How about adding a LCD with touchscreen to the firmware for under $25?

The catch is that you would have to buy old hardware off ebay or somewhere, but it's plentiful and dirt cheap there.

There's a package that's nearly abandonware on sourceforge called palmorb [palmorb.sourceforge.net]

Palmorb is a program that lets a $12 palmpilot of a decade ago emulate a Matrix Orbital LK204-25 LCD. A preliminary search shows code for the Arduino already exists to drive this type of LCD. The sourceforge page seems to indicate that it supports "soft buttons", so I'm thinking we could use it to control the Reprap printer too. It looks like it communicates over RS-232. Many palm-pilots in the sub-$25 range have SD card sockets on them too, (although we'd probably need to add support for that, if we wanted to store stuff on the card.)

The palm is a low power device that has a backlight too. There was a recall at one point where the little back-up capacitor failed, causing the device to lose memory. I remember building a set of "jumper cables" so I could keep power on the device while swapping out my NiMH batteries. Doing something similar seems easy. A set of AA batteries will keep the device alive in sleep mode for years, a $5 super-cap should work for months.

I'm just learning programming on my 'duino clone, so I'd need someone else to verify the feasibility on the microcontroller end. A quick check of the forum seems to show that this is probably a new idea though.

I'll probably get a chance to dive into this a little further after I'm extruding.

... i've got recently two Matrix Orbital USB-displays (204-24-USB with 4 rows and 202-24-USB with 2 rows), which are the displays combined with two PIC-controllers, which have USB/RS232, some MOSFET-outputs, TWI-ports and a keyboard-port for "row-column-matrix-keyboards" with up to 24 different keys being scanned (but can be a lower count too).

Don't know, whats the price, because i've received them for the shipping costs only, but this devices seems to be perfect for easy interfacing ... and will add some more I/O-ports and TWI-interfaces to the reprap ...

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

... found the prices - 202 (2rows) around 70$, 204 (4 rows) around 100$

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

VDX Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ... found the prices - 202 (2rows) around 70$, 204
> (4 rows) around 100$

Oh sorry, Jamaco here in the US had them, $99 I think. Pretty spendy.

Lately I've been wondering if FiveD could be ported to the Dragonball CPU. I just snagged another Palm off of ebay for $8.50 (total delivered.) This page has info about adding a internal tilt sensor to the Palm III and Palm Professional. (There's a plug in version and below that on the page there's the hardwired version.) It's wired to 4 unused i/o ports on the Dragonball. If there's enough i/o to synchronize all the steppers on a reprap at once, that's a rock bottom microcontroller solution right there. Plus you would have a touch sensitive screen, SD card slot, maybe bluetooth. serial/USB or both depending on model, and some kinds came with wi-fi too, though you're not likely to get that for $10.

I think that the palm could send GCodes from SD card, then the reprap (fitted with a bluesmirf or similar) receives the commands from bluetooth and prints.

for $ 84 you can get a I2C colored ICD with touchscreen... that would be awesome to control the reprap!

[www.sparkfun.com]

but for status display i would use:

for $15:
[cgi.ebay.com]

or this one:

for $20?:
[cgi.ebay.com]

or this:

for $48:
[cgi.ebay.com]

Unless you use a simple serial display like the last tree ones you would need to program a lot... but the results would be better. The serial displays are very simple to program, its

Another option would be a linux installed in a beagleboard... that board is veery powerful and can run a OS (Windows(?) or linux).

[cgi.ebay.com]

in this case you would need the beaglebord + the LCD and the Raprap and would not need to program anything... no PC needed!

pda/cellphone are cheaper/better/faster because of scales of economy. i think that these portable machines are powerful enough already to download and process stl files, and process gcode. i think it would be easier to use a device that has bluetooth because it is easier and more standard to connect with bluetooth than serial. bluetooth to serial kits can be purchased for less than 20$ such as here [cgi.ebay.com] . also Iphone has a version of python that works on it already.

though you would have to port the code to the cellphone OS... It also would be very nice... but its not the easiest thing.

i have a lot going on these days... it is easier to point what has already been done... I may show what i am porting to a pda soon. but it is just a concept.. besides why must I do the work? what motivates people to work together on projects, rather than steal credit? I'm trying to figure that out... different discussion. It would be nice to organize a team for one of these projects. some of these issues are complex enough to require at least 4 people.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/2011 08:03AM by jamesdanielv.

One of the cheapest, most complete options for a touchscreen is a stm32 primer (I, I & III)

They include a arm processor a few outport pins, a small joystick, touchscreen, and so on.. I have one here, although I never used it. (It only supports SWT which doesn't work with openocd)

ElectricMucus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One of the cheapest, most complete options for a
> touchscreen is a stm32 primer (I, I & III)
>
> They include a arm processor a few outport pins, a
> small joystick, touchscreen, and so on.. I have
> one here, although I never used it. (It only
> supports SWT which doesn't work with openocd)

SWD (Serial wire debug)

I would get the sony if it falls into your budget for a screen, also if you dont have a head-unit.get the xenarc because its half the price and probably better quality since its vga and it also has touchscreen.iPhone

I just found this post, I know its old but I wanted to see if its still being monitored. I am very interested in this as I have two palm pilots. A zire 31 palm one and a newer color palm I think its an Hewitt Packard. HP. With SD, Bluetooth, wifi etc. Has anyone made any head way on this topic.

---

--------------| For Everything |--------------------------
Check it out here:
[reprapsquad.wordpress.com].
---------| For Everything Prototype Related |------
Now featuring comp case mods:
[RepRapLab.wordpress.com]

--------------| Find us at Twitter|------------------------
@REPRAPSQUAD (RS Main)
[mobile.twitter.com]
@REPRAPSQUADHQ (ProtoLab)
[mobile.twitter.com]

There is some lcd work going on. Touch screen control by fingers is possible with arduino hardware, the issue is with noise and the resolution needed for good quality and the issue with SD using most of the spi time to receive data. lcd performance should be ok, just need to release a working daughterboard to plug into lcd and connect the spi to arduino.

Here are references to the lcd and code

[forums.reprap.org]

[www.thingiverse.com]


the devil is in the details. adc needs to be spi, as most firmware and hardware only has those pins available.

Quote

adc needs to be spi, as most firmware and hardware only has those pins available.

Not that I wish you or anyone more work, but that comes in nicely for the upcoming Gen7-ARM. The LPC1114FN28 has only 22 I/O pins, so it can afford either only SPI or do more complex stuff with shift registers. Uhm, there are no analog shift registers, right? :-)

---

Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

the adc is done by a seperate chip on the daughter board. the adc is spi, the lcd is spi, and the sd is spi. there is no other way to have reliable adc signals and have the touch display work without a stylus. currently it works by finger touch alone.

currently there is a 4066 4 channel analog switch used, but i may drop that chip to simplify the design. can you tell me why it would be good to have separate adc channels on the lcd daughter board (edit) besides what is used for touch controller functions? (edit) and if so i have 4 channels available, but can have up to 8 because it requires its own 8 bit shift register.


The 4066 is cheap enough, but it takes up board space, and complicates the drawing of circuits for repraps. the drawing for reprap is another headache as I normally would use the toner transfer method, but the traces normally are 1/64 (0.4mm) or 1/32 (0.8mm). I'm trying to keep traces wide at 1.5mm or 2mm.


I guess it couldn't hurt. I'll add in a space for the extra 4066 chip. it may not be included. but the space and holes will be there to solder it in....

so is 4 extra adc enough?

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/2013 03:57AM by jamesdanielv.

Quote

so is 4 extra adc enough?

If this makes the touch screen work, I'd say yes. Adding more extruders (temperature sensors) is a different task.

---

Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

ok so your just looking for lcd that is not dependent on host processor for adc?