.

    attachment.php?attachmentid=108626&d=1399775726

    They're wouldn't necessarily be a good alternative to the small LCD in lots of applications, but I think they're a really nice little display for the money.

    The photo above shows the display in an aluminum wallet erco mentioned a while back.
  • PJAllenPJAllen Banned Posts: 5,065
    edited 2014-08-28 18:38
    How much for the matching magnifier?
  • Duane DegnDuane Degn Posts: 10,588
    edited 2014-08-28 19:00
    PJ Allen wrote: »
    How much for the matching magnifier?

    These things come with their own magnifier.

    12710-01.jpg

    I couldn't resist those little 7-segment displays and I purchased a few with my last SparkFun order. I also couldn't resist their larger 7-segment displays.

    attachment.php?attachmentid=89375&d=1328635740

    I'm usually a sucker for any deal erco posts too. I don't suppose there's a 12-step program for my weakness?
  • Don MDon M Posts: 1,652
    edited 2014-08-28 19:05
    Duane Degn wrote: »
    There's an object in the OBEX which works great with the displays.

    Duane- Would you mind referencing the object?
  • WhitWhit Posts: 4,191
    edited 2014-08-28 19:20
    There is just too much really cheap crazy fun stuff out there. Stop posting - you are killing me with this stuff. I want 5 of each and I am already broke from buying erco deals!

    AND - there is a 10% off sale at Parallax too...
  • Duane DegnDuane Degn Posts: 10,588
    edited 2014-08-28 21:12
    Don M wrote: »
    Duane- Would you mind referencing the object?

    This is the one.

    I have a version I think is a bit cleaner. The OBEX code is based on the SPI object from the Propeller Library and sets up the I/O pin masks and directions with each write. It works fine but but it does slow down the driver a little (I doubt a noticeable amount).

    I've attached my modified version (which includes the Propeller beanie).
    zip
    zip
    OledDriverDemo140828a - Archive [Date 2014.08.28 Time 22.05].zip
    43K
  • Duane DegnDuane Degn Posts: 10,588
    edited 2014-08-30 11:08
    Whit wrote: »
    There is just too much really cheap crazy fun stuff out there. Stop posting - you are killing me with this stuff. I want 5 of each and I am already broke from buying erco deals!

    But you really do need 5 of these OLED displays. Look how nicely they work with the QuickStart.

    attachment.php?attachmentid=110717&d=1409376047

    They draw less than 20mA of current with this amount of text displayed so they can be powered from an I/O pin.

    You might need ten.
  • Too_Many_ToolsToo_Many_Tools Posts: 765
    edited 2014-08-30 14:15
    xanatos wrote: »
    Here's a cute little thing:

    http://www.ebay.com/itm/LCD-4-digit-i2c-interface-/281010186739?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item416d8329f3

    Might have to get a few of these... unless Erco knows of a cheaper one for the size? :)

    Dave

    Thanks for posting...TINY displays are very hard to find....and are very useful.
  • User NameUser Name Posts: 1,451
    edited 2014-08-30 14:40
    Duane Degn wrote: »
    But you really do need 5 of these OLED displays. Look how nicely they work with the QuickStart.

    You are right, of course. It was a moral imperative to buy one for every close-out QS board in my collection.

    Score!
  • Don MDon M Posts: 1,652
    edited 2014-08-30 17:29
    Thanks Duane. I ordered a couple of those oleds from iteed. What's been your experience with shipping from them?
  • Duane DegnDuane Degn Posts: 10,588
    edited 2014-08-30 18:07
    Don M wrote: »
    Thanks Duane. I ordered a couple of those oleds from iteed. What's been your experience with shipping from them?

    I think it's the usual 2 to 3 weeks. IIRC, it was closer to 2 weeks than 3 weeks.
  • TorTor Posts: 2,010
    edited 2014-08-31 04:59
    ebay won't let me buy _anything_ as long as I'm in Japan.. it's possible that I should actually be happy for that (I feel a bit like Whit in post #13), but I really want those nice cheapies. Even when I don't have a project for them in the foreseeable future.
  • Don MDon M Posts: 1,652
    edited 2014-09-10 15:40
    Duane- Received my OLED 128x64 displays today from ITead. Do you have to convert them to SPI by doing the modifications mentioned in the data sheet? It says they come stock as I2C. Just wondering as I tried your sample code and connected as described and they don't light up at all.

    Edit- Yes you do need to remove jumper resistors R3, R4, R5 & R7 and jump R8 position with a 0 ohm jumper that you took off one of the other 4. Works great now!
  • Duane DegnDuane Degn Posts: 10,588
    edited 2014-09-10 16:34
    Don M wrote: »
    Duane- Received my OLED 128x64 displays today from ITead. Do you have to convert them to SPI by doing the modifications mentioned in the data sheet? It says they come stock as I2C. Just wondering as I tried your sample code and connected as described and they don't light up at all.

    Yes, I converted mine to SPI. I'm pretty sure the resistors they tell you to remove are all 0 ohm. Use one of these jumpers to make the connection in the instructions.
  • User NameUser Name Posts: 1,451
    edited 2014-09-10 23:29
    Duane Degn wrote: »
    But you really do need 5 of these OLED displays...You might need ten.

    The displays are now backordered. You must have convinced a lot of us. :)

    Quite a piece of work by you and W1AUV. Thanks!

    BTW, OLEDs aren't exactly the longest-lived display. Makes me wonder how many hours of operation these will be good for. Any info or experience with that?
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2014-09-11 02:11
    User Name,
    OLEDs aren't exactly the longest-lived display.
    I have no idea of what the OLED specs are but I have a Samsug Galaxy S phone with an OLED screen. After three years it has noticeably faded. Still very usable but looks kind of miserable until I turn the brightness up to maximum, which kills the old battery faster of course.

    The annoying thing is how different parts of the screen have faded differently. The top status bar is now "burned" in. So I imagine an OLED used for displaying essentially static text for a long time will end up with that text burned in, like the old phosphor tubes.

    Anyone have experience with this?
  • RDL2004RDL2004 Posts: 2,554
    edited 2014-09-11 06:29
    I don't have any actual experience with them, but I looked into using an OLED display in a project a couple of years ago. I don't know if they've gotten better, but at that time it was a well known fact that they suffered badly from "burn in". Another problem was that the blue pixels would lose brightness much faster than the other colors.
  • Duane DegnDuane Degn Posts: 10,588
    edited 2014-09-11 11:16
    User Name wrote: »
    Quite a piece of work by you and W1AUV. Thanks!

    My contribution probably speeds up the code and reduces the size of the code but W1AUV deserves most (if not all) the credit for translating the Adafruit code to Spin. I doubt my "speed" enhancements are noticeable to the user.

    I still hope to make a way of easily inserting small bitmaps into the display area. I think I left the code to display the small Propeller beanie in the demo but the code used to place the beanie is very awkward.

    I haven't used these $5 ITead OLEDs enough to know how durable they are. I've wondered about sacrificing one row and one column of text (small text) and having the display move the displayed text over a pixel at a time at some interval to avoid the burn in issue. The screen makes scrolling the image easy so this addition should be too hard to add.
  • User NameUser Name Posts: 1,451
    edited 2014-09-11 18:20
    Duane Degn wrote: »
    I've wondered about sacrificing one row and one column of text (small text) and having the display move the displayed text over a pixel at a time at some interval to avoid the burn in issue.

    That sounds like a great idea. Rather think I'll borrow it. :)

    I think I'll also eliminate unnecessary labeling. Why burn out pixels for nothing? May as well make them all count...no pun intended.
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