My LCD System Monitor

My character LCD based System Monitor

Had a lot of SPARE time in hand so thought why not rig up a little character based LCD as system monitor and keep my Monitor switched off..

The LCD is a 16x2 character ..so had to cramp in a lot of info in those little spaces. It's got a Greenish-Yellow backlight which i keep off at night..

As for the pics .. they are taken with a Nokia 7610 and then edited for contrast and brightness.. so sorry for the shoddy image quality..

The Base Unit :

*img339.imageshack.us/img339/4792/mainunitih1.th.jpg

The first boot (without backlight):

*img253.imageshack.us/img253/808/poweronci4.th.jpg

The first boot (with backlight):

*img520.imageshack.us/img520/1677/lcdwblei8.th.jpg

In action:

*img267.imageshack.us/img267/1200/bootscreenkl0.th.jpg

The analog clock:

*img132.imageshack.us/img132/7084/clockek2.th.jpg

The Network Monitor:

*img515.imageshack.us/img515/9648/netmonma9.th.jpg

The CPU monitor (did not add the temperature support):

*img266.imageshack.us/img266/2577/cpumonou0.th.jpg

The GPU monitor : (All the 3 data keep scrolling on the same line)
1.Core Frequency:

*img525.imageshack.us/img525/6241/gpumon1mp3.th.jpg

2.Memory Frequency:

*img530.imageshack.us/img530/4033/gpumon2no9.th.jpg

3.GPU Temperature:

*img509.imageshack.us/img509/5646/gpumon3hg2.th.jpg

System Uptime:

*img254.imageshack.us/img254/6856/uptimean1.th.jpg

And finally ..Winamp in action

*img515.imageshack.us/img515/6999/winampnamepl0.th.jpg

*img517.imageshack.us/img517/3782/winampseekerpx7.th.jpg

*img262.imageshack.us/img262/7914/winamplogonc8.th.jpg

If you see clearly you can see the Winamp logo on the right side of the display. And the Spectrum Analyser sure looks cool..

I had to keep the backlight switched off to take the pics..

Well need your feedbacks..
Also will mount the entire thing by the side of the case or in a pexi-glass piece..

^^Awwsssumm work there....puhlease post the tuts too

holy monk...this is why you were looking for the LCD panel of car stereo...my God...your insanely good...awesome work... +100

Please tell us how did you happen to build it...you know complete DIY details.

Will post the tutorial soon...

Just need the time ...

Congrats man. This is some awesome stuff...

Now comes the tutorial..

The Schematic:

*img530.imageshack.us/img530/9620/schematicua9.th.jpg

Parts Needed:
1. A character LCD with HD44780 or compatible controllers.(Most character LCDs of 16x2,16x4,20x2,20x4,40x2,40x4 comes with the above mentioned controllers)

2. A parallel port extension cord with 25 pin wiring. One having 18 pin wiring is also available. Do not use the 18 pin connection cord.

3. A DB-25 male or female connector depending upon the extension cord cable's free end.

4. A 100 ohm 1/2 watt resistor.

5. A male molex connector. If one is not available then use a Y-splitter cable.

6. A switch to controll the backlight LED.

7. Wire, preferably 20 core ribbon cable.

8. A bread board or a Verro board. There are 2 kinds of verro boards. One having the horizontal rows connected. The other having no horizontal or vertical rows connected. I prefer the 2nd type.

Connection:

1. Connect pins 6 to 14 of the LCD to pins 1 to 9 of the DB-25 connector.
2. Connect pins 18 to 25 of the DB-25 connector to the ground.
3. Connect pins 2 and 15 of the LCD to +5v power supply.
4. Connect pins 1 and 3 of the LCD to ground.
5. Connect pin 4 of the LCD to pin 16 of the DB-25 connector.
6. Connect pin 5 of the LCD to pin 14 of the DB-25 connector.
7. Connect pin 16 of the LCD to a 100 ohm resistor and then connect the resistor to ground.

Things to note :
1. This schematic does not work for a 40x4 controller.
2. The +5V supply is the RED wire on the MOLEX connector.
3. The Ground is the BLACK wire on the MOLEX connector.
4. Put the switch between pin 15 and +5V connector to switch on/off the backlight LED.
5. If your LCD unit has only 14 pins and no 15 and 16 pin then it has got no Backlight LED. Also in some cases the 15 and 16 pins are replaced by pins marked Anode and Cathode or A and C or K.

CAUTION:
When checking for the first time DO NOT plug the DB-25 connector to the parallel port extension cord. First plug in the male MOLEX to a spare MOLEX connector on the PSU and start the PC. If everything goes fine then line 1 of the display (for a 2 line display) or lines 1 and 3 of the display(for a 4 line display) should display up with black boxes covering all the columns.

Now shutdown the PC and then connect the DB-25 connector and then restart again.

Then use LCD Smartie to control the LCD display.

Any further queries are welcome.

^^ now this is wat i CAll Insane Stuff *gigasmilies.googlepages.com/111.gif

I made this kinda stuff for my Robotics Competition last year(in class XI) .

We had a wireless car with a wireless camera and mic mounted atop it .

It was controllable through a PC and over the net , you could recieve the streaming video on the net and control it remotely too over the net .

It could track it's own movement and could go back where it came from .

I also made a small scripting engine for it wherein you could program the movement of the car using a bsic like language for example fd10, rt 90,fd 10 .

The judges were impressed and i won first prize

Ah well almost forgot , you could even control it from a Bluetooth enabled mobile .

nicely done....I hv a couple of 16x2..l..will do after exams

azzu said:
^^ now this is wat i CAll Insane Stuff *gigasmilies.googlepages.com/111.gif

No that's typical TCS ingenuity at work...

@ Kaustav : Could you throw some light on where you sourced these parts from and how much did they cost you?

sabret00the said:
No that's typical TCS ingenuity at work...

@ Kaustav : Could you throw some light on where you sourced these parts from and how much did they cost you?

Arre why bring TCS into all these...

All parts were sourced from chandni chowk..forgot the names of the shop..but do remember their locations...

As for the costing...

Parallel Port xtesion cable : Rs. 60
LCD Module : Rs. 140
Resistor + Switch :Rs.(1+4) = Rs. 5
Male Molex : Rs. 15
Verro Board : Rs. 10
Ribbon Cable (3ft) : Rs. 16

--------------------------
Total : Rs. 246

Also Soldering iron+Solder+Flux : No idea ..had one from a long time.. will be around Rs.50 max

So total for someone starting from scratch will be around 300 max..

Hope this helps...

Nah , a good soldering iron costs Atleast Rs 150 .
Although u can get Cheap Rs 50 ones too but they don't last even a week and have very bad precision .

Zeeshan Quireshi said:
Nah , a good soldering iron costs Atleast Rs 150 .
Although u can get Cheap Rs 50 ones too but they don't last even a week and have very bad precision .

Who needs a Rs. 150 soldering iron??
I used a cheapoo 10 Watt iron which cost me 30 bucks..beat that..and to top it all it's lasted me 3 years ... whooo hooo...

Just one thing the cheapoo ones also last long if you take some care..

Your call , but i need precision when soldering on PCB's and also godd iron's come with a Soldering stand and a flux holder which make the job even easier and doen't mess up your table or stuff .

Yeah always buy a good solder iron,for a clean and beautiful job...Solderon brand is a good one.

Kenshin said:
Yeah always buy a good solder iron,for a clean and beautiful job...Solderon brand is a good one.

Well to be frank ..if a 50 buck solder iron does the same perfect job as a 150 buck solder iron and i feel confident with the 50 buck iron i will go ahead and make a perfect mess of the circuit..

No offence but since i have given the schematic, you are free to go ahead and try it out with the good quality 150 buck solder and not mess up the table/workspace/circuit and be equally happy as i am...

BTW my 50 buck iron produces squeaking shiny solder joints and am satisfied..PERIOD.

rb_kaustuv said:
Well to be frank ..if a 50 buck solder iron does the same perfect job as a 150 buck solder iron and i feel confident with the 50 buck iron i will go ahead and make a perfect mess of the circuit..

No offence but since i have given the schematic, you are free to go ahead and try it out with the good quality 150 buck solder and not mess up the table/workspace/circuit and be equally happy as i am...

BTW my 50 buck iron produces squeaking shiny solder joints and am satisfied..PERIOD.

way to go bro...end of the day one of the main ideas behind DIY is to keep the costs low...

Damn Good stuff.. hats off to you.

rb_kaustuv said:
Well to be frank ..if a 50 buck solder iron does the same perfect job as a 150 buck solder iron and i feel confident with the 50 buck iron i will go ahead and make a perfect mess of the circuit..

No offence but since i have given the schematic, you are free to go ahead and try it out with the good quality 150 buck solder and not mess up the table/workspace/circuit and be equally happy as i am...

BTW my 50 buck iron produces squeaking shiny solder joints and am satisfied..PERIOD.

Nah....for long term use its better to get a better iron...coz cheap irons may sumtimes act weird ...temp overshoots occur,which are kinda not good for cmos Ics and other electronics stuff.and a good iron is useful for the same to maintain the temperature constant...for safety of the components..but in the end its one's choice

Also in your schematic there are none sensitive components so any iron will do.Also the person who uses the iron decides whether the solder is gonna be clean or not

..since the iron is just the tool..its the person whos mastering it

matters.

I got a 20x2 LCD form my 2004 project.. let me check try it out

Kenshin said:
Also in your schematic there are none sensitive components so any iron will do

Tell you something..go read about the HD44780 controller datasheet.

Also a known fact is the iron should not be kept in touch with the components for more that 5~7 seconds.

hehe....I hv worked with HD44780 for bout 4 yrs now...initially i used to be careful with it...but with experience..its a bit robust...and here in mumbai we get it for around 70bucks a bit cheap....and yeah 5~7 seconds is insane......and yeah if u check out the pinout points of the module..they are not of copper...theres a reason for that

Kenshin said:
I hv worked with HD44780 for bout 4 yrs now

Seems you can help me a lot..
Can you explain to me the difference between the power supply and signal pins between a 20x4 display and a 40x4 display..

Since a LCD can at the most display 80 characters so i need to know in what respect do these two displays viz a 20x4 and a 40x4 differ ?

Hope you can shed some light on it..

R

Whoa! Awesome work there! Geek Geek Geek!

a 20x4 has 4 rows of 20 characters each and 40x4 is 2 of em both has i think 5*8 dot matrix kinda display...

and datalines start from 1 in case of 40x4 and there are 2 enables rest signals are same rs r/w etc and in case of 20x4 its much of same like 16x2 databits from 14 i suppose..

and i suppose u will be using 8 bit addressing since ur using a pc to interface...for me with microcontrollers i use 4 bit addressing.btw in which field u r..

and yeah do you mean you want to create custom characters

Kenshin said:
a 20x4 has 4 rows of 20 characters each and 40x4 has i think 5*8 dot matrix kinda display...

and datalines start from 1 in case of 40x4 and there are 2 enables rest signals are same rs r/w etc and in case of 20x4 its much of same like 16x2 databits from 14 i suppose..

and i suppose u will be using 8 bit addressing since ur using a pc to interface...for me with microcontrollers i use 4 bit addressing.btw in which field u r..

Dosen't a 20x4 also have a 5*8 dot matrix kind of display??
AFAIK a 40x4 is nothing but two 20x4 seamlessly integrated together..

Can you give me some schematics using a microcontroller with 4 bit addressing mode for a 40x4 LCD and also for a 20x4 LCD??

Help would be highly appriciated..

yeah no worries wait i will post the pics....hey which compiler and controller u use??...I use AVRs so will give pics according to that

AFAIK a 40x4 is nothing but two 20x4 seamlessly integrated together..

Thats why the 2 enables na..

awesome work !

Kenshin said:
yeah no worries wait i will post the pics....hey which compiler and controller u use??...I use AVRs so will give pics according to that

I would have preferred to use the PIC controllers ..but all the same, just provide the schematic for the AVR ..rest i have to see to decide..

Heres a pic of 8 bit addressing.
u can see tat 2 ports are wasted...tat is the reason why i don't use 8 bit addressing...I use 4 bit addressing...for that,suppose if i use portb
the i use the following connections

PORTB0-RS
PORTB1-RD
PORTB2-EN
PORTB3-not connected
PORTB4-DB4
PORTB5-DB5
PORTB6-DB6
PORTB7-DB7

BTW I use codevision AVR for compiling...I have also attached the code for my project i made this semester...I got 2nd price for it...Its "temperature monitoring and control system with PC based fontend"

rb_kaustuv said:
I would have preferred to use the PIC controllers ..but all the same, just provide the schematic for the AVR ..rest i have to see to decide..

Heyyyy am planning to start workin on PICs...coz of their high mips,they surely beat avrs in that....can u gimme sume links to tutorials..

... i badly need to learn them...hv to teach my gf also

Kenshin,
Can you provide the schematic of the project you made.. i need to see some things..

Anyways thanx for the 8bit addressing mode schematic..

Awaiting your project schematic..

yeah I will post it....u'll hv to wait a bit..coz i hv to make it in paint..hehe

Kenshin said:
yeah I will post it....u'll hv to wait a bit..coz i hv to make it in paint..hehe

No probs and willing to wait..

Here it is

I used hyperterminal to control it in Windows and Minicom in Ubuntu...

And ha i had to disable JTAG to use PortC