Matrix Orbital LK204-25 and PicBasic

[Jųan]

I really liked how the MO display looked on the few pictures on the net. Thats why I got it. It was the only one that was available locally too while the other ones would take a couple of weeks.
The local supplier charged me $136.235USD for that. But thats what I get for living in the sticks. I wont be able to buy another one for a while, so I guess I will have to get used to this one. Yes I read that I have to use a Max232 to do the interfacing. Thanks for confirming though. I found a relatively good article regarding this stuff: http://hyper.sunjapan.com.cn/~hz/PIC/index.html

I will come up with a solution on how to use these efficiently and I will let you know. If there is a will, there is always a way!

Regards

Juan

[badrad]

Hi Juan
Ouch! $136USD for a basic text display...

Why not try using the I2C instead of RS232? If short distance isn't a factor, you won't need to buy another part, just add a couple of 4.7K resistors and assign 2 pins using the I2CWRITE commands. It looks pretty straightforward, and if only using text it should not be a problem. I read in the the MO forum that you cannot download fonts or graphics with I2C.

Good luck.

[roleyrev]

Hi,

As it would happen I have addressed a Matrix Orbital Display, rather a large Graphical one, I dont remember the exact model. I tried 232 but I got the best results with I2c. Planning was the most important part of the project. I was using the display for bar graphs and custom text. So I did a layout on paper first. I also found that storing the I2C commands in a I2c memory chip saved a lot of space in the PIC