First off, how feasible is this? I've read a few topics directly related to the Arduino and there's a few other non-Arduino projects doing this but none of them seem that simple, not that I mid working at it but don't want to waste 3 weeks going down the wrong road. I started this project on the Arduino for simplicity, if it is going to get too complex I might as well start from scratch and base it on a PIC18F of some variety.
I'm aiming to build a multi zone heating controller and so far I've got a display returning states from 1 wire temperature sensors which works fine when there's 4 sensors (on a 4 line display) but eventually I'm looking to control 16 or so zones so will have 16 lines of information in the rest state (i.e. when not in a menu). Would vertical scrolling be worth pursuing or is there a better way to achieve this, microVGA for instance?
I'm currently running this on a Duemilanove but will possibly move up to a Mega for more I\O later, if that helps.
Given that you can write to all rows and columns of the display, I don't see any problem with you implementing vertical scrolling in your application i.e. copy the contents of row 1 to row 0, then row 2 to row 1 and so on.
Another method I might try is to have a button select which 4 devices are displayed on the screen, see how usable it is when you have to wait 30-60 seconds for a particular screen to come round.
I've got a display returning states from 1 wire temperature sensors ...
How much information is returning from each sensor? In other words, do you need to dedicate an entire display line to each sensor?
or is there a better way to achieve this, microVGA for instance?
Have you considered using a Graphical LCD?
... possibly move up to a Mega for more I\O later, if that helps.
That won't help much on the display end of things. One Character mode LCD uses 6 I/O lines. Each additional display adds another I/O line. You could use four 4-line displays, and display all of your information simultaneously, with nine I/O lines.
You could also go with an I2C I/O extender chip and do all of your display work with two I/O lines.
You can use a menu system and you can scroll with long messages. With a little adaptation, you can display dynamic long messages (all 10 sensors updating and you an scroll up/down to see them all).
floresta:
How much information is returning from each sensor? In other words, do you need to dedicate an entire display line to each sensor?
Well, at a push I could fit 2 per line, but I was going to display the location, actual and target temps so that would leave me with 3 characters for a location, but still only 8 items on a a 20x4 display so would still need to scroll in some fashion.
floresta:
Have you considered using a Graphical LCD?
Yes, that might also be an option. I was trying to squeeze it on a 20x4 screen as most of the time it will just be looking after itself so doesn't really need much more than an 4 line LCD, although I'm beginning to wonder!
liudr:
Will this interest you at all?
It certainly will! I'll be having a play with that.
You can use a menu system and you can scroll with long messages. With a little adaptation, you can display dynamic long messages (all 10 sensors updating and you an scroll up/down to see them all).
The library phi_prompt is open source by the way.
Hi. I've been reading the documentation of the library and couldn't find a way to use a one-wire keypad. As you define each button to be used in the menu, how do I define the buttons in the keypad if I'm using the one-wire mode?
Thanks for your answer and for the library. It is a great work.
