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Re: Why 16x2 LCD instead of 20x4?


Jack Purdum
 

Steve:

If people are considering the 20x4 display, you might also consider the I2C version. Youduino.com sells them for $10 with the I2C interface. The advantage is that the interface only uses 2 I/O pins. Also, consider the Teensy 3.5. It cost $9 more than the Teensy 2.0, but its clock is 120MHz instead of 16MHz and it has 4x the memory plus more I/O pins. If you're going to add things to the basic BITX40 (keyer, RIT, S meter, etc.) it's nice to have more pins. You still use the Arduino IDE to develop code for the Teensy, too.

Jack, W8TEE



From: Steve Robertson <bobs_otr@...>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Saturday, January 21, 2017 11:04 AM
Subject: Re: [BITX20] Why 16x2 LCD instead of 20x4?

I see, the 16x2 was purely a financial decision.? Well, it's meant to be a hackable device, and I think we have an easy one here!

i'm still not seeing how this isn't a trival upgrade, and that extra display real estate is pretty desirable...those extra two lines could be used for simple things like an S meter, battery meter, external amp relay enabled, etc..? Looking at the raduino code, it appears it will be able to do dual VFOs, RIT, etc..? Might be nice to have a larger display to accommodate those when enabled.

The wiring is the same, changing the lcd.begin to use it is simple, changing print statements to get things to display where you want is pretty simple.

If the thought is that the Nano isn't up to much more and a larger display simply invites people to add more complicated stuff which will crash the Nano, I don't see that as much of an obstacle either...simply replace the Nano with a more capable Arduino and then recompile the sketch for your new processor, which is also very easy to do.

It'll be interesting to see how capable the Nano is.? the raduino sketch has a lot of stuff in it that's not implemented yet, plus the module has a lot of so far unused pins, so it appears Ashhar is expecting a little more out of it.? The K3NG rotor controller was developed on a Nano with rig control in it and seems stable, they're just moving up to the Mega due to sketch space considerations.

The Teensy is an interesting product!? In fact I ordered a Teensy 2.0 last night!? I use an Arduino Leonardo on PC based HTPCs as an Ir remote sensor, other products are available to do that, but I wire a relay to the Leonardo to activate the front panel power switch, and I power the Leonardo off of the purple wire on the PC power supply - that lead always has power, so I can turn the PC power on and off via the Ir remote.? The downside is having to load the Leonardo drive...easy enough in Windows, but not so easy if using a paired down Linux distro like LibreElec.? The Teensy 2.0 appears as a HID device and uses the standard drivers, so plug and play to Windows and Linux - pretty slick!

I was hit with a devastating eye disease a couple years ago, so I quit playing, but I'm adjusting and with a high contrast inverted color theme I can do a computer fairly well.? Soldering I'm still working on...I'm experimenting with magnifiers, and I'm thinking maybe a web cam displaying to a big monitor may be the way to go...we'll see...can't wait for my BITX to arrive so I'm motivated to explore my options!

73,

Steve, KA0NEB


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