Aug 06 2020 5 mins 5
This week's EYE on NPI is going to the dogs ... Display Visions DOG Mini Graphic LCDs! (https://www.digikey.com/en/product-highlight/e/electronic-assembly-gmbh/compact-low-power-mini-graphic-lcd) You know we can't resist checking out new displays - we've always loved adding graphical interfaces to our projects and products. From the Digi-Key highlights page: DISPLAY VISIONS' EA-DOGS102 series graphic LCDs are available in an FSTN positive transflective, STN negative transmissive, and FSTN positive reflective version. These displays have a 2.54 mm pitch and can be soldered directly or plugged into socket strips. Therefore, cumbersome gluing procedures, the need for designing a special mounting device, and error-prone cable connections that may lose contact are no longer a concern. This LCD family was designed for use in German industry and will have an availability of 15+ years. The extremely efficient ratio of external dimensions to the active display area helps in designing very compact devices. Furthermore, its low-power use [single supply 2.5 V to 3.3 V (typically 250 µA)] makes it ideal for handheld applications. We've seen some DOG displays before, they were used in the Pimoroni Display-o-Tron HAT (https://www.adafruit.com/product/2694) - you can tell these by their distinctive mounting style. Unlike common LCD modules which are pretty chunky (https://www.adafruit.com/product/1447), these are slim and svelte with direct mounting pins that are bonded onto the LCD glass so you can selective solder them without extra hand-labor. Note that they don't come with back-lights by default - so if you want back-lighting you'll need to get separate LED modules. (https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/display-visions/EA-LED39X41-W/1481-1152-ND/4896791). These LCD's also don't have built in touch-screens, but you can get a resistive overlay to use like any other resistive touchscreen (https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/display-visions/EA-TOUCH102-1/1481-1201-ND/4896840) These displays happen to have a UC1701 controller chip, for which we found a couple easy-to-use Arduino code libraries. (https://cse.google.com/cse?cx=008830049033802121810%3Azgsyidwem5w&q=uc1701) We loaded one of the u8g2 examples onto an ItsyBitsy and had it displaying in a few minutes! You just need SPI plus a few controller pins - no high voltage booster required. There's a few options for display type, If you're not sure of which one you want, there's a little simulator application available from the EA website (https://www.lcd-module.com/treiber-tools-updates/tools.html) that lets you select different types (e.g. blue dye, black+white transflective) and backlight LEDs. There's also a few demo graphics you can use to gauge what text and graphics will look like on the display. You can pick up these slim and easy-to-use displays at Digi-Key today for quick integration into your product (https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/display-visions/EA-DOGS102N-6/1481-1093-ND/4896732)
