4 x 20 VFD works...sort of.

[alejo]

I picked up a cheap noritake 4 x 20 VFD off of Ebay. It is model # is CU20045SCPB-UJ2. I hooked it up to my parallel port, but I'm having issues. I'm using the latest beta version of LCDsmartie, and on screen 3, the one that has the CPU speed and usage, it drops the first character of first and 4th lines. So instead of it saying

CPU @ 650 Mhz

It will say

PU @ 650 Mhz

But if I write a test line "This is a Test" , it will display fine. Moreover, if I use crystalfontz's test program for parallel displays, it will display everything, but at certain spots it will insert an extra space between words. It will do this in LCDsmartie also.

I've checked and double checked my wiring and it is all correct. If I write all X's to the screen, 80 in total, they all appear and stay put.

The VFD came with male pins already soldered onto the pcb so I just some KK headers from an old case and soldered the other ends onto a solder cup db25.

Jalcd and LCDcenter seem to work also, but with some of the same issues.

Any help appreciated as I really want to get it working with Smartie

Does it sound like a hardware issue, or a wiring issue?

http://www.vegeneering.com/environment_ ... pb-u2j.pdf

[alejo]

Well, I fixed the wiring up a little. All the guides for parallel displays have said to ground pin 5 on the VFD for R/W but I read in another post that LCDsmartie needs this to be connected to pin 14 on the parallel port. It has cleaned up somewhat, as Jalcd and LCDcenter work. I still seem to have a problem with extra spacing though. In places it will double up the spacing.

I've tried different printer port settings, epp, ecp, bi-directional and normal. I wonder if it's the port itself, on an older dual pentium 3.

What's weird is that the screen that lists hard drive space on LCDsmartie works great, then it switches to the email/uptime screen and it's a garbled mess with the date/time scrolling in the first spaces and most of the screen being a jumble of numbers and letters.

[FormatC:]

I too picked up the same VFD and It works fine for me in LCD Smartie (I'm on a Newer Computer though) Double check your wiring and I followed This http://www.icehw.net/article.php?id=99 Wiring Guide. [/url][/code]

[alejo]

Got it working. Looks like it was shoddy soldering work on my part.