I have nice Futaba VFD (NA204SD02_A) it's 20x4 characters model. I tried to connect it to arduino using both PrimeVFD and SPI VFD libraries with no effect.
I've found some nice tutorial how to connect it to BusPirate at Parts: 4×20 VFD Character Display (NA204SD02) | Hackaday. How to check if it's not broken (when I connect power source a little wires inside display starts to glow). Which library I should use? SPI VFD?
The page you linked to shows it as a spi device. Each frame has two bytes, and you can write a short sketch to send data to it to try to get it to work.
The datasheet claims its compatible with the HD44780U (but that seems to be a 4-bit parallel interface though). The description at hack-a-day is probably the best starting point - they got SPI drive working and documented it (not with Arduino though).
There are hd44780 compatible vfds, but the vfd linked to on the hackaday page definitely is not compatible with hd44780: it uses a serial interface, per hackaday.
OK thanks a lot for response.
So it's finally works! I'm an idiot - after switching from my own code to SPI_VFD, I didn't change a wire connections properly (exchanged data and strobe wire fixed my problem). so this VFD works quite good with this library. Sorry for disturbing with so stupid problem
This thread will potentially be useful to others doing the same thing - so its serves some purpose - even more so
if you document the working code/circuit clearly here (unless its simply a case of doing what the hackaday article
says)