Byvac BV4618 + LCD problems

Hi all,

I have just purchased a 20x4 LCD with a BV4618 attached and am having a little trouble getting it to work well with Arduino.

The fact that I'm a complete Arduino newbie with no prior programming experience doesn't help..! So you'll have to bear with me.

I tried with serial and can get it talking to the Arduino quite happily, displaying text etc. But that seemed to interfere with the rest of the serial/USB operation of the Arduino and it wouldn't let me display floats, so I tried to get I2C working to no avail. It just sat at "Press CR".

Can anyone offer any advice?

If there's a way of getting serial to display what I need to (for example I want to display temperatures from a temperature sensor on the display) that would be fantastic!

Many thanks,

Howard.

If there's a way of getting serial to display what I need to (for example I want to display temperatures from a temperature sensor on the display) that would be fantastic!

You probably need to implement a second serial port using one of the software serial port libraries. They don't seem to use version numbers around here. There was a 'SoftwareSerial library' followed by 'NewSoftSerial'. I guess you want to look for 'NewestSoftSerial' , 'LatestSoftSerial', 'UltimateSoftSerial' or something like that.

Don

floresta:
I guess you want to look for 'NewestSoftSerial' , 'LatestSoftSerial', 'UltimateSoftSerial' or something like that.

XD

It's a simple TMP36 temperature sensor hooked up to an analog input. :slight_smile:

Anyway I've managed to get it working now by figuring out I have to convert the integer to a string in order for the display to show it.

Is this normal? Do most LCD serial controllers operate this way?

Perhaps someone has had some experience with this controller and knows of a better library to use? It all seems a bit "non-standard", Arduino-wise

Thanks :slight_smile:

You haven't said how your are formatting the text.
If you are using sprintf() then floats will not work because the floating point version of xxxprintf()
routines are in a different AVR libc library and the Arduino IDE only lets you link with the default library.

From what I remember the byvac modules make the display work like a mini terminal
and uses ansi escape sequences to control the display.
While this is not the norm for a serial lcd display it is normal for a terminal.
But also keep in mind that there is no "standard" for serial commands for a LCD backpack
so everyone does them differently.

To test out your floating point text formatting, try using the serial port and the
built in arduino monitor. That way you can avoid any other potential issues
while debugging your output formatting routines.

--- bill

Sorry, yes, some context would help!

I can't post my code until later when I'm home from work but the info is here:

http://doc.byvac.com/index.php5?title=Arduino_BV4618

The library is here:

http://www.byvac.com/downloads/bv4618/BV4618_lcdkey_arduino_lib.zip

I'm using the BV4618_S library and I bodged the example file for my own needs.

As an aside, I couldn't get it to work with Arduino 1.0, so I'm having to use 020 which compiles fine. Are these incompatibilities normal? :slight_smile:

Thanks for your patience!

As an aside, I couldn't get it to work with Arduino 1.0, so I'm having to use 020 which compiles fine. Are these incompatibilities normal?

You obviously haven't been following Bill's other posts. Check this one out: GLCD library version 3 (end of life - no longer supported) - #140 by bperrybap - Displays - Arduino Forum

Din

floresta:

As an aside, I couldn't get it to work with Arduino 1.0, so I'm having to use 020 which compiles fine. Are these incompatibilities normal?

You obviously haven't been following Bill's other posts. Check this one out: GLCD library version 3 (end of life - no longer supported) - #140 by bperrybap - Displays - Arduino Forum

Din

Thanks, but I'm not quite sure what you're saying.. Are you saying it is normal for there to be issues with 1.0 and older libraries? As that thread is completely irrelevant otherwise.

I was referring to this part of that thread:

Small rant:
I was not a fan of how the Arduino team handled 1.0, mainly because
they didn't make it easily available to people to get adequate testing.
They also changed many things that breaks 100% of all the existing libraries
out there.
While the changes to work with 1.0 are very minimal many of the changes
are due to previous short sightedness and last minute changes tossed in.

It looks like these incompatibilities are not unusual.

Don

OK, thanks :slight_smile: I presume that seeing as I have sod all experience with Arduino programming then I have to wait and see if someone updates the Byvac library for 1.0? Am I 'losing out' on anything by using 020?

Hi, when you connected the LCD / BV board up in I2C mode did you remember the pull-up resistors? I didn't and all I got was press CR as well!
Also, I'm able to compile with 023

NTB