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how hard would it be to drive a nkk smartswitch with an AVR?

Hi - how hard do you think it would be to control a NKK Smartswitch (datasheet here:

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protocol here:
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with an AVR? Keep in mind I am recieving my first AVR programmer sometime later this week - so the whole AVR thing is all very new to me. I know it won't be possible as a first project - but as a later project perhaps? Thanks for your input,

Michael

Reply to
Michael
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It depends on what you want to do. I managed to drive a smartswitch display with just a PIC (16F628). If you are just doing fixed text messages or static patterns, you don't need a lot of RAM. If you are trying to do graphics that change (such as a graph of sensor readings) you should think about buffering the display in RAM. Buffering the whole display takes about 120 bytes.

The timing for driving the display is pretty ugly. It may not be obvious to you from the datasheets, but you have to continuously refresh the display at least 30 times a second.

I hope I'm not being too discouraging. If you are new to embedded projects, you may want to try something easier first.

Mark

Reply to
mark hahn

"mark hahn" schreef in bericht news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com...

[snip]

I've seen them used on large proffesional A/V mixing consoles. What are the prices for these little beauties?

-- Thanks, Frank Bemelman (remove 'x' & .invalid when sending email)

Reply to
Frank Bemelman

$50 each when I asked (roughly; depends on the version)

Reply to
Lewin A.R.W. Edwards

"Lewin A.R.W. Edwards" schreef in bericht news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com...

I'll keep it in mind, when I need something to play with ;) Thanks!

-- Thanks, Frank Bemelman (remove 'x' & .invalid when sending email)

Reply to
Frank Bemelman

"Frank Bemelman" wrote in news:3f1ecba7$0 $28910$ snipped-for-privacy@news.euronet.nl:

I heard $40 each - but that may be for the ones that are display only. Anyone know if these wear out at all? It's so purty...

Reply to
Michael

snipped-for-privacy@hvc.rr.com (mark hahn) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com:

You mean external RAM, correct? Are there any AVRs with that internally? Sorry - in a couple weeks my questions will stop sounding quite so stupid when I gain some actual experience with AVRs...

Reply to
Michael

snip

No, on most PICs (and smaller AVRs), the only RAM available is what's on the chip. The 16F628 has 224 bytes of RAM. Some of the MegaAVRs come with up to 4K of RAM.

If this is one of your first micro projects, I'd start with a part with lots of RAM and ROM. If you use a fast enough part, you might get away with writing the whole thing in C.

Mark

Reply to
mark hahn

It is quite easy. I have them in service in a mass produced product, controlled by one of the small 8051 look-alikes. That includes the font generation, so characters are sent to them via a standard asynchronous serial interace. The firmware was written in Keil C.

It should be no problem with an AVR.

You might also consider the RTI (formerly HE) LCD Key 24.2. This is very similar, but has the advantage that it does not require the pixel data to be refreshed every frame. Both the RTI and the NKK keys require continuous clocking, unsurprisingly.

Here in the UK, I think the RTI parts are available from Farnell, but I seem to recall problems finding a NKK distributor.

Richard

------------Richard Dungan------------- Radix Electronic Designs, Orpington, UK ngsATradixDASHdesignDOTcoDOTuk

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Reply to
Richard Dungan

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