I thought I let you know that my first Arduino Duemilanove experiment indeed works!
I was able to connect Byvac's BV4613 display (http://www.byvac.com)
to Arduino using I2C. Next I will try the serial.
One key issue is to connect 4k7 resistor between +5V and SDA. It is that which select display mode as I2C connected. Then just used the wire library. The default address of the display is 0x32.
I am toying with the idea to write a library for this display - any interest?
I am going to order few Arduino boards. Which are good ones and where in the EU area one can order them? I might be interested to order outside EU if they are especially tasty.
Thank you for the whole Arduino team and these forums.
Thanks for the buying info. There seems to be two sellers in Finland.
Anyway I have now been trying to connect BV4613 display serially to Arduino Duemilanove. I think I have understood right that this Arduino has only single UART. So I can not use digital pins 0 and 1 for serial at the same time I have USB connected - right?
Next I looked at the SoftSerial and later NewSoftSerial. But I can not get any output with those. Is there somewhere an example to show how to output information to serial device with NewSoftSerial?
Hopefully someone can suggest something - I have now used 5 hours with this serial thing.
tried different baud rates between 9600 and 38400
tried delays in different places to let display reaction time
tried inverted signal levels
triple checked wiring
reset the display to factory settings.
At one point got garbage out but not any more. Maybe the garbage in changed something in the internal EPROM.
I will next retest with I2C.
I spent a fair few hours trying to get that display working on I2C without success.
Sounds like I missed out on the resistor.
Id be interested to see your code or a library.
Regarding the serial uart and using it for the lcd.
If you put a switch on the power to the lcd and switch it off when uploading sketches.
You can leave the lcd connected and turn it on when the sketch is to be run.
Obviously you cant use the serial monitor in the ide at the same time but you can then upload sketches without disconnecting the serial lcd.
Regarding the serial uart and using it for the lcd.
If you put a switch on the power to the lcd and switch it off when uploading sketches.
If I understood right the setup() will start running as soon as the upload is completed. If the display is switched off then it will miss this phase. So maybe it will work this way
switch off the display
upload sketch
switch on the display
reset Arduino
Anyway I am going to investigate this issue next week.
I am also going to order Arduino Mega, witch if I understood right contains several hardware UARTS.
After reading up this Arduino - it is very strong ecosystem.
Why not someone building similar for a PIC? Hopefully someone will.
Why are add ons to Arduinos called shields?
What exactly can be done with an ethernet shield?
Just curious.