Problem with Futaba M202MD12B

Couin · Post by **Couin** » January 14th, 2008, 12:08 am

Hi,

I'm Denis and I'm living in France, so, sorry in advance for my poor english

I have a Futaba M202MD12B VFD.

I found the pin connection.

The display is near to run correctly, but it doesn't.

I searched and digged into the www, and I just found there was a difference a character tables between HD44780 and C1162 (from OKI, that chip is on my VFD board, there are two chips).

Look this little video http://mytfs.free.fr/futaba/futaba.avi .

I tried with all serial display drivers provided with LCD Smartie 5.4 but it doesn't word correctly

I thank in advance, all of who will give me some help

Cheers,
Denis

Post by **caesar** » January 18th, 2008, 12:55 pm

If it's a serial connection than the different character table should not matter, the processor from your display should automatically translate that.

Try the testdriver from LCDSmartie and see what special commands your display uses for line selection, clearing the display, position, custom characters maybe.

Until some serial VFD gurus will see your post the testdriver is your best friend!

Caesar

Couin · Post by **Couin** » January 19th, 2008, 12:38 am

Thanks for answering , Caesar.

Where can I configure testdriver ?

Thanks for help

Post by **caesar** » January 19th, 2008, 8:33 pm

Here is the testdriver info: http://lcdsmartie.sourceforge.net/testdriver.html

Hope you get started until you can find a datasheet for the display (this might be helpful in designing a specific driver or see if it is compatible with some already done).

Couin · Post by **Couin** » January 27th, 2008, 11:55 pm

Thanks for answer

Is the name of file to create testdriver.ini ?
Did you try it ?

Couin

Couin · Post by **Couin** » January 29th, 2008, 4:40 am

So, I tried Test Driver, it work with LCD Smartie 5.3.2 (I can check that is true by changing a character in the config.ini file, section [Test Driver] ).

Can anyone could tell me what the following acronyms mean :

ID PAUSE
ID END
ID CLEAR
DIM (I found, it's the brightness)
BS
HT
BLK
SCL
CAL
CLR
ALD
DP
SP (I found, it's SPace)
DC
TON
TOF
TFF
TBK
RST (Reset ?)

I ask it because I'm near to find the problem I have with my display.

I think there is something like Gotoline1 and Gotoline2 to configure but I tried without success

Thanks

Post by **caesar** » January 31st, 2008, 12:56 pm

Where are those acronyms from?
Maybe you could post links to documentation you have found.

Please also post the testdriver ini file so others could benefit or even help us make an output driver for your display type.

Couin · Post by **Couin** » January 31st, 2008, 1:40 pm

I found just yesterday few infos

DIM Dimmer
BS Back Space
HT Horizontal Tab
CLR Clear
ALD All Display
DP Display position
SP (I found, it's SPace)
DC Cursor Mode
TON Triangle On
TOF Triangle Off
TFF All Triangle Off

So by using DP feature, I can make my display running normaly now (or near normaly, just one char is bad if I us bar, like CPU usage bar).

My testdriver.ini file :

[Test Driver]
GotoLine1=16,00
GotoLine2=16,20
CharMap=255,127
Fini=13

The CharMap=255,127 is supposed to display a filled squarre in place of a space, but it doesn't

Post by **caesar** » February 1st, 2008, 1:30 pm

Nice!

Please post all the documentation you have found, I'll write you a display driver, maybe I can implement custom characters too.

Couin · Post by **Couin** » February 1st, 2008, 2:52 pm

Hi Ceasar,

You can find the datasheet of my display here : http://www.futaba.com/products/display_ ... Char_9.pdf

How do you make a driver ?

Other question, I will have some displays to connect on // port, can I use testdriver with // displays ?

Thanks

Post by **caesar** » February 3rd, 2008, 12:56 pm

Sadly no, the test driver is only for serial lcd's.

There are dll frameworks for many programming languages, just take them, modify to suit your need and build the project.
I've seen them for Visual Basic, Visual C++, Delphi...
But display dll's are just for Delphi I think.

Post by **mattcro** » February 3rd, 2008, 7:10 pm

You can write the display driver in Delphi or C++, but I don't think it's possible in Visual Basic (at least, not in VB.NET 2005 Express because you can't export DLL functions). I don't know about C# but I guess that would work.

Post by **caesar** » February 22nd, 2008, 6:37 pm

Hey, Couin!

I am sorry to announce you that writing that display driver has been indefinitely delayed. I have completely switched to Linux and as such I don't have any possibility to use Smartie, use Delphi and test them.

Sorry!

Couin · Post by **Couin** » June 16th, 2009, 1:35 pm

Hi Guys

I took some time to follow my searches, and with the testfdriver files, I changed the characters table to get the right text on the VFD display.

Look at this video :

http://forumserato.free.fr/video/vfd.avi (604 ko)

Now I have another question but will open a new thread

See ya

Couin