The thought from the beginning was to somehow connect a parallel LCD display to the computers USB-port. A PIC-micro could take care of the serial-to-paralell conversion, but how connect a cheap PIC to the USB-port? A converter chip would be great, but then I came to think of data cables for mobiles. They are just that, USB to serial converters, they are cheap and I don't have to solder the little USB-ic myself. Like this: USB-port -- data cable -- PIC-processor -- LCD Can this work? Is a PIC16F84 enough?
LCD + USB + PIC - connect with mobile phone datacable?
Dec 07, 2004
4 Replies
Why not just use a USB-parallel (printer) adaptor?
One thing to keep in mind is that there are devics that act like a USB device when hooked to USB and act like RS232 when hooked to a serial port - thus needing nothing more than a cheap adapter or adabter cable that acts as a "USB to serial converter." This scheme is quite common on mice and keyboards. In industrial controllers, you sometimse see a USB port that becomes I2C when connected to another I2C. These "USB to serial converters" will
*not* work with a USB that is not programmed to imitate another kind of connection.
Check out the FT245 from
formatting link
It's a great chip that provides a really easy USB interface for microcontrollers.
Perhaps also check out the lcdinfo project at
formatting link
which seems to be concerned with people connecting little LCD screens to their PCs in various ways.
Jaye.
Thanks for your answers! A USB-parallel converter would be great, but it's more expensive than a data cable. The FT245 also looks nice but it costs nearly as much as the cable and I have to solder a 32-pin SMD... Sure I can do that but I think a finished cable would be easier.
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