I'm very familiar with sacrificing the down-payment for another house on the beach, so that I can afford to pay for LCD 16x2 display. (just kidding). Anyway. The displays work great with I2C, except when I want to see it from anything DIRECTLY HEAD ON.
I looked around a little, and saw the OLED displays, which are at .96" square inch. I am not building a small doll-house for tiny people, so unfortunately that footprint is too small for me to consider a reliable gauge or read-out for whatever I need it to do.
I think I saw some other 1.8" LCD screens, but I didn't see standard SPI or I2C interfaces, and they used up something like 20 rediculous pins in order to drive - which is not reasonable.
So I was wondering if anyone had advice for their favorite display readout they prefer to use, that is large enough, visible from better angle than standard 16x2, which was affordable. I wish they just made a readout screen that had the same contrast visibility as the screens on all the mobile phones.
Could just be a matter of changing the contrast?
A regular Black Text on Green background 16x2 or 20x4 LCD have got good visibility. With I2C adapter they use few wires.
The White on Blue background LCDs are a lot more fussy.
You can get OLED versions of 16x2 and 20x4 with excellent visibility.
A Black Pixels on Green background 128x64 Graphic LCD has got good visibility. e.g. ST7920 with SPI.
A full colour 160x128 TFT has good visibility. Most modules require 3.3V logic on SPI bus.
A full colour 320x240 TFT has good visibility. Some modules use 3.3V SPI bus.
Yes, parallel interfaces use a lot more wires. But they often come as ready-made Shields. With the appropriate level converter circuitry on the Shield.
The larger TFTs tend to have a smaller viewing angle.
David.
david_prentice:
A regular Black Text on Green background 16x2 or 20x4 LCD have got good visibility. With I2C adapter they use few wires.
The White on Blue background LCDs are a lot more fussy.
You can get OLED versions of 16x2 and 20x4 with excellent visibility.
A Black Pixels on Green background 128x64 Graphic LCD has got good visibility. e.g. ST7920 with SPI.
A full colour 160x128 TFT has good visibility. Most modules require 3.3V logic on SPI bus.
A full colour 320x240 TFT has good visibility. Some modules use 3.3V SPI bus.
Yes, parallel interfaces use a lot more wires. But they often come as ready-made Shields. With the appropriate level converter circuitry on the Shield.
The larger TFTs tend to have a smaller viewing angle.
David.
Hi David,
Your post is very welcome for me, as I like to learn about more displays for Arduino.
I am especially interested in OLEDs of any size, as long as they are not too expensive.
I would expect OLEDs for smartphones for the hobby market to arrive soon.
Could you please enhance your post with some product links? Thank you.
Jean-Marc
When you say "black on green background", is that the same yellow background commonly on the 16x2, seen on the HP laserjet printers? I dont remeber seeing black on green 16x2's. I will look it up.
I forgot about oled 16x2. I tried to buy months ago, and company was out of stock.
I ordered white lettering, black background. I receive package, find out it has SPI interface instead of I2c. It had some other chipset I not familiar with. Couldnt get it to function and stopped trying after studying 50 pages of datasheets. I couldn't figure out if the module was damaged or I was doing something wrong. Lettering upside down on line 1, with garbadge and right side up on line 2.
I order black lettering on white background, unit arrives smashed and damaged in shipping. So after those two disasters, I took a break from exploring flavors of displays.
I might just be used to the IPS computer HDMI monitor I mainly use, I can see that screen from any angle like it was a printed book.
LCD 16X2 isa drag, they actually affect by temprature easily. Many times i show my projects to neighbors, they have trouble reading screens.
Even on my digital multi meters, I cant get a good read from lcd in the sun, or if it isnt facing me directly. I would rather buy one that used LED segment display, that way i can see in dark at night and during day without cupping it with my hands.
I have only seen 0.96" 128x64 or 128x32 graphics OLEDs.
EastRising, Crystalfontz, ... have got 16x2 character OLEDs. They are expensive.
I suspect that OLED will get cheaper. And probably colour too.
The OP seems to be worried about interface wiring. I2C is never going to be very practical for unintelligent graphics. Too slow.
However, an intelligent controller can interpret high level graphics commands. I2C is fine e.g. RA8875
It depends how the mass market phone develops. Currently it has a powerful main CPU with an unintelligent display. If intelligent display controllers emerge, Ebay will get the cheap surplus.
David.
ZinggJM:
I would expect OLEDs for smartphones for the hobby market to arrive soon.
I remember seeing a company produces full color high resolution oled in large 7", 10"+ sizes. They intened to be used in automotive dash boards. They were priced for it too, far out of reasonable cost.
I would just like to see the same smartphone screens they use NOW for hobby use. It would be nice to have a 16x2 with same clarity as new iPhone. I dont need 4k resolution and 20 million colors, just the visble clarity.
Yes, Black on yellow-green is the traditional reflective LCD. It can be read without a backlight (unless at night)
Whether you have transmissive or reflective LCD, the contrast is dependent on voltage and temperature.
Modern chips generate and regulate their own voltages.
If your white on black display does not work, post a link to the device. And ask.
If you buy a fragile item from Ebay, it often arrives broken. Ask for your money back.
Perhaps Chinese vendors will improve their packaging.
Some Chinese companies are excellent. e.g. EastRising
David.
david_prentice:
However, an intelligent controller can interpret high level graphics commands. I2C is fine e.g. RA8875
...
David.
Yes, and Adafruit even produces a shield with RA8875. But for a Adafruit price (they deserve it, for all the SW they provide).
But I can get a Waveshare 7" display with RA8875 for a price not much higher.
Jean-Marc
The vendor at buydisplay made good on refund on damaged goods on delivery. I have had good experience get my items honored on rare times damsged, missing, or swapped with something else in error.
I do like adafruit company, they are good with tutorials and quality products. Yes it cost more, but so does everything else, anywhere else compared to the least cost surplus.
I tried the Nextion displays. Its a very interesting device, SPI, sleep functions, combined passive touch screen LCD, with onboard processor to handle user interface functions, with a PC software GUI to design interface. It handles all the drawing, bitmap, menu functions to allow Arduino to handle the machine operations.
Nextion easy to learn and support is good. Unfortunately they have same contrast sunlight issues with view angle as any other LCD. And passive touch is not as easy as mobile phone active glass surface. At $27.00 for 3.5", it isnt cheap - the value is in the feature. They have cheaper models, nut are too small (for me) to consider useful - since i will not use a toothpick for touchscreen buttons. Other users askee them to produce active IPS touchscreen devices, but the company explained they did the research, and cost not affordable and reasonable - at high cost, they would not have sales to support manufacturing.
@DocStein99
If the display will always operate with sunshine, then search for reflective LCDs. I personally had used the DOGS102N display for an outdoor device ("N" is the reflective version of the DOGS102, see http://www.lcd-module.de/deu/pdf/grafik/dogs102-6.pdf).
Reflective versions should be available for all kind of LCDs. The offer excellent visibility even with extreme sunlight.
Oliver