Matrix Orbital Corp

I'm currently a Penn State college student taking a microprocessor class. My lab partner and I are building a programmable relay controller using a Dallas DS5000T (fancy Phillips 8051-same pin-outs). The circuit can be seen at www.Rentron.com.
The problem is the 2041 has an interface board attached to the back of it. Our programming does not require the use of the second interface board. Can the second board be overridden by attaching wires to the LCD pins themselves? Can/should the back board be removed? (We don't have a clue how to use it with our project!)

Any advice will be most welcome!

Thanks,
Jeff

Hi Jeff,

Thank you for posting on the forum.

You will need to remove the serial interface board to communicate with the display or you will get some conflicting signals if you keep the serial interface board on.

I would like to note that the warranty will be void after removing the serial interface board.

Another solution you can try is to send the data from the controller through the uart. If you send the information from the UART, then you won't need to remove the serial interface board. You just need to hook up TX of the controller to RX of the serial interface board, power, and ground.

I hope my answers have helped you out.

If you have anymore questions or concerns, please feel free to post them.

Best Regards,

Thanks Tom

If only such service were common everywhere...
I mean that as a compliment!

I am quite new to microprocessors and am not very familiar with much of the terminology. Basically, I need my hand held (My first microprocessor class.)
What is UART? Where is the RX of the interface board (is it pin 3 of the power connector?) ? Which pin on the controller is the TX (might that be pin 11 (P3.1 - a general purpose I/O port also serving as the transmit for the onboard UART?)) ? The DS5000T has an onboard UART - does that make a difference?
Would this option render much of the external circuitry obsolete?
Now I really feel stupid.

If you're not sure if it will work I'll just remove the interface board & atttempt to make it optional for future users.

Thanks again,
Jeff

Jeff,

Thanks for the kind words.

We were all students at one point, so i'll try to help you as much as possible. A uart is an acronym for universial asyncronous receiver transmitter. It is basically used for serial communication. The communication line of the uart consist of RX data, TX data, and ground.

You will be able to use the DS5000T's UART to communicate with the serial interface board, which makes things easier because of the less communication lines. When you deal with the display with the serial interface board taken off, which is utilizing parallel communications, you will need to deal with timing of the 8 or 4 data lines, a R/W line, enable line, contrast, and the backlight.

Everything is done for you in the serial inteface board, so all you need to do is send text and commands through the uart.

The external circuitry won't be rendered useless at all. The circuitry will remain the same, if you use the serial interface board, the lines going from the controller to the lcd will be different. As shown on the controller's data sheet TX is pin 11, and that would go to pin 3 of the serial interface board. You will then need to program the code accordingly.

I noticed that the website you got your example from has the appropriate coding and schematic, so you may want to use that to make things easier, since it's all been done for you. It's usually pretty good to explore unchartered territory to increase the learning experience.

Some advice I can pass onto you is to always refer back to the datasheet or manual for any device you use. The datasheet will always give you useful information on how to use or setup the device.

For more detailed information on the LCD2041, you can refer to the manual at
http://www.matrixorbital.ca/manuals/LCD ... s/LCD2041/

For information on the parallel display attached to the LCD2041, you can refer to the manual at http://www.matrixorbital.ca/manuals/MOP ... AL204A.pdf

If you have anymore questions or concerns, please feel free to post them.

Best Regards,