2007-01-21

ATmega16 controller and DOG-M LCD module – can’t get it to work right

Posted in PlanetDebian, electronics at 22:57 CET (+0100) by sven

Well, today I worked on a new little hardware project. It’s supposed to become open source (both schematics/PCB layout and software), but I want to work on it together with a close friend more or less exclusively for now. Anyway what it is going to become is a small controller board with a 2×16 character LCD module (DOG-M162 from lcd-module.de, an Atmel ATmega16, a small serial EEPROM, an IR transceiver, a USB port (featured by an FTDI USB2serial chip) and two relais outputs. The software will use the board as an external controller for Canon EOS* cameras (one output controlling the autofocus trigger, one the shutter trigger) with several “programs” which take a photo every X seconds or opens the shutter for a given amount of time (up to several minutes for night time photos).

Anyway, today we worked on the first prototype board and tried to get the LCD to work. First we tried a 3.3V setup for the board – our initial goal – and several software versions later, we used an oscilator and found rather disgusting signal edges, so we switched to 5V (all components used were 5V and 3.3V capable, except that the display needed a slightly different circuit with a capacitor replaced by bare wire and another removed). Now the signal edges looked fine and we tripple checked that all connections were as expected. But even after trying two different initialization routines from the web and writing an own one from the controller specs, we were not successfull. This is quite frustrating, so if anyone would be able to help here, please leave a comment or contact me by email.

9 Comments »

  1. ashghi said,

    May 28, 2007 at 19:43 CEST (+0200)

    i want project atmega16+USB.

  2. sven said,

    May 29, 2007 at 13:32 CEST (+0200)

    ashghi: I’m sorry, but what exactly do you ask for?

  3. Andreas said,

    January 24, 2008 at 17:31 CET (+0100)

    Hi, I’m having the same problems and are stuck (Arduino board/ATMega168 and DOG-M162) and am stuck.

    Did you have any success yet with the LCD?

    Cheers,
    Andreas

  4. sven said,

    January 25, 2008 at 12:20 CET (+0100)

    Hi Andreas.

    Yes, we did succeed. It mostly turned out to be problems with the power supply to the LCD. I don’t know the Arduino board, but I could send you the board we made, perhaps that’s giving you an idea.
    I could also send you the (extremely prototype style – quick&dirty) source we wrote.

    cu,
    sven

  5. Ferdinand said,

    February 2, 2008 at 14:08 CET (+0100)

    Hi Sven,

    I am also stuck with aduino board (Mega168) and DOG M162 LCD display. I am using the 5V from computer USB. To save input/output pins i connected in 4wire serial mode (SI,SCL,RS and CS). Are you also using this mode? Did you add capacitors close to the LCD or how did you solve your problems with the power supply?

    Yours, Ferdinand

  6. sven said,

    April 9, 2008 at 18:14 CEST (+0200)

    Ferdinand: Please contact me by mail, I could send you a link to our sources (both board and software). As far as I recall, we do use 4wire mode, too.

  7. Stig said,

    May 1, 2008 at 08:36 CEST (+0200)

    Hi im also trying to get this dog display to work, I would be very happy to see your code aswell :)

  8. Srinu said,

    July 23, 2009 at 17:21 CEST (+0200)

    Hello

    Iam working on atmega16 controller. the project is to get graphical display on avr. for this iam using lgm12864b lcd display and AVR studio for compiling. can anyone help me in source code for that??

    thank you

    regards
    srinu

  9. sven said,

    July 24, 2009 at 07:05 CEST (+0200)

    Well, I can’t help you there as I never worked with graphical displays yet, but perhaps someone else can. If you do get it to work, I would be very thankful if you could share the code.

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