Matrix Orbital Corp

I'm really intrigued by the idea of running an lcd off winamp or to show system stats, etc... But don't you think it's a little on the pricey side for what you're actually getting? I mean for $40-$180 for a serial controller chip, an lcd or vfd, a few misc parts, and maybe a mounting kit; it just seems outrageous when you could buy a full color 4" lcd that takes any standard video input for eighty bucks! I'm not saying that the little serial lcds don't have their place; they are certainly cool, but I would really expect to pay a lot less for one. And it appears that Matrix orbital has the means to produce a very professional mounting kit with keypad, shouldn't they be able to produce that for around $25?

-Just some food for thought
I'll post my case mods when they are all done.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: wisemirai on 2001-12-13 02:40 ]</font>

a full color 4" lcd that takes any standard video input for eight bucks!

$8 did I hear you right? They cost around $150 here in England... I'll give you a nice markup if you send me one (or let me know where to buy from):D

As for MO's LCD's - don't knock em if you aint tried em i think they're worth their money, $50 isn't that much really (a new computer game and a bit...), cheers,

r.

LOL, my bad, i meant $80. I swear i checked that.
Also, i'm not really saying anything negative about them, i'm simply saying that if a company can make something like a hardrive for around $100, with way more technology in it, why do these cost so much?



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: wisemirai on 2001-12-13 02:40 ]</font>

lol... I want one for $8 now

i think the point is demand - MO may get through a fair few units but I bet they sell less than a 1000th of the number of hdd's bought each year...

r.

Well, if you think they're expensive don't buy one. Thats you're right as a consumer. Personally, besides the exceptional quality you also have to consider the service you get. Also, besides just having a page selling their product they are nice enough to host this forum as well as promote software written by other people. Bandwidth ain't cheap and they get nothing out of this. Also, the time Henry spends in here interacting with not just customers, but anybody, costs them money.

and wouldn't you just love the nice logo?

and, the price of the lcd is not so high, because, okay, you can get lcd's for MUCH cheaper, but do they have an RS-232 interface? And can they be controlled by just sending a string to the serial port???
(answer is no, btw ... ). Other cheap LCD's without serial port need to be programmed by a chip and stuff.

I understand your point about it being easily communicated with, and i agree that they have good customer support. That does not change the fact that you can buy a television or vcr for $100, and they contain parts like a crt, motors, lcds, buttons, remote, the list goes on. I simply state that $100 for a "component" is expensive. I want one, and i'm sure many want one, and I wonder if they could make them for less, more people would actually BUY them and then they could make more and could make a bigger profit while still allowing end users to get one for a little less $$

The main thing is mass production. When a motor gets put into a VCR there are a hundred thousand made. For $100 you don't only get a LCD, you get a mounting bracket, power cable, serial cable, screws, a CD with manuals and software and the LCD (I'm speaking for the BLK202A here) Go to EIO and see how good their documents are, or technical specifications. As well, take a normal LCD, we add keypad support, RS232 support/ I2C support, GPOs, Large numbers, custom splash screen and so on. Why use a T-Bird to surf the Internet when you could use a Celeron? The point is, you can do more with our displays then any other.

The main thing is the RS232 interface; it's there to create an easy interface between processors and the LCD. You don't have to worry about timings (we have a buffer) or on graphic you can save images and fonts to the memory chip. All this costs money. We always do lower our prices whenever we can, with demand does come lower prices. But there is a very fine balance between selling a product too low and charging too much.


Cheers...

_________________
Henry J.
Technical Support
Matrix Orbital

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Henry on 2001-12-13 14:41 ]</font>

Thank you Henry for the reply. I suppose I could justify spending the dough if you made a blue backlit 20x2 with a negative mode so the light shows through the characters. But until then I'll just have to live with my 4" tft-lcd in the front of my case which i use as a second monitor (dualhead), an auxilary video screen and whatever else i decide to do with it

Sound pretty nice setup. The problem with blue is that the polymer absorbs the blue wavelengths giving you bad contrast. Inverting it usually makes it even worse. So unless we can get something that looks REALLY good, we don't see the point. We only want to do things 100%... There is a GLK12232-25-SM that will fit into a single drive bay that is blue...

Ok, i see it, but it's like a blue writing on a gray screen. It just looks drab to me

EDIT....
Well if this is what your referring to http://www.lcdforums.com/forums/viewtop ... &forum=4&1 then it really does look cool. I'd use that pic instead of the one you've got on the product description now


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: wisemirai on 2001-12-13 18:56 ]</font>

On 2001-12-13 16:29, wisemirai wrote:
Ok, i see it, but it's like a blue writing on a gray screen. It just looks drab to me

EDIT....
Well if this is what your referring to http://www.lcdforums.com/forums/viewtop ... &forum=4&1 then it really does look cool. I'd use that pic instead of the one you've got on the product description now

The display in the picture is a GLK12232-25-WBL, it's not for sale just yet, but very soon. We will be offering both, green and white backlight versions... I really do like it as well. Here is the second blue display we have...


LK204-25-PC

here is a great article...
http://bit-tech.net/article/48/

_________________
Henry J.
Technical Support
Matrix Orbital

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Henry on 2001-12-14 00:05 ]</font>

EDIT....
Well if this is what your referring to http://www.lcdforums.com/forums/viewtop ... &forum=4&1 then it really does look cool. I'd use that pic instead of the one you've got on the product description now

If you want to see more of that LCD check my review at http://www.icehardware.net - it's a very nice unit! Cheers,

r.

Well as promised, here's what I've done with my $120.


I may add a serial LCD soon too. But if you want to read more about this check out this thread at Virtual Hideout. http://www.vhforums.net/cgi-bin/ikonboa ... ;f=2;t=310

Thanks.

looks VERY nice!