LCD1100 User Guide

Part 1: Setup

Welcome to the LCD1100 user guide! In order to get started, make sure you have the following hardware on hand:

Next, you will need to connect the pieces:

Connect the LCD1100 to the VINT Hub using the Phidget cable.
Connect the VINT Hub to your computer with a USB cable.

Phidget Control Panel

In order to demonstrate the functionality of the LCD1100, the Phidget Control Panel running on a Windows machine will be used.

The Phidget Control Panel is available for use on both macOS and Windows machines.

Windows

To open the Phidget Control Panel on Windows, find the icon in the taskbar. If it is not there, open up the start menu and search for Phidget Control Panel

macOS

To open the Phidget Control Panel on macOS, open Finder and navigate to the Phidget Control Panel in the Applications list. Double click on the icon to bring up the Phidget Control Panel.

For more information, take a look at the getting started guide for your operating system:

Linux users can follow the getting started with Linux guide and continue reading here for more information about the LCD1100.

First Look

After plugging the LCD1100 into your computer and opening the Phidget Control Panel, you will see something like this:

The Phidget Control Panel will list all connected Phidgets and associated objects, as well as the following information:

Serial number: allows you to differentiate between similar Phidgets.
Channel: allows you to differentiate between similar objects on a Phidget.
Version number: corresponds to the firmware version your Phidget is running. If your Phidget is listed in red, your firmware is out of date. Update the firmware by double-clicking the entry.

The Phidget Control Panel can also be used to test your device. Double-clicking on an object will open an example.

Part 2: Using Your Phidget

About

The Graphic LCD Phidget allows you to display simple images and text. The screen is 128 pixels wide and 64 pixels tall, and each pixel is 0.45 mm. The backlight brightness and pixel contrast can both be controlled from software. You can use default fonts or load your own. The frame buffer allows you to save fonts and images.

Explore Your Phidget Channels Using The Control Panel

You can use your Control Panel to explore your Phidget's channels.

1. Open your Control Panel, and you will find the following channel:

2. Double click on the channel to open the example program. This channel belongs to the LCD channel class:

Expand All

Graphic LCD Phidget: Draws shapes, text, and bitmaps to the LCD screen

In your Control Panel, double click on "Graphic LCD Phidget":

Part 3: Create your Program

Part 4: Advanced Topics and Troubleshooting

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How do I know what channel, serial number, or hub port to use in my program?

Before you open a Phidget channel in your program, you can set these properties to specify which channel to open. You can find this information through the Control Panel.

1. Open the Control Panel and double-click on the red map pin icon:

The locate Phidget button is found in the device information box

2. The Addressing Information window will open. Here you will find all the information you need to address your Phidget in your program.

See the Phidget22 API for your language to determine exact syntax for each property.

How to Draw a Bitmap Image

Bitmaps define images to be drawn on the screen of the Graphic LCD display. Bitmaps on the Graphic LCD display are made up of pixels arranged in a grid with a size defined when the bitmap is drawn. You can create a bitmap by defining a byte array of ones and zeroes. Ones are colored in, and zeroes are empty. If you put a line break after each row, it'll be easy to edit the bitmap. In C#, this may look something like this:

Byte[] heart = 	[0,0,0,0,0,
		 0,1,0,1,0,
		 1,1,1,1,1,
		 1,1,1,1,1,
		 0,1,1,1,0,
		 0,0,1,0,0,
		 0,0,0,0,0,
		 0,0,0,0,0];

gLCD.WriteBitmap(0, 0, 5, 8, heart);

How to Write Custom Characters

Custom characters are images associated with given unicode characters. A custom character can be any arrangement of pixels within the space allotted for a single character. Single characters are made up of pixels arranged in a grid with a size defined by setFontSize(). As with regular bitmaps for the Graphic LCD display, you can create a character bitmap by defining a byte array of ones and zeroes. Ones are colored in, and zeroes are empty. If you put a line break after each row, it will be easy to edit the bitmap. In C#, this may look something like this:

Byte[] heart = 	[0,0,0,0,0,
		 0,1,0,1,0,
		 1,1,1,1,1,
		 1,1,1,1,1,
		 0,1,1,1,0,
		 0,0,1,0,0,
		 0,0,0,0,0,
		 0,0,0,0,0];

gLCD.SetFontSize(LCDFont.User2, 5, 8);
gLCD.SetCharacterBitmap(LCDFont.User2,"\x6",heart);

Once stored, characters can be recalled into a text string by using the unicode value for the location (in this example, "\x6"). For example, in C#:

gLCD.WriteText(LCDFont.Dimensions_5x8, 0, 0,"I \x6 Phidgets!");

Custom characters on the LCD1100 are stored as images on the frame buffer. FONT_User1 is stored on frame buffer 1 and FONT_User2 is on frame buffer 2.

These characters occupy the same space as drawings on the framebuffer, and will be displayed onscreen if the framebuffer is flushed. The characters can also be overwritten by using drawing functions on the framebuffer, so it is recommended to only use a given framebuffer either for drawing or storing fonts, but not both.

We recommend using FONT_User2 (frame buffer 2) to store custom fonts, as it can be saved for later use. In order to use the custom fonts, you must first define their size with setFontSize(). Once the font size is set, custom characters will be placed on the font's frame buffer at a location corresponding to the character number provided.

Characters for each font are stored in rows ordered left-to-right, top-to-bottom. Rows are filled with as many characters as will completely fit across the width of the screen. There are as many rows as will fit on the screen vertically.

On a screen 128 pixels wide by 64 pixels high, if your font is 10 pixels wide by 20 high, you will have 3 rows of 12 characters. This allows for a maximum of 36 characters of that size.

A demonstration of how many 10x20px characters can fit on the screen.

To quickly determine how many characters can be in your custom font, you can call getMaxCharacters() in your code.

Custom character indexing starts with character 0x01 and can be any character between 0x01 and the maximum number of characters that fit on screen.

To determine if an ascii character can be used in a given custom font, you can look at its corresponding ascii value on an ascii table to determine if it is within the limit determined above.

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