Matrix Orbital Corp

I ordered a VK204-25-VPT-E and recieved it today. I hooked it up to my computer and used LCDC and it worked, however after I turned my computer off and came back to it later, the display will not show what I am sending to it. It shows some type of cryptic output.

I tried different bitrates in LCDC but I seem to always have the same problem. However, if I press a button connected to the VFD, it shows up correctly.

Any suggestions?

Also, I am powering the VFD off the 12V from my computer...

Hello Dennis,

Though I'm not sure of the specifics of your problem, I do have a few general suggestions. The first thing recommended will be a manual override to reset the display to factory defaults (including the default 19200 baud rate). You can find the specifics in your manual but you'll basically power the unit down, connect the middle two keypad pins, and power up again. Second, you can try our uProject program to send some basic commands and text to the display to get an idea of what works and what doesn't.

If you continue to have trouble, open up uProject and let us know what happens when you send text, issue a command, and read from the unit. If it's something more intermittent please let us know what actions occur before the display fails and what seems to bring it back to a working state.

Any additional observations or concerns will also help us help you.

Thanks,
~Troy

Hi Clark,

Thank you for your fast response, reseting the screen to the default settings by putting the jumper on did work, everything is correct when I do that. However if I remove the jumper it goes right back. How do I permanently change the settings to default?

Also, the screen used to power up with all of the GPO's off, now it is powering with them on. How do I change it back to them all being off?

Hi Dennis,

Great to hear that the manual override is working, though I see you've found that it is only intended to be temporary. To get the desired settings to stick you'll have to save them. I'd recommend resetting the baud rate to 19200 and changing the start up state of your GPOs if you'd like.

To save settings I would recommend uProject. First, you should know that the baud rate drop down menu in main was created sometime before we made a change to that command, so it will not function correctly. That said, the uploader tab works much better anyway.

Select raw data from the "other" branch of the command tree and drag it into the command window. Here you can enter commands by adding one byte at a time referencing your manual for the correct bytes. Once you have one command entered you can hit ok, and drag in another raw data command. In this way you can build a list of all commands desired to reset your display, execute them all at once from the script menu, and even save them for the next time they're needed.

On that note, if you continue to have trouble with the display changing settings, I would recommend looking at LCDC and maybe even the set and save data lock command in the display manual. It will allow you to lock down settings including baud rate so they can't be changed inadvertently.

And as always, if you have any more trouble let us know.

Thanks,
~Troy

What do I type in the raw data entry to set the baudrate to 19200? I've tried "0xFE 0x39 33" like the manual says, but it doesn't work...

Okay, I got it '/254//57//51/' thank you, the baudrate is now correct.

Just wanted to update, after I figured out how to change the baudrate I was able to figure out how to change everything else I needed such as the GPO turn on state.

Thank you for your help.

Hi Dennis,

No worries, it's great to hear you were able to get the command working. While you can enter hex values in the raw data window, as you've seen they'll be converted to decimal values separated by slashes.

All the best as you move forward with your application,
~Troy