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[on:]

HP LaserJet control panel hooked up to an Arduino:



This has been done before here: http://hackaday.com/2009/07/20/touchpad-and-vfd-hacking/ but the links to the details are dead so there seemed to be a good excuse to do it again. I haven't seen anyone demo the buttons and LEDs before either. The board isn't really very practical to reuse but it was fun to mess around with. I believe the M66004 VFD driver IC is also used in some Hi-Fi equipment also.

Library, sketch and other details are available here: http://arduino.cc/playground/Main/M66004Vfd

[Reply #1 on:]

YES!  I have had this VFD board sitting in my drawer for about a year now, itching to use it in a project.

Thank you very much for documenting this, extremely helpful!  Thank you even more for the PM to inform me of your post!

*Tips hat*

:: Update ::
Got a chance to hook mine up and try it, and it works!  Mine only had 9 pins in a single row though, so I had to determine the correct connections for mine with a bit of trial and error (along with some help from a multi-meter)

Here is the pin-out for my board:

Pin 1 - Ground
Pin 2 - Ground
Pin 3 - LED/Button dataReadPin
Pin 4 - LED/Button latchPin
Pin 5 - VFD chipSelectPin
Pin 6 - clockPin (for both)
Pin 7 - dataWritePin (for both)
Pin 8 - +5 Volts
Pin 9 - +5 Volts

[Reply #2 on:]

Not sure if you saw this page: http://arduino.cc/playground/Main/HpLaserJetControlDemo but I had a guess for the 9 pin pinout on it. Thanks for confirming it.

Do you have any plans for the board?

[Reply #3 on:]

Heh, no, I didn't see that page. Oh well, glad I could help.

I'll probably end up implementing it in the thermostat I was working on, instead of the LCD I was going to use, as this already had buttons and status LED's built in.

Thanks again!