Hello All,
I've hit a road block in my attempt to quickly and easily setup a Noritake VFD display. What I thought was going to be a quick easy thing has turned into nights of learning filled frustration. Since I am no longer moving forward, I feel I should come to you and ask for some advice. Below is the detail, the issue I am having, and my attempts to fix it.
I will give as much detail as I can quickly, so as to not bore you with things.
DETAIL:
Display Type: Noritake GU140x32F-7000
Display Serial Mode: 9600 (as set by me with a jumper)
Display Power: Powered seperatly by +5VDC 1.6A
Arduino : Duemilanove ATMEGA328
Arduino Power: By USB and also tried external power supply (with both power supplies (display and arduino) grounds hooked together.
Here is a link to the Noritake display manual:
http://viewer.zoho.com/docs/ejbbof
ISSUE:
No matter what I seem to do I get nothing but "random-ness" displayed on the screen. While I can change the "random-ness", its still just garble.
MY ATTEMPTS TO FIX IT
Ive checked the wiring... pretty straight forward... +5V power, gnd, and a serial line.
First thinking it was a bad display, I swapped out the display. Both the displays show the same thing, and are consistent.
Secondly thinking it may be the Arduino, I swapped it out for a MEGA i have... same thing...
Thinking HEY maybe its the serial lines, I downloaded and used NewSoftSerial, and hooked it up to a digital pin... SAME THING.
I think I am just doing something wrong in the setup or startup of the display. I send the initialization commands, but things like clear screen, and other commands just dont seem to work.
I have tried changing baud rates on the serial from 9600-115200, with little change (even though I have a jumper on the display keeping it at 9600).
So I have two snippets of code that I thought I would include... I just made it basic in any attempt to get the stupid display working. NOTHING thus far.
#include <NewSoftSerial.h>
#define VFD_RX 4 //not used
#define VFD_TX 5 //VFD
// set up a new serial port
NewSoftSerial mySerial = NewSoftSerial(VFD_RX, VFD_TX); //(RXpin, TXpin)
void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600); // OPENS SERIAL PORT SETS DATA TO 9600 bps
// DEFINE PIN MODES FOR TX/RX:
pinMode(VFD_RX, INPUT);
pinMode(VFD_TX, OUTPUT);
// SET DATA RATE FOR SoftwareSerial PORT:
mySerial.begin(9600);
delay(100);
mySerial.print(0x1B,BYTE); //VFD INIT
mySerial.print(0x40,BYTE); //VFD INIT
mySerial.print(0x0C,BYTE); //CLEAR SCREEN CMD
delay(100);
}
void loop() {
mySerial.print("Hello"); //SHOULD PRINT Hello
mySerial.print(0x48,BYTE); //SHOULD PRINT H
mySerial.print(0x65,BYTE); //SHOULD PRINT e
mySerial.print(0x6C,BYTE); //SHOULD PRINT l
mySerial.print(0x6C,BYTE); //SHOULD PRINT l
mySerial.print(0x6F,BYTE); //SHOULD PRINT o
delay(1000);
mySerial.print(0x0C,BYTE); // CLEAR SCREEN CMD
}
So above is where I was using the Soft Serial, hooked to pin 5
I have also used just the serial.print command and had it hooked to the TX line on the Arduino (pin 1) with no such luck either.
Just consistent "random-ness" Meaning... it appears its repeating what I am sending it as the number of digits match what I am typically trying to output, instead of Hello Though, I get something like [ch9567][ch9668]ÜÜÿ over and over... (Thats not the ACTUAL output, just an example).
SO if you have any idea what I am doing wrong please let me know... I could use any help you guys are willing to offer.
It seemed so straight forward, im sure its something stupid I am overlooking.
Thanks in advance!
