Hi there,
Extreme electronics newbie question here; I apologize if this should go to another forum. I'm trying to use a Microtivity LCD display (Hitachi) but have had problems getting it to connect properly to my Arduino. The jumper wires don't quite fit into the holes & as a result the connections are extremely finicky. It works & the "Hello World" program runs if I hold it just right (so I'm following schematics correctly), but obviously this isn't the way to do things. Is there a better way to connect to the wires without soldering? I've tried back-plugging the wires into a female header too, but this doesn't help much.
You pretty much need soldering. Luckily, soldering isn't particularly hard. I wrote up the simple 5 steps, but there are actually better tutorials on the web, so just follow those. A soldering iron + soldering stand with metal cup and wet sponge + some lead-free rosin-core solder shouldn't set you back more than $30 or so, and it'll last for a long while.
If you don't want to solder, you need some kind of clamp that's very thin (so it won't short out to the next contact.) There are special edge-of-board contactors that might actually work, but then you'll end up having to solder those to some wire anyway, so you wouldn't be winning much
Something like this may fit the unit (just barely, vertically/depth-wise): http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/1761469-1/1761469-1-ND/2688514
I have the soldering stuff; I'm just not very good at it yet so wanted to make sure I wasn't soldering if I didn't have to. I'll feel better about it now that you confirmed it's my best bet. Thanks for your help!
How about conductive glue? Google "conductive glue" and there are loads of responses. I've never used this type of stuff, so other members might like to comment on how conductive / strong / long-lasting / easy etc it is...
I have the soldering stuff; I'm just not very good at it yet
well theres only one way to get better, and its not avoiding it
I understand the hesitation of goofing up your new toy, but some time with some perferated board and random simple circuits does help a bunch, as well taking apart an old alarm clock. Desoldering is 100X more a pain in the butt, but lets you know where and how things can go wrong (ie the iron is too hot and your burning pads off)
Soldering is not really that hard. I got it perfect on my second try! My first try was a mess. I was going to make a circuit board from a electronics kit, but had never really read about how to solder. I did pretty much everything wrong. Pads got lifted, I smelled burning components, I put the solder on the iron and then tried to get it from the iron to the board, it was a mess. After watching a soldering video, I was able to hook up my 3Pi exstension board (not what I was originally trying to do. Just a test to see if the video helped me.) in no time.
So just give it a try! The only way to get better at soldering is practice.
While I'm asking newbie questions: The LCD display has separate pins for 4.8v/Ground for the LED backlight -- If I run that through the same that I have the rest of the component on, am I risking drawing too much power from the Arduino & damaging it? Or rather, how can I find the answer to that myself? I've done the Arduino tutorials and tried to read up on this sort of stuff, but don't know how to answer a fundamental question like that. If anyone has any helpful reads or advice, I'd appreciate it!
On a side note, I'm really impressed by how helpful the community is here. You guys rock.
The LCD display has separate pins for 4.8v/Ground for the LED backlight -- If I run that through the same that I have the rest of the component on, am I risking drawing too much power from the Arduino & damaging it? Or rather, how can I find the answer to that myself?
You can probably power the LED backlight from your Arduino as long as you don't have too much other stuff connected. You are going to need a series current limiting resistor for the backlight but more information (such as a link to the datasheet) is required in order to determine what size.
mragh:
While I'm asking newbie questions: The LCD display has separate pins for 4.8v/Ground for the LED backlight -- If I run that through the same that I have the rest of the component on, am I risking drawing too much power from the Arduino & damaging it?
The Arduino will be damaged if you draw too much power thorugh an output pin. This may happen if you use a pin to turn on/off backlighting. If you just drive the backlight from the +5V pin, then you won't damage the Arduino (but if it's a really honkin' huge backlight, it may overload the regulator and temporarily shut it off.)
A typical backlight draws from 1mA to 180 mA (different data sheets for different products.) A typical voltage for LCD backlight is 4.2V. If you want to limit current from a 5V pin to < 40 mA, and you know the backlight will want 4.2V, you can use Ohm's law to calculate that resistance from the current and the "rest" of the voltage:
U = I * R; (5.0 - 4.2) = 0.040 * R; R = 0.8 / 0.040 = 20 Ohm.
I'm driving a typical LCD backlight through a 68 Ohm resistor I had laying around, and it works fine for me, if a little dimmer on the backlight than "full power" would do.
There's no need to use typical values here which is why I didn't provide any. He obviously has some sort of datasheet since he knows the required backlight voltage. Once he shares the remainder of the information with us we can give him the correct values for his device.