Has anyone successfully used a 20T202DA2JA vacuum fluorescent serial display on their arduino? A typical example of which can be found detailed in www.egochina.net.cn/e-shop/ebay/Datasheet/20T202DA2JA.pdf at the moment.
Mine is a five-pin unit, although there are similar units with a 14 pin connector, which isn't the one I have. The connections are:
Hi, i'm trying to use the same VFD display (coming out from an old HP plotter), wonder if you've had any success with it?
I'll be trying the SPI interfacing later today.
I bought one of these on eBay* and the seller had some demo code on their page for some microcontroller I hadn’t ever heard of. I ported it over to arduino and the VFD works fine.
*Not affiliated just where I picked mine up
//VFD to Arduino
// 1 GND
// 2 VCC
// 3-SIO D11-MOSI
// 4-STB D10-Slave Select
// 5-SCK D13-SCK
#include <SPI.h>
const int slaveSelectPin = 10;
unsigned char UDF[13][8]=
{
0xff,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,
0x00,0xff,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,
0x00,0x00,0xff,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,
0x00,0x00,0x00,0xff,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,
0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0xff,0x00,0x00,0x00,
0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0xff,0x00,0x00,
0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0xff,0x00,
0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0xff,
0x10,0x10,0x10,0x10,0x10,0x10,0x10,0x10,
0x08,0x08,0x08,0x08,0x08,0x08,0x08,0x08,
0x04,0x04,0x04,0x04,0x04,0x04,0x04,0x04,
0x02,0x02,0x02,0x02,0x02,0x02,0x02,0x02,
0x01,0x01,0x01,0x01,0x01,0x01,0x01,0x01,
};
unsigned char i,j,k;
unsigned char Seril_Demo_Line1[]={
' ',' ',' ',' ','V','F','D','-','D','I','S','P','L','A','Y',' ',' ',' ',' ',' ',
};
unsigned char Seril_Demo_Line2[]={
'M','O','D','E',':','S','E','R','I','A','L','-','D','E','M','O',' ',' ',' ',' ',
};
void setup()
{
pinMode (slaveSelectPin, OUTPUT);
SPI.begin();
SPI.setDataMode(SPI_MODE3);
}
void cdelay(unsigned int t)
{
while(t--);
delay(100);
// delay(t);
}
void DATA(unsigned char temp_1)
{
digitalWrite(slaveSelectPin,LOW);
SPI.transfer(0xfa);
SPI.transfer(temp_1);
digitalWrite(slaveSelectPin,HIGH);
}
void COM(unsigned char temp_2)
{
digitalWrite(slaveSelectPin,LOW);
SPI.transfer(0xf8);
SPI.transfer(temp_2);
digitalWrite(slaveSelectPin,HIGH);
}
void loop()
{
//
COM(0x01); //clear all display and set DD-RAM address 0 in address counter
COM(0x02); //move cursor to the original position
COM(0x06); //set the cursor direction increment and cursor shift enabled
COM(0x38); //set 8bit operation,2 line display and 100% brightness level
COM(0x80); //set cursor to the first position of 1st line
COM(0x0c); //set display on,cursor on,blinking off
// COM(0x06); //set display on,cursor on,blinking on (this is a guess)
delay(10);
for (j=0; j<13; j++)
{
COM(0x40); //CGRAM ADDRESS SETTING
for (k=0; k<8; k++)
{
DATA(UDF[j][k]);
}
COM(0x80); //DRAM ADDRESS SETTING
for (i=0; i<80; i++)
{
DATA(0x00);
}
cdelay(20000);
cdelay(20);
}
COM(0x80);
for (i=0; i<20; i++)
{
DATA(Seril_Demo_Line1[i]);
}
COM(0xc0);
for (i=0; i<20; i++)
{
DATA(Seril_Demo_Line2[i]);
}
cdelay(50000);
cdelay(50000);
cdelay(50000);
cdelay(50000);
cdelay(50000);
cdelay(50000);
cdelay(50000);
cdelay(50000);
cdelay(50000);
cdelay(50000);
COM(0x80); //DDRAM ADDRESS SETTING
for (i=0; i<20; i++)
{
DATA(0x2a);
DATA(0x20);
}
for (i=0; i<20; i++)
{
DATA(0x20);
DATA(0x2a);
}
cdelay(50000);
cdelay(50000);
COM(0x80); //DDRAM ADDRESS SETTING
for (i=0; i<20; i++)
{
DATA(0x20);
DATA(0x2a);
}
for (i=0; i<20; i++)
{
DATA(0x2a);
DATA(0x20);
}
cdelay(50000);
cdelay(50000);
COM(0x40); //CGRAM ADDRESS SETTING
for (k=0; k<8; k++)
{
DATA(0xff);
}
COM(0x80); //DDRAM ADDRESS SETTING
for (i=0; i<80; i++)
{
DATA(0x00);
}
}
Used arduino0021 for this. It’s not the best looking code but it works just fine.
I wrote up some simple code to take whatever comes in from the serial port and prints it to the VFD. It takes the first 40 characters it gets and just discards the rest.
//VFD to Arduino
// 1 GND
// 2 VCC
// 3-SIO D11-MOSI
// 4-STB D10-Slave Select
// 5-SCK D13-SCK
#include <SPI.h>
const int slaveSelectPin = 10;
void setup()
{
pinMode (slaveSelectPin, OUTPUT);
SPI.begin();
SPI.setDataMode(SPI_MODE3);
Serial.begin(9600);
}
void DATA(unsigned char temp_1)
{
digitalWrite(slaveSelectPin,LOW);
SPI.transfer(0xfa);
SPI.transfer(temp_1);
digitalWrite(slaveSelectPin,HIGH);
}
void COM(unsigned char temp_2)
{
digitalWrite(slaveSelectPin,LOW);
SPI.transfer(0xf8);
SPI.transfer(temp_2);
digitalWrite(slaveSelectPin,HIGH);
}
char serin1[40] = {' '};
void loop()
{
int availableBytes = 0;
boolean change = false;
int i = 0;
while (availableBytes == 0)
{
availableBytes = Serial.available();
delay(75); //this gives the buffer time to fill
}
availableBytes = Serial.available();
for(i=0; i<availableBytes; i++)
{
if (i < 40)
{
serin1[i] = Serial.read();
}
else
{
Serial.read();
}
change = true;
}
if (change == true)
{
for(i=availableBytes; i < 41; i++)
{
serin1[i] = ' ';
}
COM(0x01); //clear all display and set DD-RAM address 0 in address counter
COM(0x02); //move cursor to the original position
COM(0x06); //set the cursor direction increment and cursor shift enabled
COM(0x38); //set 8bit operation,2 line display and 100% brightness level
COM(0x80); //set cursor to the first position of 1st line
COM(0x0c); //set display on,cursor on,blinking off
COM(0x80);
for (i=0; i<20; i++)
{
DATA(serin1[i]);
}
COM(0xc0);
for (i=20; i<40; i++)
{
DATA(serin1[i]);
}
}
}
My plan is to make this ‘Matrix Orbital’ compatible to use LCD Smartie with this VFD.
EDIT: If you just use “testdriver.dll” in LCD Smartie it sorta works. Multiple line things are still a little odd.