Reading lcd information

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I've an idea for a new project. I thinking about getting a dab tuner, the tuner I have in mind uses a standard 4x20 lcd display. I would like to take the information displayed on this lcd and send it to my pc via a pic. Is this plausible idea?

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[sougata]

Hi,

When you send information to the LCD it is stored in the RAM of the LCD. So technically it is possible to read back what is there on the RAM. But for that you need to have tri-stated logic on the sender side. The best possible way is to have the data and control lines tied up to your PIC and poll them. Then you can save the data on PIC and send it to the PC. The parsing routine can be on the PC to make everything simple. In fact all you need is perhaps a parallel to serial converter routine running on the PIC.

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I want to take the lcd out all together and just run the data lines straight into the pic. Then using the serout command, send the data to the pc. Im still learning pic basic pro. But im unsure how to capture the data and convert it to usable serial data, if its possible. I also thought of the same idea of reading the information back from the lcd using lcdin command.

Thanks for the reply
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[sougata]

Hi,

Since you are new to PBP you might not be aware how a LCD works anyway. Try this link http://www.sxlist.com/techref/io/lcd/djlcdsim/djlcdsim.html or http://www.geocities.com/dinceraydin/djlcdsim/djlcdsim.html
It will give you an insight on how a LCD works.

Now you need to monitor the LCD enable and register select line too. Obviously you need a buffer inside the PIC since you serial out would be slower. While monitoring the port you can constantly loop around and then see if port!=port(buffer). This means a new data. Then dump it to the serial routine.

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Thanks alot for the info sougata.

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