Hi
Im trying to wire a vfd to the serial port on my pc. i have found how to wire it to the parallel port, but my pc does not have one.
i have search everywhere to find a guide but im still not sure how to do it. here is the pinouts for my vfd. amy help would be great.
thank you
http://www.vfdworld.com/techdocs/Norita ... 20_VFD.pdf
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serial wiring help for vfd
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mattcro
- Forum Supporter
- Posts: 590
- Joined: March 8th, 2006, 1:58 pm
- Location: Scotland
Re: serial wiring help for vfd
You've got 2 options to connect your display. You can buy a PCI (or maybe PCI-E) parallel port adapter card if you have a spare slot in your PC, or you can make a serial adapter (RS232 to TTL) to connect the display to your serial port.
USB to parallel printer adapters will not work. You need a real parallel port (on the motherboard or a PCI card) to interface with an LCD or VFD.
To use this display with a serial port, you need a converter that changes the RS232 (+/-12V) serial signal to a logic level (0/5V) for the VFD. This can be as simple as a single NPN transistor and a couple of resistors. If you're handy with a soldering iron and have some basic hobby electronics parts available, this should only be a few minutes work and can probably be built onto the VFD connector. An example of this circuit is at the top of this page: http://www.kmitl.ac.th/~kswichit/ap275/ap275.htm You only need the part of the circuit that does RS232->TTL conversion, ie transistor Q2 and its 2 resistors and diode.
The pins (dots) labelled GND(5) and TXD(3) go to the serial port connector (a 9-way D type) and the pin on the left labelled RXD goes to your VFD's SIN/TEST pin. The VFD ground (0V) should also be connected to the serial port GND. You can get 5V power and ground for the VFD from a spare disk drive connector (red=5V, black=ground).
Hope that helps!
USB to parallel printer adapters will not work. You need a real parallel port (on the motherboard or a PCI card) to interface with an LCD or VFD.
To use this display with a serial port, you need a converter that changes the RS232 (+/-12V) serial signal to a logic level (0/5V) for the VFD. This can be as simple as a single NPN transistor and a couple of resistors. If you're handy with a soldering iron and have some basic hobby electronics parts available, this should only be a few minutes work and can probably be built onto the VFD connector. An example of this circuit is at the top of this page: http://www.kmitl.ac.th/~kswichit/ap275/ap275.htm You only need the part of the circuit that does RS232->TTL conversion, ie transistor Q2 and its 2 resistors and diode.
The pins (dots) labelled GND(5) and TXD(3) go to the serial port connector (a 9-way D type) and the pin on the left labelled RXD goes to your VFD's SIN/TEST pin. The VFD ground (0V) should also be connected to the serial port GND. You can get 5V power and ground for the VFD from a spare disk drive connector (red=5V, black=ground).
Hope that helps!
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hunty3000
- Posts: 2
- Joined: July 31st, 2010, 10:39 pm
Re: serial wiring help for vfd
Thanks thats i needed to know. Ill knock that up tomorrow. One other question, do i wire it threw the idc connector or the 3 pin power connector.
Thanks for the help
Thanks for the help
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mattcro
- Forum Supporter
- Posts: 590
- Joined: March 8th, 2006, 1:58 pm
- Location: Scotland
Re: serial wiring help for vfd
As far as I know, you can use either the main IDC connector or the 3-way connector. Just use whichever one you can get the connector/cable for.
One other thing: I'm not sure what the Smartie driver support is like for serial VFDs. There is a parallel VFD driver but I don't know about serial...
One other thing: I'm not sure what the Smartie driver support is like for serial VFDs. There is a parallel VFD driver but I don't know about serial...