This page brainstorms about possibilities for graphical display functionality
Topic revived for 2005-Dec so we can have a display product(-line) for the 2006 racing season
- I (Damian) am reviving it again, see bottom.
We now have a professional partner for the mechanical manufacturing and assembly. This is very good news (the mech issues can be daunting)!!
We still have to choose a display or PDA to integrate as a display solution. Very urgent. Although the market is flooded by 100 USD color display (640x480 or higher resolution) with PAL/NTSC input, it seems very hard to find a suitable display for good cost, under 100 USD (preferrably just 80 USD, or nice features, like TFT and / or touchscreen) at Q=100
ASAP, WE MUST COME UP WITH A LIST OF SUITABLE DEVICES TO GET QUOTE FOR
Note that there are 3 possible solutions:
- custom mask display. I'd postpone this for later. Setup costs might be acceptable, but design and management seems prohibitive. 2 custom-mask displays (for the most often needed functions) and a generic full-matrix (that can be customized and mode-switched) would make upa a good dash
- we also avoid composite input displays (very popular nowadays, appr $100). It's possible, but proper color takes a videochip and a PAL coder (we don't want simple 1-bit gfx :-)
- LVDS input displays cost more than PAL. Quality is better. Making and LVDS output videocard costs appr same as a PAL output.
- If bare display, adding ARM garnish requires >2 months so we must act fast
- there are displays with drivers and display without drivers, right ?
- we might choose a ready-to-go PDA (that has serial port: USB device only is not good), like
- IPAQ
- [ GP32] is probably the best fit today with 320x240 color display and gaming style input paddles
- Nintendo GBA (display is a bit too small: 240x160)
- Sharp Zaurus
The software (guts) should be almost the same, regardless of the HW.
http://www.elatecworld.com distributor showed up, they would like to sell us displays. But their site is hard to search, in fact they don't have own products, just import. The referred manufacturers are no easy ride either.
- Besides the plain TFT / LCD-s - TODO: list of suitable products
- they sell a round RPM-display (relatively big, as you expect from a car's factory RPM display):
- [GDE017SP] from XIAMEN OCULAR that we could also use.
If anyone has good candidates, please take a note. If you know prices (we'd buy 100+) that's even better.
- http://www.powertip.com.tw/product/pro_grap.asp Powertip claims to have 640x480 too, but where ? Apparently not on this product list.
- http://www.mscbp.hu/arlista/arlista.htm The TFT-LCD section has a nice display:
- [JDBK070G1A0P datasheet] 7,0" AV/VGA Driving Board + Inv.,OSD,Cable 27 900 Ft = 110 EURO (+VAT) [image] It must be cheaper in quantities.
- for those who cannot read [ArmDisplay WIKI (Hungarian language)]
- [PXA270 Xscale developer board for appr. 100 EURO] - or is it rather 180 EURO ?
- http://www.linkecu.com/products/TuningTools/DisplayLink 320x240 black and white
- ...
![[image]](http://www.mscbp.hu/download/TFT/AUOPTRONICS/A070VW01.jpg){kind=link}
what displays we've got now is:
- MegaTune and MegaTunix tuning apps (see DocsPage) running on notebooks
- directly connected alphanumeric LCD: GenBoard/BuildProcedures/LCDconnect
what we'll have for sure:
- extended tuningsoftware for notebooks: OtherTuningSoftware
- logging and display (and tuning possibility, wether useful or not) software for PDAs: OtherTuningSoftware
- round 52mm diameter unit with LED displays: 3*7 segment and 24 LED bar
- bigger LED display for HUD application: at least 3 LEDbars and 3*3*7 segments and several status-LEDs.
other ideas that came up
- graphical LCD
- CRT (TV)
http://www.amulettechnologies.com/products/products.html Easy GUI, uses HTML
Note that developers are strongly against these.
Reasons:
- Simply because there are other areas of development that appear to be more useful.
- these are useless before we have some prototype for displaying the data (which is effectively a major part of OtherTuningSoftware for PDA )
- after we have OtherTuningSoftware for PDA these bring very little extra, so efforts are hard to justify. Even if the units are cheap, the development overhead is not.
PAL output, for using off-the-shelf PAL-input display
- $100 OTS display, that operates on 12v (this also opens up the use of a VCR in the car to visually record data)
- device with PAL output
Circuit Cellar has several articles, one uses a micro to generate TV sync while also doing real processing, free compiler for this, another article by Fred Eady, duplicates an LCD, uses a pic, 5370xxxOSD IC, maybe the little Atmel micro could replace the PIC. This is probably not feasible for a nice solution
how to make a device with PAL output? - usually called "video card"
- an ARM and an offtheshelf video chip on a PCB. Chip candidates:
- ...
- some chips like the Nvidia FX5200 or FX 400, whatever (any recent chips used in PC) CONTAIN on-chip processor. This way we need no ARM processor at all, only add SRAM and output protection
- this would be a killer combination, but:
- integration is no gravy train: we might be unable to get programming docs for the videochip
- these chips dissipate a lot of heat. Probably work well for us with low clock freq
- the PCI/AGP interface is not used at all, the pins just eat space
- getting the chips might not be easy either
We need to make OtherTuningSoftware work on PDA first. Programming on nvidia proc sounds a bit steep. But not impossible.
Please evaluate the video solution (cost/complexity/possible chips) to emit true-color PAL signal
- [AVR MOSI mono video signal] just as useless for a real display, as caraca for real networking, but interesting
Marcel,
Sorry I write or explain what trying to say so poorly. Qne of the articles simply details how to make the TV display a picture like an LCD, LCD EMULATION.
(I think I understand, and it seems it is effectively useless until we have a PDA display app).
It effectively replaces an LCD module, Just plug into what would normally drive an LCD subsystem.
(just plug it in wouldn't be useful, even if it worked that way. It needs to be defined what should be displayed and how!)
You can then record it on VCR, camcorder etc.
Small TV's can be bought here for less than $20.00.
(OK, that unit price is compelling, but the development costs are not).
Nothing to do with PDA, just another adaptive display, several area flea markets sell a 5x7 color video display for less than $70.
(yes, it has a lot to do with PDAs! We cannot use that for anything before we have a working app, which will surely work on a PDA next. After we have the display code - might be just 3 days if someone really sits down - we could think if we put the 8000 Euro worth of development effort into driving a CRT or if we can find something more useful.)
A list of graphical modules
I think this can be somewhat cheaper if we buy many.
It cannot compete with Nintendo prices, but even a 320x240 can fit our budget.
Could someone look up in datasheet how hard to drive these ? Most are handled by: Procyon AVRlib with MMC, FAT, IP, graphic lcd support and lots more http://hubbard.engr.scu.edu/embedded/avr/avrlib/
240 Ft = 1 EURO = 1.3 USD\n
EW12A03FLY SED1520 122x32 graphic LCD 3 300 Ft EW13B10FEW ? 128*64 grafikus fehér hát 4 700 Ft EW13B10FLY HD61202 128*64 LED háttér 4 000 Ft EW13B30BMW ? 128x64 Graphic Blue/White 4 440 Ft EW24B00BCW T6963C 240*64 CCFL kék háttér 13 400 Ft EW24B00GLY T6963C 240x64 graphic LCD w/ LED 12 700 Ft EW24B00YLY T6963C 240x64, Green,STN,LED BL 9 100 Ft EW24D00FLY LC7981 240x128 LCD vezérlõ + LED 14 500 Ft EW24D30FLY T6963C 240x128 graphic LCD 9 800 Ft 108X58mm active display. EW24D40FDW LC7981 240x128 grafikus LCD 13 400 Ft EW24D70NCW T6963C 240x128 graphic LCD CCFL 12 600 Ft 120X64mm active display http://www.mitsutech.com.tw/spec/ew24d70ccfl.pdf EW32F10BCW SED1335 not onboard QVGA blue/white ccfl 11 000 Ft EW32F10NCW SED1335 not onboard LCD 320*240, CCFL 12 600 Ft EW32F40FLW no info on controller LCD 320*240, LED, SED1335 17 300 Ft EW32F40NCW SED1335 onboard 320x240 graphic LCD CCFL 18 300 Ft 115X86mm active display EW32F90FLW SED1335 not onboard LCD 320*240, LED, no IC 8 900 Ft EW32F92FLW 320x240 graphic LCD w/TP 15 000 Ft EW32FA1FLW 12 900 Ft EW32FA3FLW 320x240 FSTN White BL 12 800 Ft EW50080FLW 128x64 graphic LCD white 6 900 Ft
Some very nice LCD panels can be found here:
http://www.crystalfontz.com/products/index-grph.html
I know more TFT LCD monitor developer, so from 1,8" TFTs to 15" in-car TFT's we can offer a lot of types. Some modells with VGA input and with touchscreen.
Prices from 50USD, all modells over 100k pixels and has video signal input, full colours etc.
The avarage price is 80-100 USD for a 7-8", there is standalones, in-dashes, etc
Tschangow
Emil received an x-mas deal for 8" 640x480, 675 sek + VAT
I looked at LCD to make a motorbike dashboard some time ago but temperature range was a little problem on TFT.....so i decides to use a small 160x80 monochrome lcd (with extended range).
I used only 320x240 with a SED1375 controller ... is't very fast compared with other lcd with onboard-controller.
Enrico
Seems unsuitable
- www.conrad.de
- 187445-11 (link wont work ,put this number in the search field.) 109,00 EUR for "GRAFIK 240X128 LCD-MODUL" black and white. Much better display is needed for 109 Euro. To justify 15..25000 Euro development costs something spectacular is needed 400+ of which can be selled of.
- lacks datasheet. Unknown temprange. (some technical data http://www2.produktinfo.conrad.com/datenblaetter/175000-199999/187445-da-02-en-Grafikdisplay_240x128.pdf
ARM display board - pressing ahead
For something we can make now with parts that are good for other things and cheap, I have put into schematics:
- Atmel ARM9 (SAM)
- Epson S1D13506, Digikey has 1000
- PSU for 12V
- MMC, RAM, Flash
- CRT, LCD and TV connectors(S-video/composite)
- NO point in arguing about the LCD module right now, we can find the BEST one later
Basically an SBC, will run linux and start GUI from MegaTunix Code. Or some wx-widget code.
Any more ideas?
Our partners make high quality 4 layer PCBs, batch starting costs are appr 200 EUR and 3 weeks so it's best to get right within a few iterations ;-)
High speed buses ... that is a design problem I guess. 8 mil clearance (and 8 mil traces, with 12 mil drill) is cheapest, but 6 mil is certainly possible without too high extra cost, I can ask how costs increase under 6 mil. But with rounded corner pads it should not be needed.