Controlling a cheap color LCD

posted Mar 4th 2006 11:30am by Eliot
filed under: misc hacks

spark fun lcd

Spark Fun Electronics has made a name for themselves recently by selling interesting parts like this $20 color LCD. Hack-A-Day reader [Refik Hadzialic] decided to buy one and see how easy it was to use. It is a 128×128 display and should be a clone of the one you would fine in a Nokia 6100. He wired it up to an ATMega32L-PI8 microcontroller. He grabbed source code from a couple different places and eventually got something to work. In the end, the actual control commands seem pretty simple. Refik has been posting a lot of quick projects and info on his site, e-dsp. Have a look.

Read

Comments [9]

9 Responses to Controlling a cheap color LCD

steve says:

March 4, 2006 at 4:08 pm

Very similar, with video and all in a box.
http://www.dontronics.com/micro-lcd.html

Reply Report comment

Nes says:

March 4, 2006 at 5:37 pm

Hi, there is an even cheaper colour LCD out there that’s just as easy to use and easier to solder connections to. It’s the one from the Nokia 3510i, and goes for around $4 on ebay. I put a page up here (including code for PIC micro):
http://www.geocities.com/neil_manc/pic16f84/index.htm

Reply Report comment

Eliot Phillips says:

March 4, 2006 at 5:59 pm

Nice link Nes

Reply Report comment

CaptSnuffy says:

March 4, 2006 at 6:21 pm

Anyone know why i’m having trouble submitting anything to the hackaday tip line? No matter what it puts the comment field in red and won’t let me send it.

Reply Report comment

paul says:

March 4, 2006 at 7:15 pm

The geocities link from nes is now showing “temporarily exceeded its data transfer limit”, so I can’t view it.

Reply Report comment

NamErehWon says:

March 4, 2006 at 7:31 pm

This makes we want to try something with the LCD from one of my game boy colors.

Reply Report comment

LED_scorched says:

March 4, 2006 at 8:09 pm

Any one know of a good site to find specs on cellphone LCD’s?

Reply Report comment

nes says:

March 5, 2006 at 3:27 am

Thanks Eliot. Sorry about the bandwidth, seems to be limited to 4.2Mb per hour but is working again now. led_scorched you can find some info and links here:
http://sandiding.tripod.com/Bertys.html
http://forum.lcdinfo.com/viewforum.php?f=9
Namerehwon, I’d keep the GBCs intact. They’re a great embedded system in their own right and I don’t think the LCD controller is on the glass like it is with these phone LCDs.

Reply Report comment

Hexagram says:

March 10, 2006 at 6:27 am

Hey guys, I have a few color lcds, the one I want to use is from a motorola V180…

Does anybody know how I would go about hooking this up?

And or where I can get the pcb if one is made?

Thanks in advance, lemme know @ nick dot pannuto at gmail dot com

Reply Report comment