So i Have played with Arduino a little bit. But Iam actually here to ask questions about some thing else. I bought this solar powered garden hose timer on amazon. the LCD burnt out. I used some brut force and brains to pot the cover but I got in and it seems serviceable. I know zero about LCDS what would take to order a replacement and pop it in there. As a garden timer it has allot of words on it an such that are none standard. Dose that even matter? dose the little screen have to be custom made to the application? There is this wired sorta silicone cushion on the bottom of the LCD dose that even do anything? If i cant fix the display is it a terribly hard to make some thing like this with arduino?
I ll post pictures of all the insides soon. I am sure however that this thing just got killed under the hot sun of my climate an a little work to keep everything heat tolerant could help.
The, as you called it, "sorta silicone cushion", is known as a 'zebra strip'.
Have a good look at it and you'll know why.
It's not weird at all, it forms the electronic connection between PCB and the glass of the display.
You know, glass is a bit hard to solder.
Do not touch the zebra strip all the time and do not try to clean it with any kind of fluid and/or any paper like towel.
The words you see on the LCD are a single 'dot' each, which means only a single bit needs to be controlled to have that word made visible.
Sometimes there's 2 bits for that.
If you enable a word like 'week', you only need to enable a single 's' to change the word to plural.
This also means that such screens are indeed custom made, and ordering a replacement might be not that easy.
You probably would be off cheaper buying a new timer.
so what about putting my own screen in there an using my arduino or a micro arduino to drive it? All it dose is open a valv according to a seven day week.
