best practice for wiring up LCD? (which connector)

hi there,

this might seem like a dumb question, but I've given it some thought and am not sure of the right answer.

Basically I'm getting a new LCD module soon, and now I am wondering what kind of connector I should attach to it to make it as flexible and reusable as possible.
I'm guessing attaching header sockets (female) would make it easy just to lay some wires between it and say, the connectors of the arduino.
Solering header pins on the other hand, might make it very breadboard friendly.

I would really like to know how you guys/girls usually attach your stuff to arduino? As a kind of poll :slight_smile: I'm just curious

When I got my LCD I put header pins on it so I could test it easily with a breadboard. When I wired it up to my home made shield I just soldered the cat5 cable I used as a link to the pins. I can't really expect to reuse it for anything else now, but they are pretty cheap on ebay.......

The 'arduino orientated' vendors seem to want about 3 times what you can buy them on ebay for, anyone else notice that ?

Piccies of my setup :
http://pluggy.is-a-geek.com/arduino/index.html

I mostly put male headers on PCBs, because the cable connectors are usually female. I also keep a constant eye out for surplus cables with header connectors on them, like these.

I dunno whether that constitutes "best practice", but it's definitely "cheap practice". :wink:

Ran

pluggy,

I think the "3 times" is a bit of an overstatement, but part of what you're paying for is convenience that you may well need: I've got a friend who just bought a couple of security cameras from a Chinese ebay vendor for the low price. When they arrived, after the usual 2-3 week shipping time, he discovered that the weren't just "inexpensive", they were also "cheap", and one died within 24 hours of installation.

So now he's facing paying over half the cost of the camera to ship it back for exchange, and a total delay of two months from the initial order by the time the working (he hopes) replacement arrives.

I buy stuff from China sometimes, myself, but I don't kid myself that I'm getting anywhere near the same quality or service that I get from folks like Sparkfun or NKC.

Ran

I do pins on things, sockets like on the arduino are too easy to damage IME - whereas the pins will also go into a breadboard directly. Desoldering headers is a pain, I usually just butcher them with sidecutters and then desolder the remnants, but you run the risk of damaging the board.

You can always get old floppy drive cables to use on headers if you want to take them out to another board, Just watch the twist in them.

The ones you buy from the arduino merchants are made in China. It was £4.95 with free delivery from a UK ebay vendor (8 bucks ?), my local Arduino Merchant wanted £12.95 + delivery. No issues. I bought some DS1820 digital thermometers direct from China a while back, £8.90 for five with free delivery, the arduino supplier wanted £4.95 + delivery each. I've just another 5 from the same vendor as I've used them all (All still working after 2 months). I buy from UK based suppliers most of the time because it usually takes a week or two from China. I certainly wouldn't buy anything that cost more than a few quid direct, its just too much grief to send it back if it turns out to be a lemon.

I have bought some utter crap that was made in China, usually in the shape of cameras... :wink:

Hey Pluggy , your Home Monitoring system is inspiring stuff. Very well done there.

I suppose it wont be long before we get real pirates on that EBay too where you will pay the dough and receive nothing .Not much you can do about it if they have been paid. Take a trip to China?Then its a rather large population to sort through.

Another reason to stick to the smaller priced items

Now I have a new LCD and am about to start wiring it uo so I'm looking for some instructions-off to work we go.

Thanks for the appraisal of my system. I'm continually trying to improve it. :slight_smile: The electric meter pickup is a little lacking. My code isn't triggering when its at very low levels and the disk is taking somthing like 10 or 15 minutes to rotate. The new electronic meters with blinking LEDS are much easier to deal with than aluminium disks with black marks on their periphery....

Paypal treats the buyer pretty good for no shows and disputes (they've refunded me a couple of times in the past). Their policies often upset vendors though. I wouldn't use anything else on Ebay.

Well, that screwed the topic good. :smiley: