new to arduino - LCD + Keypad + serial packet question

Projects General Guidance
1

Hi all,

I am new to Arduino, but I found it is quite interesting.

So I am looking for a small terminal that has a simple keypad - 0-9, Clear, Enter, and a LCD display to display the key pressed. And then if the user push a special key, like Enter, I want the terminal sends out an ASCII string , ie."12345" through a serial port to my main controller.

I have bought a phi-panel, and I found out that there is one TX and RX, but the TX seems to be an interface between the arduino and the keypad, so it is not available for my string out.

Am I right in understanding the Arduino? Is there any almost readily available parts/modules available out there?

Thanks a lot,

Flo

2

Check into a Arduino Pro Mini.

Available on eBay for $4.00

You can use one mini to handle the keyboard and a 2nd mini for the display.

3

What Arduino do you have? An Uno can use the SoftwareSerial library to create a second serial port.

...R