Noritake Graphic VFD 128x32 Free Sample

[PedroDaGr8 33]

First time I have ever seen Noritake offering free samples of a VFD.

 

http://www.noritake-elec.com/evalkit-sample.php

 

Seems to be geared heavily towards Arduino unfortunately, as the included libraries are for AVR and Arduino. That being said it's likely not TOO hard to get one working for TI.

 

Usual free sample rules likely apply.

[abecedarian 330]

Use Energia and import the Arduino libs maybe?

[ben1066 0]

Unfortunately the offer applies only to the USA and Canada.

[tingo 22]

Yes, I was disappointed to find out the "Canada and USA only" after watching a few of the interesting videos. Oh well.

[abecedarian 330]

I applied using one of my corporate email addresses and a few days later received notification it would ship within 10 days.

[PedroDaGr8 33]

I applied using one of my corporate email addresses and a few days later received notification it would ship within 10 days.

I thought I should mention the progress of mine. First off, strangely there is no confirmation page when you submit the form. The form just goes blank. Then it takes a couple days until you get the shipping confirmation email. From there it took about 1 week before I got an email that it had shipped. The nice thing is that it had shipped via ups with tracking info. Mine is scheduled for delivery today or tomorrow ( scheduled is tomorrow, scheduled early is today not sure what that means)

 

Sent from my EVO 4G LTE using Tapatalk 4

 

[PedroDaGr8 33]

OK, I received it today. The bad news is that they appear to be Atmel focused. Though as you will see later, not so much Arduino focused.

The box includes:
1x VFD 128x32 1u graphic VFD.
1x simple wire harness connector (three wires for data and two for power and ground)
1x strip of 6 Male-Male headers to connect to a breadboard/arduino/etc.
1x spare male connector (but no pins )
1x piece blue acrylic filter designed for VFD displays
1x Quick setup pamphlet
1x Informational sheet detailing the acrylic filters

Now about the hardware. This thing is NICE! Puts any basic LCD I have played with to shame. It's very solidly built, feels very nice in the hand (not that this is important but still ), the soldering on it is clean. The device itself  is an integrated module which includes all the power circuitry and communications.  It can run off of just a 5V and ground. Plus, unlike many cheap ass LCD displays (which require D0-D7) this one only uses three digital lines.

If you plan on using it with an Arduino, download both the Arduino library and the file labeled:
"Arduino demo files from the video". The Arduino library appears to be generic for at least their GU-7000 series displays. There are a myriad of settings and which ones are important is not explained in the Quick Start pamphlet, let alone what they should be set to. To be honest the configuration section sucks. It tells you that an option should show up that they don't provide the files for. It's VERY VERY clear that this is their first Arduino rodeo. Most of the other stuff on their site is geared more towards AVR Studio, Atmel Studio or Linux. Basically, what I did was I imported the GU-7000 library (you won't get a GU-7003 option unlike what the pamphlet says). Then once that was imported, I used the demo files to play around.

As for the included libraries, unlike most which perform the bare minimum; namely, make the display work. These actually provide a good amount of function. They are clearly designed with making interface displays in mind. They provide easy integated features such as creating selectable "windows" of space, highlighting/inverting, scrolling text and graphics, etc. These "windows" of space allow you to dynamically transform that section more easily, without bothering the other areas in the display. Also, on their site they provide tools for creating the image code from bitmaps, jpgs,etc. If you use Atmel or AVR they provide tools for generating entire interfaces.

[abecedarian 330]

What? No photos?

[PedroDaGr8 33]

What? No photos?

Haha, two days before receiving this I put a new ROM on my phone. Unforunately, in this ROM this camera is messed up. I'll try to flash back to the older ROM this weekend to take some pics.

[abecedarian 330]

No worries.

My request has shipped.

[GeekDoc 226]

Just got mine. I haven't hooked it up yet but, to appease @@abecedarian :

[PedroDaGr8 33]

For those that got either of the two samples (the 128x32 or 140x32) check your email for a feedback email. I just received one today, if you fill out the feedback form you get the option for another VFD (pick your first and second choice from 4 options: 2 different character ones, a compact 112x16 graphic and a large 512x32).

[abecedarian 330]

Just received the same email myself.

;-)

[spirilis 1,265]

Thanks for reminding me to get mine out & play with it :grin:

 

Just got mine working on the F5529 LaunchPad.  I'm using C with my own cooked up libraries for setting the clock and doing UART I/O, but Energia will probably work a heck of a lot easier for this.

 

Serial I/O is 115200 (J0 & J1 are shorted on the back with solder blobs; see datasheet PDF page 29)

 

Product page for these series of displays: http://www.noritake-elec.com/7000.htm

Command cheat sheet: http://www.noritake-elec.com/7000commands.htm

Datasheet: http://itron.tv/gu140x32f-7000-d

 

Hello world:

 

Pinout:

 

Pins are showing top-to-bottom which I think is reverse order but they are:

 

RESET

N/C

SBUSY

GND

SIN

VCC

 

RESET is an input, I hooked mine to P6.0 and it's RESET=LOW, ENABLED=HIGH (similar to the reset behavior of the MSP430).  I just set P6.0 low for a short delay and high before sending the serial INIT command.

SBUSY is a GPIO output driven by the VFD telling you when the display is busy doing things and you shouldn't send it data... I am assuming this is a 5V level I/O so I didn't hook it up anywhere and used __delay_cycles() with reasonable delays.  Might make a small adapter board with a level shifter for that.

SIN is the serial input, I hooked it up to P3.3 (UCA0TXD) and did all my I/O using USCI_A0 (UCA0TXBUF et al).

VCC goes to 5V, GND to GND.

 

This program uses two libraries of mine (one of which I doctored up for the F5529 with USCI_A0) which I may polish and post later-

#include <msp430.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include "clockinit.h"
#include "uartcli.h"

char inbuf[8];

extern void uartcli_tx_lpm0(void);

int main()
{
        WDTCTL = WDTPW | WDTHOLD;

        P4DIR |= BIT7;
        P4OUT |= BIT7;
        P4SEL &= ~BIT7;
        ucs_clockinit(16000000, 1, 0);
        __delay_cycles(800000);
        P4OUT &= ~BIT7;

        uartcli_begin(inbuf, 8);

        // Noritake RESET line
        P6SEL &= ~BIT0;
        P6DIR |= BIT0;
        P6OUT &= ~BIT0;
        __delay_cycles(160000);
        P6OUT |= BIT0;
        __delay_cycles(160000);

        UCA0TXBUF = 0x1B; uartcli_tx_lpm0();
        UCA0TXBUF = 0x40; uartcli_tx_lpm0(); // INIT
        __delay_cycles(160000);
        UCA0TXBUF = 0x1B; uartcli_tx_lpm0();
        UCA0TXBUF = 0x52; uartcli_tx_lpm0();
        UCA0TXBUF = 0x00; uartcli_tx_lpm0(); // set font 0 (US)
        __delay_cycles(160000);

        uartcli_println_str("Hello world!");

        LPM4;
        return 0;
}

Apparently there's all kinds of commands to send starting with 0x1B, see the command cheat sheet.

Looks like a cool display!  Gets warm to the touch after a few minutes though.  Not a low-power gadget.

[spirilis 1,265]

Lol, side note, the sample page mentions 5V/400mA ... Damn that's almost as much power draw as a whole BeagleBone Black!