Matrix Orbital Corp

Hey. I'm new to the LCD thing, so please be gentle...

I somehow managed to mess up the diplay like a few others in the forum (ie. garbled power on message, contrast way off) due to changing to an unsupported baud rate (so it seems).

I've read all the other posts and followed the recommended fixes (set the reset jumper, set the contrast back with supplied software, redid the power on message...)

All seems good until I try the AlhaDemo with the bar graph tab. Instead of getting bars, I get solid blocks with various dots lit and unlit. After that, it resorts back to garbled text/extended chars, backlight doesn't turn on/off, etc.

How this all came to be: I was messing around with VB6, learning how to control the LCD. All went well till I inadvertantely set a variable wrong for the contrast with a scroll bar. Everything seemed to fall apart after that. It's been many hours going over things again and again to sort things out, but it's still not right.

I've gone over my system and can't figure out how the baud rate would be changed if I wasn't even coding for it (aside from initial communication). This seems to be the general concensus for the problem for other posts.

Any thoughts/fixes/help!!

Thanks.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: unstabl1 on 2002-09-01 19:34 ]</font>

Best bet is to power it down (The display), disconeect the keyboard, and place a jumper on pins 5/6 of the keyboard connector. Power up (Baud should now be back to 19200) / change rs232 settings if needed/ Power down remove jumper, reconnect keyboard then power up again and you should be away. Chek the LK202 manual out page 7.

Thanks, I was pretty much that far, but now I have a more accurate description of my problem.

1. Bar graphs do not work
Upon experimenting and using the AlphaDemo prog. I can now say for sure that it is not working properly. There are strange patterns in the char map. I've defined my own maps and called them up no problem, but when I init and start drawing the bar graphs, these strange patterns are back.
eg. 0x00 always displays this after b/g init.
11110
01101
11110
01001
11110
01101
11110
11100

2. Cursor underline does not work
I can't turn it on through the demo or in my own code.

3. Block cursor will not work (same as #2).

4. Cursor left/right does not work.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: unstabl1 on 2002-08-31 23:01 ]</font>

Does everything else work? can you talk to the display and show text, control the backlight and so on?

Yes I can control the backlight, contrast, GPO's (all I've tried is 1, but it is fine), wrap, scroll, send text, and read keypresses from display (although they are very delayed - 2 to 5 seconds before a response).

I think I got everything set back to default, and I am now using COM2 instead of COM1 (in case some other app was conflicting, but I don't see why. I don't use any other com software aside from Outlook 2000).

So now you can talk to the display, but you have problems with bargraphs and so on correct? if so, e-mail me henryj@matrixorbital.com I'll send you a special program.

Thanks Henry. All is well now.