LCD + USB + PIC - connect with mobile phone datacable?

P

Patrik

Guest
The thought from the beginning was to somehow connect a parallel LCD
display to the computers USB-port. A PIC-micro could take care of the
serial-to-paralell conversion, but how connect a cheap PIC to the
USB-port? A converter chip would be great, but then I came to think of
data cables for mobiles. They are just that, USB to serial converters,
they are cheap and I don't have to solder the little USB-ic myself.
Like this:
USB-port -- data cable -- PIC-processor -- LCD
Can this work? Is a PIC16F84 enough?
 
Patrik <pather@comhem.se> wrote:
The thought from the beginning was to somehow connect a parallel LCD
display to the computers USB-port. A PIC-micro could take care of the
Click to expand...
Why not just use a USB-parallel (printer) adaptor?
 
Patrik wrote:

They are just that, USB to serial converters, they are cheap
Click to expand...
One thing to keep in mind is that there are devics that act like
a USB device when hooked to USB and act like RS232 when hooked to
a serial port - thus needing nothing more than a cheap adapter
or adabter cable that acts as a "USB to serial converter." This
scheme is quite common on mice and keyboards. In industrial
controllers, you sometimse see a USB port that becomes I2C when
connected to another I2C. These "USB to serial converters" will
*not* work with a USB that is not programmed to imitate another
kind of connection.
 
Patrik wrote:
The thought from the beginning was to somehow connect a parallel LCD
display to the computers USB-port. A PIC-micro could take care of the
serial-to-paralell conversion, but how connect a cheap PIC to the
USB-port? A converter chip would be great, but then I came to think of
data cables for mobiles. They are just that, USB to serial converters,
they are cheap and I don't have to solder the little USB-ic myself.
Like this:
USB-port -- data cable -- PIC-processor -- LCD
Can this work? Is a PIC16F84 enough?
Click to expand...
Check out the FT245 from www.ftdi.com. It's a great chip that provides a
really easy USB interface for microcontrollers.

Perhaps also check out the lcdinfo project at http://www.skippari.net/lcd/
which seems to be concerned with people connecting little LCD screens to
their PCs in various ways.

Jaye.
 
Thanks for your answers! A USB-parallel converter would be great, but
it's more expensive than a data cable. The FT245 also looks nice but it
costs nearly as much as the cable and I have to solder a 32-pin SMD...
Sure I can do that but I think a finished cable would be easier.
 
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