Difficulties communicating with CFA-633 display

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) Hardware Interfacing
1

I am attempting to use a CrystalFontz CFA-633 display with an Arduino Mega.

I am attempting to send the text to the display via a serial connection. based on the product manual the data should be sent in the following format:

using the 633WinTest app that crystalfontz provides i have created the following sample packet

aC=7( 7 = LCD Line 1),L=16,D="Hello           ",CRC=0x4C4B

this snip from the WinTest app tells that the packet type is 7, the size is 16, and the CRC is 0x4C4B

using this i have created the following code without luck

 Serial1.write(7);
  Serial1.write(16);
  Serial1.write("Hello           ");
  Serial1.write(0x4C);
  Serial1.write(0x4B);

any suggestions on what i am doing wrong would be greatly appreciated. If you need more info about the display, the communication protocol stuff starts on page 18 of the PDF.

Thank you in advance.

2

CFA-633 manual:
http://www.crystalfontz.com/products/datasheet/169/CFA_633_k1.9b.pdf

(sorry, couldnt post link in the first message, antispam measures i suppose.)

3

Any more info i can provide that would be usefull to assisting with my issue?

4

When you use:-
Serial1.write(16);
You are actually going to send two bytes, in hex these bytes are
0x31 & 0x36.

Do you actually need to send the number 16 rather than it's ASCII representation. If so use:-
Serial1.write(char(16));

5

Thanks, i tried the char(16) and didnt have any luck

Here is some code that has worked for me in the past when i used this LCD with a parallax basic stamp. It works on the basic stamp, I just dont know why i am having such difficulty translating this code for the mega

SEROUT 0,BAUD,[7,16,"Hello           ",$4B,$4C]

This is the current code i am using:

Serial1.begin(19200); 
  Serial1.write(7);
  Serial1.write(char(16));
  Serial1.write("Hello           ");
  Serial1.write(0x4B);
  Serial1.write(0x4C);

Thank you once again

6

Ok, after doing a bit more research i think i am starting to solve my own problem. I would like to get some feedback on this idea.

This display is designed for a PC serial connection. The reason that i was able to get it working with the basic stamp is that it has a software serial "port" and i was able to trick it into doing inverted logic. The Arduino is using a hardware serial port and is unable to do inverted logic. For this display to work i would need something like this:
http://compare.ebay.com/like/300420573737?ltyp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&rvr_id=&crlp=1_263602_263632&UA=%3F*I7&GUID=af88351f1250a02653717ae1fe5b1e66&itemid=300420573737&ff4=263602_263632

Am i correct in this reasoning?

Thanks
Adam