4X20 OLED display (event. for MB6582)

[cimo]

Hi

i have found this company selling 4X20 OLED displays for 30 Euros if we buy 10 or more pieces (unit price is 33.5 euros)

              IMPORTANT READ CAREFULLY

this display is not (yet) officially supported by the MB6582 project, it is the same size as the one used by Wilba in the first prototype and needs special attention in the construction design.

There are 2 possibilities to make it fit with the provided front panel and PCBs.

1)using 6.5 mm spacers (can be accomplished by the use of several bolts) the LCD can be placed under the PCB with a final gap between the LCD and the front panel of 3.5 mm, but you ll need to use 8mm tall tactile switches and depending on the knobs used it may be necessary to trim the encoders shafts

2)following Wilba s original prototype, you can place the LCD between the PCB and the front panel but you ll also need to create 2 extra PCBs to support the leds and buttons around the display.It is possible to obtain the original PCB layouts from Wilba but also to create them with prototyping board.

Solution 1) have not been tested on a real box so solution 2) is preferred.

IT HAS TO BE CLEAR THAT THIS DESIGN NEEDS SPECIAL ATTENTION AND IF YOU ARE NOT SURE ABOUT IT IT MAY BE EASIER TO STICK TO A NORMAL LCD.PLED IS NOT A MUST AFTER ALL.

I am going to buy 1 so i need 9 more pieces to get into the bulk order otherwise i won t probably even buy it myself, although i d like to.

Please have a look at this thread:

http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php?topic=9723.msg70876#msg70876

Simone

[Wilba]

I will add:

Solution 2 is preferred by me, but also requires 13 ALPS tactile switches SKHHBVA010 (7mm length) or alternatives from other manufacturer, i.e. shorter ones than the other tactile switch SKHHDTA010 (which is 13mm length). Do not bother with trying to shorten the 13mm ones to 7mm (I tried and failed miserably).

If cimo is unable to convince 9 others to join him in an OLED/PLED display order, I will still support people's efforts to use these displays, even though they are now rare, discontinued and slightly more effort/cost to use in the MB-6582. That might involve me getting a very small batch of the extra PCBs made and distributing them to the OLED/PLED fans, but I'm not promising anything at this stage.

[soulfulangus]

hi, i'm new here.

I'm really interesting in using oled as the display for my project, my question is how to connect oled ? does it the same like lcd ?

I saw some oled on some web but still thinking how to connect it.

cheers

[frailn]

I was curious as to why there was such an interest in adding a PLED or OLED to Wilba's design. I knew there must be some really good advantage in order to spend so much time working out a solution. So, for those who are intrigued by Cimo's work-around and don't have a clue as to why he's doing it, I offer you some information from Wikipedia, below. Perhaps this will garner some interest in Cimo's group buy (or is it a mega-sale? mini-sale?  ;D).

A significant benefit of OLED displays over traditional liquid crystal displays (LCDs) is that OLEDs do not require a backlight to function. Thus they draw far less power and, when powered from a battery, can operate longer on the same charge. Because there is no need to distribute the backlight, an OLED display can also be much thinner than a LCD panel. OLED-based display devices also can be more effectively manufactured than LCDs and plasma displays.

OLEDs enable a greater range of colors, brightness, and viewing angle than LCDs, because OLED pixels directly emit light. OLED pixel colors appear correct and unshifted, even as the viewing angle approaches 90 degrees from normal. LCDs use a backlight and cannot show true black, while an "off" OLED element produces no light and consumes no power. Energy is also wasted in LCDs because they require polarizers which filter out about half of the light emitted by the backlight. Additionally, color filters in color LCDs filter out two-thirds of the light.

OLEDs also have a faster response time than standard LCD screens. Whereas a standard LCD currently has an average of 4-8 millisecond response time, an OLED can have less than 0.01ms response time.

[Wilba]

Character PLEDs like the one I used on my original MB-6582 look fantastic, but suffer from a shorter lifetime and are prone to just stop working, perhaps the major reason for them being discontinued and practically unavailable. It was only after switching to a standard LCD that I also discovered that they introduce a significant amount of digital noise into the audio signals of an MB-SID, which I think is caused by the fast switching of the pixels (it's essentially a matrix of tiny LEDs).

Since I put in the work to make the MB-6582 design use LCDs instead of PLEDs (in terms of the "taller" profile of LCDs), it makes no sense to now pursue the use of a PLED for what is just a purely cosmetic reason. If you persist regardless of my advice, I can still supply the extra PCBs so you can mount the PLED between the CS PCB and panel and the switches on top of that, instead of mounting an LCD behind the CS PCB and mounting the switches to the CS PCB (i.e. just like in my original MB-6582). But it's really not worth the effort - an LCD looks almost as good and even if it dies on you (unlikely), replacing it is relatively cheap and easy to do... the same is not true for PLEDs.

[cimo]

hi, i'm new here.

I'm really interesting in using oled as the display for my project, my question is how to connect oled ? does it the same like lcd ?

I saw some oled on some web but still thinking how to connect it.

cheers

what matters is the driver (and the pinout), it doesn t really matter if it is LCD o PLED

-the driver has to be compatible with MIDIBox

http://ucapps.de/mbhp_lcd.html

-get the data sheet for the pinout

[soulfulangus]

hi, i want this oled too but could u tell me more how to connect it ?

cheers

newbie

[cimo]

hi, i want this oled too but could u tell me more how to connect it ?

cheers

newbie

NO! ;)

ok read carefully:

-You need the data sheet for the PLED you want to use.You ususally get it just typing the "model number+producer+data sheet" in Google or if you can access the  web site of the producer, then it should be dowloadable there

-When you get the data sheet look for the page where the pinout is showed

-look up at the pins on J11 on the CORE and connect the PLED

Simone

[Hawkeye]

Hi,

sorry for digging this thread up again, but it seems that a new batch of 4x20 character OLEDs became available - unfortunately only in yellow, but they still look good, especially performance-wise :-):

http://www.lcd-module.de/produkte/oled.html

http://www.lcd-module.de/fileadmin/pdf/doma/oled.pdf

Wilba, do you have any pics or hints on solution 2) which has been mentioned by cimo before (as the OLED is much thinner than a LCD)?

Thanks a lot!

Bye,

Peter

[Wilba]

Necro bump!

I see your necro bump and raise you an obscenely large JPEG.

I have plenty of those little PCBs that go above the LCD (at top and bottom). I probably have spares of the shorter switches you need to mount on them.

It should be relatively easy to convert the production MB-6582 CS PCB to use these extra PCBs for the switches. The pads to connect them are on the PCB, to support such usage.

WARNING! DO NOT STARE AT THE BLUE LEDS! YOU WILL GO BLIND!

[Hawkeye]

Thanks a big time man, you have more than earned some beers :-)

Would you bring me a pair of those small PCBs when you come to Germany ?

[Wilba]

Sure, if you bring two of the 4x20 OLED displays :-) I need to replace the dead one in my prototype, plus one spare.

Then I'll owe you some cash and/or beers!

[Hawkeye]

Well, they´re yellow - are you sure? On a second thought, yellow fits really nicely with blue. I am in contact with those guys from Electronic Assembly, but they are not super cheap, ca 49 EUR (incl VAT) per piece if we buy less than 25 (unfortunately I really have no time for a bulk order :-() - also the availability is unclear, they´re super new (february 2011) and they may have a few weeks lead time...

Edited May 4, 2011 by Hawkeye

[Wilba]

See what you can get, PM me with details.

They are listed as "yellow-green" same as my dead one. They are green enough to match with "green" LEDs since most "green" LEDs in tinted green diffused packages (like what I sell) are actually "yellow-green". You can get superbright/ultrabright "true green" in waterclear or white diffused packages, on eBay for example.

[Antix]

Wilba,

PLS Who sells the blue diffused leds that I see in the picture?

Greets

Antix

[Wilba]

They were bought on eBay. Search for "blue diffused 3mm"

something like this: 50 Blue LED 3mm Diffused Blue Lens Bulb Free Resistor

[Antix]

They were bought on eBay. Search for "blue diffused 3mm"

something like this: 50 Blue LED 3mm Diffused Blue Lens Bulb Free Resistor

:D

Thanks Wilba

[technobreath]

Haha, I will do some necro bumping myself here... For wilba, is there any docu around on how to wire the smd leds and also what size they are. I had not ordered any smd leds before, and I bought a reel off eBay, haha, and I was looking at the real ans was like, where is the leds? They were way too small for me bothering to do any soldering with them... Not a very expensive misstake, but a bit annoying! Hehe.

[Hawkeye]

Yo, TB,

Wilba used normal "through-hole" LEDs for backlighting the knobs

and in the photo tut, there is some info on how to do it with SMD LEDs (man, that was quite some work ;-)):

Greets,

Peter

[Altitude]

make sure you get ones with the little tails that have a flat bottom that wont short to the encoder (http://www.lumex.com/specs/SSL-LXA228SGC.pdf or similar, just something that does NOT have pads on the bottom). It helps to have a variable power supply that shows how much current you will draw since it can be significant considering how many LEDs you will have (45 in my case all on permanently)