1 Topic by pirvan

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Topic: Graphic LCD controllers

Has anyone used a graphic/dot matrix LCD controller on their Solidoodle yet?  Something like the LCD12864?

http://www.amazon.com/SainSmart-control … B00EYS5ELE

Do you need a RAMS or equivalent to make this work, or can it be used with a Sang or Printrboard?

I'm also finding some nice 3" TFT Color LCD's with touch screen.  Can those be adapted?

To print or, 3D print, that is the question...
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2 Reply by COASTER19 (edited by COASTER19 2014-07-10 20:56:53)

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Re: Graphic LCD controllers

I'm in the process of setting up my raspberry pi and Adafruit PiTFT (2.8" lcd touchscreen at impulse-buy price) to allow my Solidoodle to be completely standalone.  I'll be posting any progress made on these forums!

edit: My 256mb model B pi couldn't handle octoprint and displaying a simple webpage at the same time so I changed to a dot matrix lcd and RAMPS

3 Reply by knowack

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Re: Graphic LCD controllers

I'm keenly interested to hear of your progress.  I also have a camera module for my Pi, that I'd like to use to remotely monitor the progress of longer prints.

Even if I slice on my desktop and just push g-code to the Pi, I'd be happy.

4 Reply by COASTER19

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Re: Graphic LCD controllers

This thingiverse page shows one lcd at least similar to your link being used on the Sanguinololu 1.3: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:212084

I am a little stuck with the color tft panel at the moment as I am waiting for a wifi adapter for my raspberry pi.

5 Reply by adrian (edited by adrian 2014-02-04 22:36:32)

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Re: Graphic LCD controllers

On a sang/ramps/arduino/rumba - Colour TFT chews up heaps of memory and involves ugly pre-loading of image pages. Yes its 'just a library' in Arduino land, but a slow painful library that will break the approximated realtime control. You also don't have enough free memory for all teh variables - even on a 2560 (so double a 1284), you end up with 2/10ths of f-all left - and thats just with a DOGM display....

Note the 'seems similar to the link you posted' is actually just a 1-bit display.. not color.

And using one of the TFT displays, having worked with them in many other bit here and there, I can offer only that its a lot more painful than one would imagine, and realistically, I'll file right there in the 'far too much effort, with far too much impact to the firmware (timing, size, free memory) with way way too little benefit'. The touch screen relies on Interrupts - its poll based meaning the AVR must be ready the moment you press the screen and it does this via interrupts - This means that likewise *any* timing calculations in marlin will be well and truly out the window. Just my $0.02 anyway having spent a lot of time with displays on AVRs....

On the RPi, since its not the controller, sure, put whatever you want on....

6 Reply by pirvan

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Re: Graphic LCD controllers

COASTER19 wrote:

This thingiverse page shows one lcd at least similar to your link being used on the Sanguinololu 1.3: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:212084

I am a little stuck with the color tft panel at the moment as I am waiting for a wifi adapter for my raspberry pi.

I see that, but he doesn't provide any information on pinout, and or any wiring/schematics.  I downloaded the Thingi file, but all there is, is the software Arduino/Marlin, nothing else.

To print or, 3D print, that is the question...
SD3 printer w/too many mods,  Printrbot Simple Maker Ed.,  FormLabs Form 1+
AnyCubic Photon, Shining 3D EinScan-S & Atlas 3D scanners...
...and too much time on my hands.

7 Reply by pirvan

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Re: Graphic LCD controllers

adrian wrote:

On a sang/ramps/arduino/rumba - Colour TFT chews up heaps of memory and involves ugly pre-loading of image pages. Yes its 'just a library' in Arduino land, but a slow painful library that will break the approximated realtime control. You also don't have enough free memory for all teh variables - even on a 2560 (so double a 1284), you end up with 2/10ths of f-all left - and thats just with a DOGM display....

Note the 'seems similar to the link you posted' is actually just a 1-bit display.. not color.

And using one of the TFT displays, having worked with them in many other bit here and there, I can offer only that its a lot more painful than one would imagine, and realistically, I'll file right there in the 'far too much effort, with far too much impact to the firmware (timing, size, free memory) with way way too little benefit'. The touch screen relies on Interrupts - its poll based meaning the AVR must be ready the moment you press the screen and it does this via interrupts - This means that likewise *any* timing calculations in marlin will be well and truly out the window. Just my $0.02 anyway having spent a lot of time with displays on AVRs....

On the RPi, since its not the controller, sure, put whatever you want on....

SO, assuming we put the color TFT w/touch on the backburner, what about a standard graphic LCD like the one Coaster is pointing to or the one I original pointed to.  There's tons of these LCD on eBay for about $35-40, but almost all of them come with an interface for a RAMPS controller. 

Are there any instruction on how to get one working on a Sanguino or a Printrboard?  What about the software, I there support for a graphic LCD in the Arduino IDE that can be integrated in the Solidoodle?

To print or, 3D print, that is the question...
SD3 printer w/too many mods,  Printrbot Simple Maker Ed.,  FormLabs Form 1+
AnyCubic Photon, Shining 3D EinScan-S & Atlas 3D scanners...
...and too much time on my hands.

8 Reply by adrian (edited by adrian 2014-02-05 00:00:17)

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Re: Graphic LCD controllers

pirvan wrote:

SO, assuming we put the color TFT w/touch on the backburner, what about a standard graphic LCD like the one Coaster is pointing to or the one I original pointed to.  There's tons of these LCD on eBay for about $35-40, but almost all of them come with an interface for a RAMPS controller.

Yes - because a sanguino doesn't have the appropriate pins easily exposed. You can get lowlevel and make any of these work, its just a PITA on a sang.

The easiest method on a sang/printrboard is to use an I2C based LCD combo board, which are usually a tad more expensive because to reduce the pin counts they use I2C to communicate between the arduino and the LCD to display 'stuff' - whereas the display you referenced and that is used normally on RAMPS/RAMBO/Rumba/ etc uses direct Data writes requiring 4-wires for the data, a couple for clock control, some for power for the backlight.. etc - hence why throwing in SD is normally dead easy by the time you run all the other wires.

This is one of the many reasons I kept advocating ignoring the printrboard - as its the same as the sang in terms of having to muck around with I2C based controllers for LCD...

Are there any instruction on how to get one working on a Sanguino or a Printrboard?  What about the software, I there support for a graphic LCD in the Arduino IDE that can be integrated in the Solidoodle?

If using the likes of say http://www.panucatt.com/product_p/vikilcd.htm - then its a matter of enabling the config line in the firmware source code, compiling and uploading and then plugging it in based on the wiki page for it... thats it really. If you want to venture off and do it based on a direct write ramps-style lcd, then thats a whole load more effort and documentation....

9 Reply by pirvan

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Re: Graphic LCD controllers

adrian wrote:
pirvan wrote:

SO, assuming we put the color TFT w/touch on the backburner, what about a standard graphic LCD like the one Coaster is pointing to or the one I original pointed to.  There's tons of these LCD on eBay for about $35-40, but almost all of them come with an interface for a RAMPS controller.

Yes - because a sanguino doesn't have the appropriate pins easily exposed. You can get lowlevel and make any of these work, its just a PITA on a sang.

The easiest method on a sang/printrboard is to use an I2C based LCD combo board, which are usually a tad more expensive because to reduce the pin counts they use I2C to communicate between the arduino and the LCD to display 'stuff' - whereas the display you referenced and that is used normally on RAMPS/RAMBO/Rumba/ etc uses direct Data writes requiring 4-wires for the data, a couple for clock control, some for power for the backlight.. etc - hence why throwing in SD is normally dead easy by the time you run all the other wires.

This is one of the many reasons I kept advocating ignoring the printrboard - as its the same as the sang in terms of having to muck around with I2C based controllers for LCD...

Are there any instruction on how to get one working on a Sanguino or a Printrboard?  What about the software, I there support for a graphic LCD in the Arduino IDE that can be integrated in the Solidoodle?

If using the likes of say http://www.panucatt.com/product_p/vikilcd.htm - then its a matter of enabling the config line in the firmware source code, compiling and uploading and then plugging it in based on the wiki page for it... thats it really. If you want to venture off and do it based on a direct write ramps-style lcd, then thats a whole load more effort and documentation....

So even if I were to get a RAMPS board, there's no direct support for that in the current source code, I'd have to figure it our on my own?  I'm no programmer, so that's out for me.

So other than the Viki, what option do we have for the Solidoodle ?  I currently have a Printrboard, 2 Sanguinos (the original and one with a 1284 on it), and I was considering getting a RAMPS 1.4 which I can get with either the graphic LCD or with the standard LCD2004.

But if the only "plug-n-play" (more or less) option is the Viki, then I probably won't bother for now.

To print or, 3D print, that is the question...
SD3 printer w/too many mods,  Printrbot Simple Maker Ed.,  FormLabs Form 1+
AnyCubic Photon, Shining 3D EinScan-S & Atlas 3D scanners...
...and too much time on my hands.

10 Reply by adrian (edited by adrian 2014-02-05 00:31:47)

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Re: Graphic LCD controllers

No on the printrboard and the sanguinololu you have to muck around. with anything but an I2C display such as a  Viki. .. the ramps is just plug and enable it in firmware in configuration.h

11 Reply by pirvan

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Re: Graphic LCD controllers

adrian wrote:

No on the printrboard and the sanguinololu you have to muck around. with anything but an I2C display such as a  Viki. .. the ramps is just plug and enable it in firmware in configuration.h

Ok, it's settled then. I'm buying a RAMPS kit. 

I found this one on eBay that has just about everything I need.  They also said they can offer it with a graphic LCD for $10 more.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/231145755056?ss … 1423.l2649

So, I know the RAMPS supports the graphic LCD, but is there an option for it in the configuration.h?

To print or, 3D print, that is the question...
SD3 printer w/too many mods,  Printrbot Simple Maker Ed.,  FormLabs Form 1+
AnyCubic Photon, Shining 3D EinScan-S & Atlas 3D scanners...
...and too much time on my hands.

12 Reply by adrian

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Re: Graphic LCD controllers

Yes

13 Reply by pirvan

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Re: Graphic LCD controllers

Great.  Now the wait begins.  China's in the middle of their New Year Celebration, and nothing moves in or out until Monday.

To print or, 3D print, that is the question...
SD3 printer w/too many mods,  Printrbot Simple Maker Ed.,  FormLabs Form 1+
AnyCubic Photon, Shining 3D EinScan-S & Atlas 3D scanners...
...and too much time on my hands.