Connecting NORITAKE VFD display CU20045-UW4J to ARDUINO MEGA 2560

HI members.

I do have purchased a NORITAKE VFD 20X4 display with a backpack for my K3NG CW keyer project.
Qusetion could I use this type of VFD displays with my ARDUINO MEGA 2560 unit ?
What about supplying of this VDF dispaly
Could I use the +5VDC coming from the ARDUINO MEGA 2560 or does this display consume to mutch current ?

I just start to use a ARDUINO kit and I enjoy very mutch,
I hope I could receive some solutions for my questions because I do not have to mutch experience,
I am just starting and try to understood the whole setup and use ..

Kindly regards Jean .

VFD DISPLAY 20X4 characters CU20045-UW54J.pdf (86.3 KB)

CU20045-UW4J DATASHEET.pdf (441 KB)

HI members.

I do have purchased a NORITAKE VFD 20X4 display with a backpack for my K3NG CW keyer project.
Qusetion could I use this type of VFD displays with my ARDUINO MEGA 2560 unit ?
What about supplying of this VDF dispaly
Could I use the +5VDC coming from the ARDUINO MEGA 2560 or does this display consume to mutch current ?

I just start to use a ARDUINO kit and I enjoy very mutch,
I hope I could receive some solutions for my questions because I do not have to mutch experience,
I am just starting and try to understood the whole setup and use ..

Kindly regards Jean .

VFD DISPLAY 20X4 characters CU20045-UW54J.pdf (86.3 KB)

CU20045-UW4J DATASHEET.pdf (441 KB)

Well now, there are a few matters here!

It appears to be compatible with the common HD44780 instruction set. Using it with a backpack is a trifle odd as the module itself also incorporates a SPI interface. Nevertheless, you should be able to use it with bperrybap's (Bill's) HD44780 library which you can load using the IDE and comes with good instructions.

What's next?

"Power it" from the MEGA2560? No, the Mega (or UNO) cannot "power" anything - it has an on-board regulator which you can use to power the Mega ship itself, but little else and most certainly nothing so power hungry as this display!

It is possible to feed up to about 500 mA through the board from the USB jack whether from a PC or a "phone charger" but you generally need to provide a decent 5 V regulated power supply (and a phone charger will usually do quite well) to the 5V pin as well as whatever else you need to run from 5 V.

Hello,

As for the ability to provide electrical current,

If you look on the internet, you will notice that there are few people talking about an exact amount of electrical current that can be consumed from the board of any Arduino, unless it is a similar board that should have already been made to meet some specific requirement.

You can look at the layout of the Arduino board, and also look at the component on the board, then find the datasheet of the component and analyze the value that the controller can provide, but do not forget that the Arduino board does not have a heatsink, and this further limits the ability of the Arduino board to provide a lot of electrical current.

The most recommended is to use dedicated power for special modules, so as not to compromise the control board, the Arduino. I found some references about 200mA of consumption, so Arduino already have a good consumption being made, and if you use the USB port can be even more complicated, because the USB port should provide at most 500mA.

Mega2560 power consumption

Looking at the datasheet of your display, we can see that it consumes up to 330mA, so I would use a separate power supply, remember that this is a "luxury display", if you need an economical display there are LCD type without backlighting.

One thing that worried me is the controller model, which is the HD66712, I found reference to it being "almost" compatible with hd44780 (near 100% compatible with HD 44780), which is the controller used in the common LCD displays, 16x2 , 20x2 etc. (note: hd44780 is described as obsolete). So some difficulty may arise, it may be good to test in practice, or to search more.

Display Controller

@on4aef, do not cross-post. Threads merged.

rtek1000:
note: hd44780 is described as obsolete

Interesting observation.

Whether or not that chip as such is obsolete, it is the "reference design" for whatever clones are predominant in the manufacture of all these display we are using, so it does not matter; it is the programming model.

Paul__B:
clones are predominant

Yep :smiley:

I was going to say - I'm not sure whether the original HD44780 was provided as a COB die or whether Hitachi still manufacture them, but COB is essentially the only form in which such chips are now used; which may explain at least part of the "obsolescence",

Hi members

Thanks for your replys glad to hear it is usable ...

I will give it a try in practice ..

I also buyed a backpack module for this NORITAKE CU20045-UW4J VFD display
Those displays have also a brightness setup but it will not work by means of a simple potentiometer I thought ?
Because I am not experienced in programming,I thought it must be possible by means of some software commands.
But I do not how to fix this feature in a entire existing program ?

Kindly regards Jean

Paul_B tells my :

It appears to be compatible with the common HD44780 instruction set.
Using it with a backpack is a trifle odd as the module itself also incorporates a SPI interface.
Nevertheless, you should be able to use it with bperrybap's (Bill's) HD44780 library which you can load using the IDE and comes with good instructions.

Where I can download this HD44780 Bill's library for my NORITAKE CU20045-UW4J VFD display.
I will give it a try
I do have connected my VFD display following the parallel connection details to the ARDUINO MEGA 2560
But nothing of th edispaly elements is lighting-up and nothing seeing readable characters of course.
I think I do have a wrong setup in the soft by I am not expert these hi.
Kindly regards Jean .

The HD44780 library can be installed using the "library manager" function in the Arduino IDE itself.

It is there among the options on the top bar - I can't recall exactly where right now as my most-used hard disk carked recently and I am still in the process of regenerating my system!

Hi Paul,thanks to be helpfull ...

I will download and install the HD44780 library,I now how its function on IDE

Any idee what Vss exactly means,is this +5VDC or GND ??

I saw that this R/W connection on the VFD display (CU20045-UW4J) has not been made.

Regarding the schematics of the K3NG CW keyer it has to be connected to Vss ??

But is worste case I really can blow up the new VFD display ...

Kindly regards Jean .