Touring The Available Nokia LCD Screens

[Rossum’s] taking a look at the Nokia LCD screens that are both plentiful and begging to be bent to your will. For quite some time the Nokia 6100 screens have been used in a lot hacks, but he wanted to see what else is out there. He digs into his junk box of cell phones and comes up with a couple to test; the Nokia 6101 and Nokia 2760. The screens use a 3-wire SPI interface, which he sniffs out with a logic analyzer. At power-up the cellphone polls the screen to determine which type of LCD controller is connected. [Rossum] grabs these commands from the logic analyzer and uses it to determine the hardware in use with each screen.

He made himself a nice breakout board which has connectors for several different screens. The firmware he’s using detects when a screen is attached and switches to the applicable protocol for that display. Take a look at the video after the break.

23 thoughts on “Touring The Available Nokia LCD Screens

  1. I have a small(but growing) collection of screens(including some used in this project)

    I have no source of these connectors, and I’m wary of soldering them although I have soldered some in the past, it’s no fun.

    At least having a pinout will allow me to etch a board with a little more certainty. It’s always nice to have someone to follow. Just knowing it’s a 3 wire spi makes them more interesting for me. I honestly took one look at the connector and put them in a drawer.

    If you do decide to sell these breakout boards(as a kit or assembled) You have one waiting customer here.

  2. i have a small collection of crap that i am too dumb or lazy to hack. it consists of one completely disassembled samsung impression. which had the most amazing screen i’ve ever had (amoled) , more vibrant/lifelike than my current cellphone.. a laptop screen and corresponding touchpad. the end, i said small. who wants it?

  3. I have some AVR assembly code for using the sed13xx controller if anyone is interested.

    It’s just the basics, write ascii characters and bmp graphics. If you want to use the extra features of the controller you should be able to get them from the data sheet as they are pretty straightforward. Right now I have a large 5″x2.75″ Hyundai HG25604 connected to an AVRMega16 (it uses the SED1330F but the SED13xx series is mostly the same startup) It’s the one from all electronics($18.50) and makes a good beginner project for those just getting started with graphic LCD’s This one uses a parallel interface, but switching to SPI is just a few lines of code to change.

  4. @Trollicus:

    “I have no source of these connectors, and I’m wary of soldering them although I have soldered some in the past, it’s no fun.”

    The Nokia 6101 has a flexi-cable connecting the screen to the mainboard where the signals are carried along separate wires. Should be relatively easy to snip the mainboard header off and solder the wires to a decent sized connector. Here’s a pic: http://bit.ly/dmcuRG

  5. I have the same question as someone asked above. how useful would a digital camera lcd be in such hacks? I currently have a screenfrom a hp photosmart 435. it has a small ribbon style connector. Anyone have any interesting ideas for such a thing? would love to make a fun project out of this thing.

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