Hello,
1st post...and I'm a total novice on these displays, so please bare with me.

I have an electric car that has an aftermarket battery monitoring system. It's a very simple system that monitors the batteries to make sure they don't overcharge or run too low. There is a serial cable (DB9 female) that I can plug into my laptop and see some basic, but very useful, information. All I have to do is use windows hyperterminal set at 8-N-1-9600 and it comes up right away. It only sends out a few lines, then it pauses...then it sends a refreshed set of lines again. Here is a very quick video (sorry about the poor cellphone quality)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEXWp3QH5I0
imagine the info repeating and repeating, that's all it does.

It would be super useful to have a matrix orbital display that can simply display this information in the car. Also, powering it with 12v would be nice.

Can anyone tell me if it is possible to basically plug in a display and be able to see the information I see on hyperterminal?

Thanks

Hello Mundoracer,

I understand you have what sounds to be a rather interesting project that could benefit from a serial display. I think I can point you in the right direction.

First, you can find a serial display for nearly every screen size and configuration we offer at matrixorbital.com. Our default baud rate is 19200, but it can easily be changed in hyperterminal or using one of our software tools from matrixorbital.ca. Our communication scheme matches at 8 bits data, no parity, 1 stop bit.

For 12V power, you'll find many units have a -VPT option which will accommodate an input voltage between 9V and 35V.

It looks like you have about 14 lines to display, with a newline character at the end of each. Most units will recognize a value of 10 as a newline, please consult the manuals to confirm. With the volume of information to be displayed, I believe a character model will not have enough lines for your needs. The graphic line will let you change font and sizing if required and you should be able to find a unit that will fit the information on one screen. I'd recommend starting at the GLK24064-1U and exploring the different options available on our site.

Should you have any questions regarding a specific display please don't hesitate to post.

Thanks,
~Troy

Hey Troy....perfect, this is exactly what I need. Thank u.

How about connecting it?...I see the GLK24064-16-1U-FGW has a female DB9 input, just like the output of what I'm connecting to. Do you think a simple gender changer is all I'll need...or do the transmission and receive wires need to be switched?

Thanks

No worries Mondoracer,

You can check out the wiring scheme in the manual, please note it will be labelled from the perspective of your host: your will send information to pin 2 of the DB9 connector.

That should give you an idea of the hardware you'll need, but if you do have any further questions let me know.

Thanks,
~Troy

Ok, great...still making progress.

My last problem is that I'm not sure what pin my host is sending information out of....I don't have the wiring schematic. If hyperterminal can read it with no problems...is that enough to identify what pin my host is using for the output? In other words, what pin(s) does hyperterminal use to read/display information?

I'm sure this is a novice question, thanks for the help

Hi Mundoracer,

If you can receive information from your device in Hyperterminal without the need for a null modem cable, I anticipate you will be able to successfully connect a display to it.

The wiring decisions will be up to you, but I would recommend interfacing each device separately to hyperterminal to confirm communication which should give you confidence when combining them.

Thanks,
~Troy

Good news, I bought a unit and got it to work! I will post a video when I get a chance. I did have to switch pins 2 and 3 for Rx and Tx. I had to make a gender changer for the DB9 female plugs anyways, so no big deal. The only other pin needed was pin 5. The only other thing I did was set the baud to 9600. Super easy.

I ended up going with a GLT240128-VPT... though I cannot figure out how to get the touch screen to work. I assumed there would be a built in menu system where simple adjustments like contrast and backlight control could be made. What am I missing here?

Hello Mundoracer,

I'm glad to hear the basic display is up and running; the GLT240128 seems like a great size for your application and we'd love to see a video of it in action.

You can set and save the backlight and contrast using hyperterminal or another serial communication program in much the same way you altered the baud rate. However, the touch function of the screen has a scope much broader than simple adjustments; there is no built-in menu structure.

In the most basic sense, you can set-up a number of regions on the screen that will each return a unique identifier to the host. But perhaps the best way to see what the touch screen can do is to take a look at our demo program.

At this time, with output coming directly from your monitoring device, it will be difficult to incorporate the touch functionality of GLT. However, if you do decide to take the project a step further and add a controller between the monitoring device and display, the GLT provides great opportunities for menu and display control.

~Troy