VFD's anyone else here use them?

by **iGotNoTime** on Fri Jan 27, 2006 3:45 pm

I noticed on a Girder post someone mentioned they use Girder to control their VFD. Does anyone else use them? I have always been fascinated by them and if there are some big one's that could be seen and read from the couch made now I think I might make that plunge.

It would be kinda cool to mod a 54" plasma housing! I can just hear my wife screaming as the dremil starts spinning. LOL

What sizes do you use? What sizes are available? What information do you display on them?

by **erikt** on Fri Jan 27, 2006 7:01 pm

I use a Matrix Orbital 4x20 VFD, controlled using Girder, and DVDSpy and
LCD plugins. I display information on the current playing track. Music
will show the artist, track title, track length, current playing time, and
player state (play/pause/stop). Video will show chapter, disc, total playing
time, current playing time, and player state.

This setup is OK, but not great. The VFD characters aren't big enough to
easily read from across the room. The total number of characters that can
be displayed is OK, but more would be better.

erikt

by **badubo** on Sat Jan 28, 2006 11:06 am

I'm writting a plugin for using VFD (using LCDSmartie) with xlobby.
But I don't know when I will have a working version (with a complete doc)

by **iGotNoTime** on Sat Jan 28, 2006 10:19 pm

Thanks for the info! Both of you, I do appreciate it. Do they make them bigger or is that about the largest they make? About 2 years ago when I first looked into them for winamp that was the largest size I could find. Is it still that way?

by **erikt** on Mon Jan 30, 2006 4:07 pm

I haven't seen any bigger. I'm playing with the idea of building my
own or pulling one out of an old VCR or something. Then I'd have to
mod my case...
erikt

by **Naylia** on Tue Jan 31, 2006 5:42 pm

badubo wrote:I'm writting a plugin for using VFD (using LCDSmartie) with xlobby.
But I don't know when I will have a working version (with a complete doc)

Sweet!!

by **GFORCE** on Tue Feb 14, 2006 7:05 am

any news on the Plugin Badubo?

Im currently using a Visual Spectrum Analyser for music
The ZoomPlayer Plugin for Movies/DVD's
when viewing photos, it shows Hard disk statistics

I would really like one that can show progress when ripping a dvd and everything that you can view when using a plugin>"plugin">'Output"
Line

by **badubo** on Tue Feb 14, 2006 9:12 am

any news on the Plugin Badubo?

no, sorry, too much work for working a this issue

by **Marbles_00** on Wed Feb 15, 2006 5:26 pm

I have a 4x20 based on the Hitachi chip (I think most of them are). I was going to use it to display zone information on a dedicated music server. That way I wouldn't have to have a monitor connected to it if I wanted to quickly view what was going on in each zone, which would save a little bit of space. I was thinking of using a Girder approach, but if badubo can get his plugin working...that would be awesome.

Badabu, if you ever get to a point and want some field testers, keep me in mind.

by **erikt** on Wed Feb 15, 2006 5:48 pm

Has anyone ever seen a VFD larger than 4x20, or one that has characters
larger than 4.7mm x 2.4mm? I'm getting a bit fed up with not being able
to read mine from across the room. I'd even be willing to program my
own controller if I could just find the right display.

I'm debating pulling one out of my old DVD player but I've no idea where I'd
find the interface specs for it...

erikt

by **GFORCE** on Fri Feb 17, 2006 9:05 am

you can get really large ones from a Company Called Noritake.

they build Massive 40x2 or 40x4 Line Screens, and all are Hitachi Compatible

by **Giz_zmo** on Fri Feb 17, 2006 9:47 am

How About using a graphic module?

That way you can make your fonts much bigger ...
You can find them all-round these day's.

I think think this would be soms nice feature, so have to keep following this tread.

(and how about using a simple keyboard controller, and make a keypad of 6 buttons. That way you can really make LCD control pannels ... Just a touth

)

by **badubo** on Fri Feb 17, 2006 10:13 am

How About using a graphic module?

Just For information, my plugin will be based on the output of LCDSmartie supported devices are listed on their site
http://lcdsmartie.sourceforge.net/
As far as I know graphical LCD are not supported

by **erikt** on Fri Feb 17, 2006 3:56 pm

Giz_zmo wrote:How About using a graphic module?

That way you can make your fonts much bigger ...
You can find them all-round these day's.

All of the Graphic modules I've seen are LCD, not VFD. And like the saying
says, "once you go VFD, you never go back". :wink:

I'll check out Noritake today.

erikt

by **erikt** on Thu Mar 02, 2006 2:38 pm

GFORCE wrote:you can get really large ones from a Company Called Noritake.

they build Massive 40x2 or 40x4 Line Screens, and all are Hitachi Compatible

Do you (or anyone else) know of a retail source of the Noritake VFDs? I
did some searching and didn't come up with much.
erikt