Stupid question about LCDOUT

[Glenn]

Right up there with the heartbeat LED, I usually put a 'blink all pins at x frequency' subroutine in there to do nothing but pulse all the pins at a known rate. Hit 'em with the logic probe or the 'scope and those questions go out the window...
Solderless breadboards-These days, my older breadboards are usually the first suspect...

I guess I can try to move the whole project to another part of the breadboard or another breadboard to test.. or trying to find the probs for the scope

Anyway, this is waht it looks like now.. yea, I know its not a school example of how it should be done but it should work.

http://safir.amigaos.se/bildgalleri/...0-halfsize.jpg

[skimask]

A few questions...
Why the double-pullup resistor on RA4? Same on MCLR?
Pin 9 on the PIC should go to pin 6 on the LCD...
Almost looks like the LCD needs to be jammed in there a bit farther...
Also, you really need more decoupling cap's... a couple across Vdd/Vss on both the PIC and the LCD (especially the LCD in this case) wouldn't hurt.
Ok, I missed the part where you said you swapped over to an 'F84A.
Those 1st 3 solder joints on the LCD don't look that good either, could be the lighting though...

[mackrackit]

I may be full of you know what...
But I think the LCD is wired backwards. I do not have the data sheet for that one, but isn't pin 14 over by the mounting hole?

[skimask]

I may be full of you know what...
But I think the LCD is wired backwards. I do not have the data sheet for that one, but isn't pin 14 over by the mounting hole?

Holy Crap!!! Actually, I checked my stash of LCDs. 3 of them have pin 14 by the hole, 1 has pin 1 by the hole...
So I don't think you're full of it...

[mackrackit]

So I don't think you're full of it...

Now if I could get my wife to agree with you

[Glenn]

I may be full of you know what...
But I think the LCD is wired backwards. I do not have the data sheet for that one, but isn't pin 14 over by the mounting hole?

Great, after some googling I realized that there are datasheets of very similar displays, and SOME have pin 1 at the edge, and some have pin 14 Doh..

The one that I had printed says it is like I wired it up on the breadboard, therefore I assumed that I followed this when I builded the parport displays, but now I better disassemble one and see how I really connected it.

[Glenn]

A few questions...
Why the double-pullup resistor on RA4? Same on MCLR?

Since I have alot of 10K resistors handy and didnt want to search for 4K7 in my big pile of resistors I used two 10K in parallel to get 5K ..and since its only a pullup its not very critical anyway.

Pin 9 on the PIC should go to pin 6 on the LCD...
Almost looks like the LCD needs to be jammed in there a bit farther...

The pinstrip I used have pretty long (and very thin) pins so its no problem.

Also, you really need more decoupling cap's... a couple across Vdd/Vss on both the PIC and the LCD (especially the LCD in this case) wouldn't hurt.

You mean closer ? Well, I guess I could do that just to get that possibility out of the way, but I dont think it should be any problem, I use a very clean powersource and have one cap on the breadboard over Vss and Vdd.

Ok, I missed the part where you said you swapped over to an 'F84A.
Those 1st 3 solder joints on the LCD don't look that good either, could be the lighting though...

The leftmost ones ? its actually flux that went white when I pressed the testpins from my multimeter to see if I really got some power to the LCD ..So no problem there, but I admit that the solderings on the ICSP-connector looks like crap ..I just made a cable between the Pickit2 and a pinstrip very quickly since I was tired of connecting and disconnecting the pickit2 all the time.

[skimask]

You mean closer ? Well, I guess I could do that just to get that possibility out of the way, but I dont think it should be any problem, I use a very clean powersource and have one cap on the breadboard over Vss and Vdd.

Sometimes it doesn't matter how 'clean' the PSU is, because down the road, the PIC will mess it up for you...all by itself. And quite frankly, you won't find very many circuits, even battery powered, that don't have a cap or two sprinkled all over the place to help keep the power lines/ground lines clean and clear from spikes.

[wayne2056]

Glen,
It's been a while since I used a breadboard but looking at your photo and the two strips connected to power, make sure that the two strips you are using for power, that the two parallel columns on the strips are actually connected together internally. Else you need a jumper.

I hope you understand what i mean..

Wayne