7 ms·

An award-winning LCD with an Arduino built-in (using only 2 pins)

68 points by leonvonblut 13y ago

kvzivn 13y ago
Does anyone have any idea of what it will cost? I can't wait to get my hands on one of these.
- Palomides 13y ago
  following the link, it seems to available for $89.00
- deserted 13y ago
  It's a bit steep at $89. http://earthmake.com/product/arlcd/ http://earthmake.com/product/arlcd/
dirktheman 13y ago
It looks cool, but the price is a bit steep. You can get a touchscreen LCD from Adafruit at $39.95 (http://www.adafruit.com/products/1651 http://www.adafruit.com/products/1651). You still need to buy an Arduino, but they're cheaper than $45,-. I've bought Chinese Uno V2's for less than $15 a piece.
- amckenna 13y ago
  The advantage of their integrated LCD and Arduino is that it would only use 2 pins instead of the 6-7 that would be occupied by the shield you linked. This would allow you to connect other shields and have more room for add-ons. I agree that $89 is steep though, hopefully that price can come down as more are made.
  - jpwright 13y ago
    I don't understand how this board only "uses 2 pins". The schematic shows the ezLCD component still uses 7 pins for I/O. Using the SPI bus requires 4 pins and the other 3 are presumably for the touchscreen sensing. The board still has the full Uno footprint, so you could connect other stuff to those pins at the same time, but you couldn't do anything with them while driving the LCD.
    - userbinator 13y ago
      Dallas 1-wire? Haven't looked at the schematic or anything else, but that's an example of an interface that just requires 2 connections - signal and ground.
      - jpwright 13y ago
        That's not what this uses.
    - thecodeman 13y ago
      There is a PIC24f that does all the graphics processing, and the arduino talks to it through serial. the spi connection is used to program the atmel . the other connections are optional for use like a interrupt on touch .
- mhandley 13y ago
  The arLCD is 3.5", whereas the $39.95 from Adafruit is 2.8". That still shouldn't account for the price difference though.
- thecodeman 13y ago
  You could do it cheaper but you would run out of code space quick taking care of the graphics. on the arLCD the onboard PIC Micro takes care of all the graphics. You just tell it where to put a widget and it takes care of the rest .
rubysucks 13y ago
how awesome, $89 tho :(
tedivm 13y ago
I know people are saying this is a bit steeply prices, but I think this is perfect. I've been looking at the various options and they typically all require three components- the touchscreen/lcd itself, a controller board of some sort, and then the Arduino itself. Then you have to actually put it all together, and as people have mentioned you end up with a lot more than two pins being used. This one at Adafruit costs $40, uses five or six pins, is smaller and doesn't have the Arduino built in.
- joezydeco 13y ago
  It's a nice project. I've purchased stuff from EarthLCD before and they're a good group. Those complaining about the price probably have never tried tooling their own kapton/copper flex circuit.
- tedivm 13y ago
  "This one" being this one- http://www.adafruit.com/products/1651 http://www.adafruit.com/products/1651
hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
On a side note, I like how the product is presented by two young girls. Is this intended for educational purposes?
- poooria 13y ago
  I can't tell whether you're being a feminazi or just a creep. Either way, stop it.
  - rurounijones 13y ago
    (S)He is pointing out that the presentation is done by two people who are usually not associated with technology and development (they are young and female) as a positive example. He then posits that this is to show the educational possibilities. Any negative connotations are coming from your mind, not theirs.
    - lifeisstillgood 13y ago
      Agreed, it's clearly scripted but when she moves onto presenting the project you can tell she actually built it or has the understanding of a maker I love that the target audience is advertising the product.
- maqr 13y ago
  That's probably why, but I only made it about 30 seconds into the first video before I had to turn it off. Maybe I'm in the minority, but listening to kids present anything really frustrates me.
ama729 13y ago
> 320 x 240 Resolution Aside from the fact that's for an arduino, which probably mean very low power available, does anybody knows why all those hobbyist LCD are so low in term of resolution? It seem impossible to find something higher than VGA on mouser or even Alibaba, much less a reasonably priced HD screen. Where are all those glorious smartphone screen? (I'm talking about small screen, but even larger one are not that much better)
- gerbal 13y ago
  I'd never though I'd say this, but 320x240 may be enough resolution. Especially at 3.5 inches and for hobbyist projects. All the projects I can think of to use this are for simple notification-style display and maybe one finger interaction.
  - ama729 13y ago
    A DIY smartphone seem something where having a good screen would be a plus, or everything photo where color accuracy and resolution are important. I was looking to make an EVF[1] for my DSLR a while ago for example. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_viewfinder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_viewfinder
    - hahainternet 13y ago
      I use my Android as an EVF / remote controller for my 550d. It's pretty damn useful and you can pick up a second hand phone for basically nothing.
      - ama729 13y ago
        Never heard of that, that seem interesting, would you happen to have a link with more information?
        hahainternet 13y ago
        https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.dslrcontroller https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.d... is what I use. USB OTG cable to USB Mini. Does the job fine on a Nexus 5.
StavrosK 13y ago
Okay, how do they run that color picker sketch with only 2 KB of RAM available on the Uno? I tried to do some string parsing and it failed at 200 byte-long strings due to lack of memory, how can they show an entire picture composed of thousands of pixels?
- Timmmmbob 13y ago
  Could be a more powerful ARM Cortex, rather than the insanely out-dated Atmel chips. If anyone ever makes a 5V ARM processor Atmel will be finished. Also I'm going to rant about Arduino for a bit: Yes it's very simple and easy to get started with, but their API documentation is bad, and the IDE is objectively and irreparably awful and has not really improved since it was first released. Making things even worse they don't provide a decent way to integrate it into other IDEs because lots of the build logic is tied up in the IDE.
lgeek 13y ago
I'm all for supporting small business that create hardware, especially open source (heck, I'm working on some stuff myself), but they must make an effort to make their products affordable. I can buy a 3.2" touchscreen LCD for $12 in single quantities[0], shipped locally in the UK. The BOM for an Arduino is somewhere around $10 in single quantities. Their selling point about only using 2 pins? Yeah, shift registers or i2c I/O expanders are so fancy... [0] http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3-2-TFT-LCD-Display-Module-Touch-Panel-Screen-PCB-Adapter-240-x-320-Pixels-/331106884444?pt=UK_BOI_Electrical_Components_Supplies_ET&hash=item4d17821b5c http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3-2-TFT-LCD-Display-Module-Touch-P...

68 points by leonvonblut 13y ago

kvzivn 13y ago

Does anyone have any idea of what it will cost? I can't wait to get my hands on one of these.

Palomides 13y ago
following the link, it seems to available for $89.00
deserted 13y ago
It's a bit steep at $89. http://earthmake.com/product/arlcd/ http://earthmake.com/product/arlcd/

dirktheman 13y ago

It looks cool, but the price is a bit steep. You can get a touchscreen LCD from Adafruit at $39.95 (http://www.adafruit.com/products/1651 http://www.adafruit.com/products/1651). You still need to buy an Arduino, but they're cheaper than $45,-. I've bought Chinese Uno V2's for less than $15 a piece.

amckenna 13y ago
The advantage of their integrated LCD and Arduino is that it would only use 2 pins instead of the 6-7 that would be occupied by the shield you linked. This would allow you to connect other shields and have more room for add-ons. I agree that $89 is steep though, hopefully that price can come down as more are made.
- jpwright 13y ago
  I don't understand how this board only "uses 2 pins". The schematic shows the ezLCD component still uses 7 pins for I/O. Using the SPI bus requires 4 pins and the other 3 are presumably for the touchscreen sensing. The board still has the full Uno footprint, so you could connect other stuff to those pins at the same time, but you couldn't do anything with them while driving the LCD.
  - userbinator 13y ago
    Dallas 1-wire? Haven't looked at the schematic or anything else, but that's an example of an interface that just requires 2 connections - signal and ground.
    - jpwright 13y ago
      That's not what this uses.
  - thecodeman 13y ago
    There is a PIC24f that does all the graphics processing, and the arduino talks to it through serial. the spi connection is used to program the atmel . the other connections are optional for use like a interrupt on touch .
mhandley 13y ago
The arLCD is 3.5", whereas the $39.95 from Adafruit is 2.8". That still shouldn't account for the price difference though.
thecodeman 13y ago
You could do it cheaper but you would run out of code space quick taking care of the graphics. on the arLCD the onboard PIC Micro takes care of all the graphics. You just tell it where to put a widget and it takes care of the rest .

rubysucks 13y ago

how awesome, $89 tho :(

tedivm 13y ago

I know people are saying this is a bit steeply prices, but I think this is perfect. I've been looking at the various options and they typically all require three components- the touchscreen/lcd itself, a controller board of some sort, and then the Arduino itself. Then you have to actually put it all together, and as people have mentioned you end up with a lot more than two pins being used. This one at Adafruit costs $40, uses five or six pins, is smaller and doesn't have the Arduino built in.

joezydeco 13y ago
It's a nice project. I've purchased stuff from EarthLCD before and they're a good group. Those complaining about the price probably have never tried tooling their own kapton/copper flex circuit.
tedivm 13y ago
"This one" being this one- http://www.adafruit.com/products/1651 http://www.adafruit.com/products/1651

hcarvalhoalves 13y ago

On a side note, I like how the product is presented by two young girls. Is this intended for educational purposes?

poooria 13y ago
I can't tell whether you're being a feminazi or just a creep. Either way, stop it.
- rurounijones 13y ago
  (S)He is pointing out that the presentation is done by two people who are usually not associated with technology and development (they are young and female) as a positive example. He then posits that this is to show the educational possibilities. Any negative connotations are coming from your mind, not theirs.
  - lifeisstillgood 13y ago
    Agreed, it's clearly scripted but when she moves onto presenting the project you can tell she actually built it or has the understanding of a maker I love that the target audience is advertising the product.
maqr 13y ago
That's probably why, but I only made it about 30 seconds into the first video before I had to turn it off. Maybe I'm in the minority, but listening to kids present anything really frustrates me.

ama729 13y ago

> 320 x 240 Resolution Aside from the fact that's for an arduino, which probably mean very low power available, does anybody knows why all those hobbyist LCD are so low in term of resolution? It seem impossible to find something higher than VGA on mouser or even Alibaba, much less a reasonably priced HD screen. Where are all those glorious smartphone screen? (I'm talking about small screen, but even larger one are not that much better)

gerbal 13y ago
I'd never though I'd say this, but 320x240 may be enough resolution. Especially at 3.5 inches and for hobbyist projects. All the projects I can think of to use this are for simple notification-style display and maybe one finger interaction.
- ama729 13y ago
  A DIY smartphone seem something where having a good screen would be a plus, or everything photo where color accuracy and resolution are important. I was looking to make an EVF[1] for my DSLR a while ago for example. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_viewfinder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_viewfinder
  - hahainternet 13y ago
    I use my Android as an EVF / remote controller for my 550d. It's pretty damn useful and you can pick up a second hand phone for basically nothing.
    - ama729 13y ago
      Never heard of that, that seem interesting, would you happen to have a link with more information?
      - hahainternet 13y ago
        https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.dslrcontroller https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.d... is what I use. USB OTG cable to USB Mini. Does the job fine on a Nexus 5.

StavrosK 13y ago

Okay, how do they run that color picker sketch with only 2 KB of RAM available on the Uno? I tried to do some string parsing and it failed at 200 byte-long strings due to lack of memory, how can they show an entire picture composed of thousands of pixels?

Timmmmbob 13y ago
Could be a more powerful ARM Cortex, rather than the insanely out-dated Atmel chips. If anyone ever makes a 5V ARM processor Atmel will be finished. Also I'm going to rant about Arduino for a bit: Yes it's very simple and easy to get started with, but their API documentation is bad, and the IDE is objectively and irreparably awful and has not really improved since it was first released. Making things even worse they don't provide a decent way to integrate it into other IDEs because lots of the build logic is tied up in the IDE.

lgeek 13y ago

I'm all for supporting small business that create hardware, especially open source (heck, I'm working on some stuff myself), but they must make an effort to make their products affordable. I can buy a 3.2" touchscreen LCD for $12 in single quantities[0], shipped locally in the UK. The BOM for an Arduino is somewhere around $10 in single quantities. Their selling point about only using 2 pins? Yeah, shift registers or i2c I/O expanders are so fancy... [0] http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3-2-TFT-LCD-Display-Module-Touch-Panel-Screen-PCB-Adapter-240-x-320-Pixels-/331106884444?pt=UK_BOI_Electrical_Components_Supplies_ET&hash=item4d17821b5c http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3-2-TFT-LCD-Display-Module-Touch-P...