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Product LCD-09393 | about 4 months ago

I think SparkFun needs to add a pull-up resistor on pin 4 (Vpp). This pin is an input (not input/output) and should not be left floating. Another pull-up on the RX pin would also be advisable.

Product LCD-09568 | about 4 months ago

I think SparkFun needs to add a pull-up resistor on pin 4 (Vpp). This pin is an input (not input/output) and should not be left floating. Another pull-up on the RX pin would also be advisable.

Product LCD-09395 | about 4 months ago

I think SparkFun needs to add a pull-up resistor on pin 4 (Vpp). This pin is an input (not input/output) and should not be left floating. Another pull-up on the RX pin would also be advisable.

Product LCD-00258 | about 4 months ago

Watch out! As shown in the schematic, this board has no current limiting resistor in the backlight drive circuit! Some LCD displays have built-in resistors permitting direct connection to a 5V supply, and their datasheets will say something like “Backlight 5V @ xx mA”. But many (including some sold by SparkFun) do not. In that case, the datasheets may show backlight connections named LED A (anode) and LED K (cathode) and list a maximum forward current and a corresponding LED voltage drop. If you have the second type of LCD and you hook up this board, it will attempt to drive the full supply voltage across the backlight LED. SparkFun needs to add a resistor to the design and a jumper to bypass it when safe to do so.

While you’re at it, you also need to add a pull-up resistor on pin 4 (Vpp). This pin is an input (not input/output) and should not be left floating. Another pull-up on the RX pin would also be advisable. Your custom-built serial-enabled LCDs are also in need of these.

News - Free Day is January 13th,… | about a year ago

Hey, your countdown clock is off by 4 seconds! You guys should be able to pick up WWV where you are. 8^)

Product COM-09191 | about 2 years ago

Looking carefully at the photos you’ll see that the display is not symmetrical above and below the center segment. The data sheet does not accurately represent the actual part. I like the breadboard-friendly top and bottom pin row arrangement.

Product LCD-09395 | about 2 years ago

The data stream I tapped into once inadvertently changed the backlight level to something less than 100%, and I noticed that the dimmed display had a noticeable flicker.

Product LCD-09395 | about 2 years ago

I have a couple of suggestions for a future version: On the PCB layout, please add a thermal to the ground pin for the user connectors to make it easier to hand solder. Please change the firmware to make it more difficult for a random serial stream to stumble upon a configuration sequence. Maybe pick a non-printable prefix character like ESC instead of the vertical bar. Please make the brightness values more user friendly, like 1, 2, 3, etc. Maybe have an option to make the display scroll when it gets full, instead of resetting the cursor to home and overwriting. All-in-all, a fun little platform. Thanks for using a PIC on this one! I think I may try my hand at writing some new firmware for it. Cheers!

Product LCD-09395 | about 2 years ago

I received mine just yesterday and hooked it up. It definitely works, but it occasionally “wigs out” in various ways. I set my own splash screen, which worked fine the first couple of times. The third time I powered it on I got a screen with one line of white blocks and one blank line. It has lost the baud rate setting on me several times. Sometimes I get reverse video garbage characters for some reason.

Tutorial - Beginning Embedded Electronics - 10 | about 3 years ago

Great tutorial, but I think that the procedure outlined here for accurately sizing and positioning SMD pads is way more complicated than it needs to be. I’ve found that there’s really no need to mess with multiple grid spacings or complicated shift key combinations. Simply:
1) Click the SMD button and enter the size of the pad you want (0.028 x 0.039 in this case) into the field at the top of the window
2) Drop the five pads by clicking once for each
3) Here’s the fun part — click the info button, then sequentially click on each pad and set the X and Y coordinates per the data sheet. These coordinates are especially easy to calculate when the origin is set to the middle of the package, as was shown in this tutorial. The coordinate pairs are simply:
Pin 1 (-0.037,-0.047)
Pin 2 (0,-0.047)
Pin 3 (0.037,-0.047)
Pin 4 (0.037,0.047)
Pin 5 (-0.037,0.047)
Note that I laid out my package with Pin 1 on the lower left, so the coordinates shown will reflect that.
I hope this will help other would-be EAGLE part creators like me. Thanks, SparkFun, for creating these great tutorials, and for recommending EAGLE!
Cheers.