Using OLED displays on phi-panel

January 3, 2013 6 Comments

I got a request from Kenny G. that he wants to run OLED displays on phi-panels and got interested in modifying the software and hardware to work. Thanks to Kenny, who loaned me an OLED display from adafruit (wintech 1602AB), I was able to tinker with it last night and today. I eventually made it to work:

Here is some photos:

One of the photos is a diagram on how to modify the backpack PCB. Please check out the google code page regarding the firmware.

http://code.google.com/p/phi-panel/wiki/Rewire_backpack_for_OLEDs

Long story short, the adafruit OLED library is only half-baked. Here is my post on their forum:

http://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=35735&p=176692#p176692

Pretty bad, basically clear() blink() cursor() display() and their counterparts are not working. I confirmed most of these with the simplest setup. On the other hand, home() works so I can limp on with home() and writing a lot of blanks to clear but can’t show cursor or blink anymore.

So I commented out these functions and modified clear() to write 80 spaces and do a home(). It works as it should. With other software this would have flicker on the screen but with phi-panel’s display buffer, it does not flicker.

In the future, if there is enough interest, I will make some special backpack PCBs that don’t need modification to work with OLEDs.

Meanwhile Kenny is testing other OLEDs he has regarding adafruit library usability. I felt that adafruit didn’t go all the way to provide a reliable library for us this time but without spec sheet, what more than this can they do? Maybe being a bit more upfront with their limitations?!

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OLED displays

December 18, 2012 2 Comments

There are several popular character OLED (organic light-emitting diode) displays among Arduino fans. These displays have a lot better contrast than LCDs, needs no contrast adjustment, and are brighter, but more expensive. The wiring of these character OLED displays seems to be compatible with HD44780 LCDs but there might be some timing issues with the ones Adafruit sells:

http://www.adafruit.com/products/823

They need modified LCD library supplied by Adafruit and also need the R/W line to be controlled by Arduino instead of simply grounded. A phi-panel backpack user has recently purchased their displays and other ones from Newhaven. There might be a need for the backpack to support these displays, with a modification of the existing PCB and or firmware, or even a new PCB design. I am wondering if there is enough demand for this modification. Just write me a comment if you are interested in the phi-panel backpacks supporting these display. I will also update this post when I receive word from that phi-panel backpack user regarding their test with these OLEDs.

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