Anybody Using Silver's LCD Gen Software?

[Silver]

@NinjaEpisode:

I got an backlight kit off techknowman very recently - think I got lucky as he had one available. He was great to deal with, I so I would suggest he is just away at the moment. I recommend the kit as the EL sheet is pre-cut, wired and Laminated ready to slide in (once you've removed the current polarizing sheet), and comes with polarizing sheets and power inverters - and I think is pretty cheap.

Hmm, the scrolling is nice and slow on mine at default speed. In my program you can select different scroll speeds - try a couple of different ones? If that fails, take a look at http://www.pjrc.com/tech/mp3/lcd_protocol.html - this is what I based the codes on. If you have a slightly different firmware or need different commands then its easy to add.....

Mamewah - yes check the docs, theres a spot in one of the inis to specify baud/parity etc and the directory. It will look for romname.lcd (as made by the program) and send them out to the LCD as you run each game. There is also an ini file spot for some default text ("Welcome to Mamewah!" or whatever) while in the menus.

@vibez

Hmm, not sure abot the jpac as I dont have one. I'm sure using the ipac it is not the best solution in the world... For testing try getting a cheapo multimeter to make sure your connections are good. Are you soldering directly onto the board or do you have a connector?

[NinjaEpisode]

Ok, I'll check the scroll rates.

I just e-mailed Techknowman again and told him I'd either buy 6 kits from him or that I'd get 6 people commited to buying.  Essentially, I'd work out a group buy and send them on to those that want them at whatever the cost would be.

[vibez]

@vibez

Hmm, not sure abot the jpac as I dont have one. I'm sure using the ipac it is not the best solution in the world... For testing try getting a cheapo multimeter to make sure your connections are good. Are you soldering directly onto the board or do you have a connector?

Can you tell me if this looks like a power problem. The lcd is a 24x8. it uses a daughter board with a max32 chip.

The 5v power is coming from a molex connector attatched to a 3pin small molex connctor, which plugs into 2 pins on the daugter board. I put a multimeter across the back of the pins (on the daughter board) & get a steady 5.1v That should mean the daughter board is power corectly?

Ok using the info from here I've looked at the pinouts from the daughter board. Pin 15 should read 5v pin 16 should read 5v & pin 17 should read -9v. is that correct?

http://www.btinternet.com/~e2one/lcd/lcd.htm

Code: [Select]

Pin one is on top of the display (the pin nearest to R1). All connections px.x are 8032 port numbers. Connections marked * are those required to run the unit - the rest can be hooked up if you want to be more adventurous.


Pin
No.    Signal
1 txd *
2 p3.2
3 rxd *
4 p1.3
5 p1.2
6 Gnd *
7 p1.4
8 rs from shift reg
9 pin 18 of pal
10 p3.3
11 p1.7
12 reset *
13 p1.0
14 Gnd *
15 Vcc +5V *
16 Vcc +5V *
17 Vee -9V * (from Max232)


when I slap my multimeter across them I get this


15=  2.23v
16= 2.23v
17= -4.4v

Can you confirm that the daughter board is giving out the wrong voltage? If thats the case then the daughter board must be faulty in someway. if thats not the case, can I just hook up a ground & 1 red 5v to the lcd to see if it powers up ( I want to prove the lcd works & that the daughter board is faulty)

Please help, I'm terrible at electronics!

[Silver]

Hmm well you are clearly not getting the correct voltages on those pins. Assuming you are reading them correctly (black wire from the multimeter on the Ground (pin14), red wire on pin 15 or 16 or 17). Note I don't have this max32 daughter board so I'm just reading this off the list you pasted.

I'm not quite clear on how this is all hooked up. If you are connecting pins 15/16 directly from a molex connector from a PC power supply (+5v) then you should be reading 5V on the pins. You seem to have half this on each - is this reading after the daughter board? Any websites around with more pictures available?

EDIT: ok I've seens a photo of the ribbon cable attached to the back of the LCD. You should be able to attach +5V directly to the correct connectors on this for testing - It looks like the -9V is required too though, which will make it hard to test if your daughter board is faulty. Does the +5V go through the daughterboard?

The 2.2 volts on pins15/16 could be a wiring error - is the +5v from your PC supply being split anywhere?


Note: be careful with testing - dont hook up wrong wires!

[vibez]

Thanks for the reply silver.

Yes I did have the black probe on 14 & the red on /15/16/17

The only info I have is from these 2 links

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7507211411
http://www.btinternet.com/~e2one/lcd/lcd.htm

I hacked a molex from my computers PSU, its attatched to the daughter board. indicted on this pic as 5v/GND



that is where I get a good 5v reading. The output pins in the board are what connect via a ribbon cable to the actual LCD. the output pins are the ones giving me the low readings.

This pic shows the layout a little bit clearer. Note how it worked just fine for the guy who sold me it. I think I must of damaged the daughter board some how. Who knows?



Click the picture & they open up full size

[NinjaEpisode]

What's he got plugged into the 3 pins just below the GND on that last picture?  Is that where you plug in the RS232?

[vibez]

What's he got plugged into the 3 pins just below the GND on that last picture?  Is that where you plug in the RS232?

do you mean the top picture? yes that is the  RS232 pins

EDIT::

it certainly seems like the voltage is getting halved somewhere between the input & output of the daughter board. I really need to debug this. 1st way, would be to hook up something directly to the lcd to test I can get power to it. but acording to the circuit diagram I need 5v on 2 of the pins & -9V on another. how would I achieve this?

Next question would be, what could be wrong on the circuit that is causing the voltage to be halved. I'm assuming the daughter board did work & I must of shorted something.

EDIT2::

I'm testing this without the RS232 cable plugged in. Do you think this might be causing the voltage drop?

[NinjaEpisode]

So according to that diagram, PIN 15 and 16 are your power.  Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the power from the RS232 looks to be a GND to me.

Since you're already grounded on PIN 15, you shouldn't have to ground twice just to get power to the LCD.

I'm no expert, but I'd say your problem is somewhere in the daughter board.

[vibez]

So according to that diagram, PIN 15 and 16 are your power.  Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the power from the RS232 looks to be a GND to me.

Since you're already grounded on PIN 15, you shouldn't have to ground twice just to get power to the LCD.

I'm no expert, but I'd say your problem is somewhere in the daughter board.

PIN 15 is not GND its +5v too. (I think) I'm unsure what the -9V is though. Here are the pin outs to be read with that wiring diagram


Pin
No.    Signal
1 txd *
2 p3.2
3 rxd *
4 p1.3
5 p1.2
6 Gnd *
7 p1.4
8 rs from shift reg
9 pin 18 of pal
10 p3.3
11 p1.7
12 reset *
13 p1.0
14 Gnd *
15 Vcc +5V *
16 Vcc +5V *
17 Vee -9V * (from Max232)

[NinjaEpisode]

So according to that diagram, PIN 15 and 16 are your power.

[vibez]

Sorry, I thought you ment pin 15 on the lcd.

Pin 15 is GND & pin 16 is Vcc (on the max232), this is the 5v power from my pc that powers the max232 chip. It may be the chip is faulty. I can test if the chip is working correctly by using my multimeter. Black lead on pin 15 (GND) Red lead on pin 2 should read 5v & then red lead on pin 6 should read -9v. is that correct?

EDIT::

Do I need the rs232 cable plugged in to power the lcd. so that I can fill the screen with black blocks when I turn the contrast up? Can anyone try this for me. I'm not sure if the rs232 completes the circuit somehow

[NinjaEpisode]

I was able to power mine up without my serial cable and get the black blocks by turning the contrast all the way up, so my answer would be no.

[vibez]

I think you could be right. It looks like the max232 chip has 2 functions. 1st it doubles the input voltage from 5v to 10v & feeds this out pin 2, then it inverts the 10v to -10v & feeds this out pin6.  So it would seem the lcd needs 2 of the +5v inputs & 1 -9v input plus ground to power it. From my earlier tests, its only getting half of this. I'll test the chip, if the correct power is coming from the output end of the chip then the pcb must be bad, else the chip is faulty.

I'm actually enjoying this, considering I know nothing about electronics its fairly simple to pick up with a bit of googling.

[vibez]

I think i've found the problem!!!!!

 There is what looks like a voltage regulator on the daughterboard. Anyone willing to bet that this is down stepping the voltage?

I bet this board is designed to be hooked up to 12v & not 5v like I thought!

[NinjaEpisode]

Well, rather than risk killing both daughter board and lcd at once, I would disconnect the lcd from the daughter board and hook the daughter board up to the 12v supply of the molex connector on the PSU and see if you're getting the right voltage.

Of course, that's if you're willing to risk killing the daughter board.

[vibez]

Dont worry, I had the lcd disconnected as soon as I realised the power source must the problem. I've found the data sheet for the regulator too, & it definatly documents the output as 5v. BUt if I put a 5v in the regulator, shouldnt 5v come out? or does it cut down the voltage by a percentage & the max in can output is 5v?

I really need to take a class in this elastictricty stuff

[vibez]

 

[vibez]

What do I put in the mamewah.ini for lcd settings? I'm not sure of the format. It just puts garbage on the screen. I copied one of the .lcd files through command prompt & it worked ok. But not via mamewah

EDIT::

Found the settings. (detailed below)  The lcd_fe_text command that Mamewah displays is a bit boring. It would be better if we could get it to point to a text file. That way we could do some fancy formatting, instead of just getting a single line

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In mamewah.ini, edit these settings:

lcd_com_port (place your serial (COM) port no. here)
lcd_settings (place settings here*)

# * baud rate (110/300/600/1200/2400/9600/14400/28800/38400/56000/128000/256000), parity ([e]ven, dd, [n]one, [m]ark, pace), data bits (4-8), stop bits (1, 1.5, 2) - eg 9600,n,8,1 (this will vary depending on your screen etc.)

In your emuname.ini (eg mame.ini):

lcd_display_file_path (place your lcd file path here*)
lcd_fe_text (text to display while in the FE, eg 'MAME - Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator')

* This is the location of your LCD files; basically text files (with .lcd extension) for each game, containing text you wish to be displayed when the game is launched (& any additional characters required by the screen for carriage return etc.)

eg puckman.lcd:

PuckMan - 4-way joystick

[Silver]

Congrats! glad its all working...

Yes I remember mentioning to Minwah when we were trying to get the LCD output to work (he kindly added this feature even though he does not have an LCD, and so could not even test it himself...). I'm he was going to allow the standard FE text bit to be stored in an external file to allow for fancier text.  It may be possible to add it all within the ini file although I have not tested that....

Incidentally I should mention that I've updated the LCDgen a week or 2 back (Now on 0.96.3) - after a couple of bugs were pointed out. (It was adding unecessary carriage returns at the end of the LCD files, and it now gets rid of the empty lines if you tell it to when the number of buttons would go off the screen....)

[vibez]

Thanks, I running the latest version now. I tried adding a text file that your tool produced into the ini, but it seems mamewah only reads one line. for the lcd_fe_text command. I have managed to get it scrolling though

[Silver]

yes 1 line is the catch... it may be possible to add lines by using AScii codes for carriage returns, but not sure how mamewah will treat unicode stuff....

probably easier to wait for Minwah to return from the land of Oz and ask him then...

[vibez]

It could work. I'm not too good with ASCII code.

[NinjaEpisode]

Congrats on getting it working!  Trust me, I was just here for moral support.  I'm far from an expert when it comes to electronics, but troubleshooting overall is just a matter of deduction, ruling out one thing after another until you find the issue.

Regarding Mamewah, I guess I should have tested, didn't realize we were only getting one line!

My suggestion to Minwah would be to execute the copy command with the proper .lcd file to comX right before he launches the emulator.  That way you don't have to rely on anything native to mamewah.  Should be fairly easy considering everything else is running through .ini files.

[vibez]

I appreciate the moral support. Now all I need to do it find a backlight kit & build an enclosure

[vibez]

Ok I have a very crude way of getting mamewah to launch a .lcd instead of the lcd_fe_text command. I'm almost embarrased by the crappy way I have done it, so I would rather let someone else come up with a better idea. Question is, are these lcds liable to 'burn in'? I'd hate to leave my arcade on for a few hours & ruin the lcd screen

[JoyMonkey]

I can't imagine the LCD suffering from burn-in. Ever see a digital watch with burn-in?
I think burn-in is limited to CRT tubes.  I think.

[vibez]

Good point. I should be safe. Thx

[NinjaEpisode]

OK, I tested mine tonight and I can get a full .lcd file sent with no problem.  At first I was getting garbage, but then I went in and set my baud rate etc. and once I did that, for every game I launched, the .lcd file filled in perfectly.

I obviously have a different controller than vibez', but mine works fine.

[jfunk]

Well, I've got my LCD working..  Waiting to hear from vibez how the backlighting goes 

My only problem now is with LCD Gen    When I hit 'Go', I get:

Run-time error '429'
ActiveX component can't create object

I'm running XP SP2..  Any thoughts on why this might be?

THANX!

Edit: Also, when installing, I get the following error:

An error occurred while registering the file 'C:\Windows\System32\msxml4.dll'

I'm betting this is my problem, but I don't know how to fix it 

Thanx.

[jfunk]

Wait a minute..  downloaded the MSXML package from microsoft.com, and things seem to be working better    Thanx, anyways 

[jfunk]

I have everything running!!! 

My last questions, I believe 

1)  When I set the first line to 'scroll' if it's too long, it's WAAAAY to fast or something..?  I tried sf2.lcd as an example...  Any thoughts?

2)  When exiting from the game, MAMEWAH allows you to send a line to the lcd..  Currently, I've got it clearing the screen and printing MAME..  Any way to add more lines?  I'd like it to be instructions on using MAMEWAH..?  Even better would be sending a file, instead..?

Thanx for this thread!  It's been EXTREMELY helpful!

[vibez]

I have created a work around for getting it to send a text file when you exit back to the main menu.I currently use it to display a simple instruction card for each emulator. I'm at work at the moment, but i'll post the .bat files & .ini mods when I get home.

[jfunk]

That'd be AWESOME!  Thanx!

I really just need to brush up on my C/C++ and write something    Too bad Perl has so much overhead..

[vibez]

Ok you need to do a few things to get started.

Delete any settings you have in mamewah relating to the lcd. If mamewah manages to execute any commands its keeps hold of the com port until you quit mamewah, which means no other commands can be sent.

What we are going to do is get mamewah to run a bat instead of the mame.exe

This is my mame.ini, setup your in a similar fashion.......... Notice how it points to the batch file

Code: [Select]

### mame.ini (mamewah v1.61) ###

emulator_title                            M.A.M.E.

### List Generation Settings ###
rom_path                                  d:\roms
rom_extension                             zip
dat_file                                  c:\mame\mame.dat
nms_file                                  c:\mame\what.ini
catver_ini_file                           c:\mame\catver.ini
list_generation_method                    rom_folder_vs_listxml

### Execution Settings ###
emulator_executable                       c:\mameWAH\batchfiles\mame.bat
commandline_format                        [name]{nodosbox}{nosafelaunch}
alt_commandline_format_1                  [name]{autodosbox}{nosafelaunch}
alt_commandline_format_2                  [name]{autodosbox}{nosafelaunch}
Now create the batch file for mamewah to run.

This is my mame.bat

Code: [Select]

@echo off
copy c:\LCD_GAME_CONTROLS\%1.lcd com1
cd\
cd mame
start/wait mame.exe d:\roms\%1
copy c:\LCD_EMU_CONTROLS\mame.lcd com1
So in :\LCD_GAME_CONTROLS\ I have all my .lcd files created by lcdgen (this gets copied when you launch a game)

in c:\LCD_EMU_CONTROLS\ I one .lcd file per emulator, in this case mame.lcd

In this .lcd you put whatever you want the lcd to display when you are back in the mamewah menu.

So what should happen is when you launch a game, the correct game controls get displayed on the screen, then when you exit mame, it displays what ever you have put in your mame.lcd file.

Only trouble is that when you 1st start mamewah, the lcd will be blank, so what I did is drop a .lcd file in my startup folder

Let me know if you run into any probs

[vibez]

worth noting that there is a custom font designer here

http://www.btinternet.com/~e2one/lcd/graphics_character_definer.htm

I used it to create pacman & other custom fonts. Its a really handy tool

[jfunk]

I'll give it a try soon!  Thanx!

A question, though..  Did you have to set the COM settings somehow before this would work?

I have MAMEWAH as my XP shell, so I can't put the LCD file in the startup folder..  Maybe I can have the shell be a bat file, instead..  will have to try it 

[vibez]

Yes, the .bat in the startup folder set the com port settings. I've never run mamewah in a shell, but i'm sure you will be able to create an autoexe or something that sends the settings on startup?

EDIT::

actually you can just add the settings to all the .lcd files. I'm sure if you just add the settings line to lcdgen, you can do it that way

[Aceldamor]

I have a question 

Is it possible to position the button functions on the LCD to the layout of your panel.
For example for Mortal Kombat:

high punch           High Kick
                   Block
Low Punch           Low Kick
                                          Run
               

[NinjaEpisode]

All of the .lcd files are just text files with basic list format.  You theoretically "could" do what you're asking, but it would most likely be a manual process, and considering the amount of .lcd files generated for all the games, it's be a fairly large undertaking.

If you have just a few specific fighter games that you're looking to do it for, it shouldn't be that big of a deal.

[Silver]

Sorry not been paying attention recently....

I've looked into physically moving the location of buttons around - its feasible to do it for ALL games, which defeats the purpose of having it represent the controls for a particular game.

 The Johhny5 CP viewer essentially has the functionality we are talking about so it's doable, but what I've also realised is that on a 24x8 LCD like mine, its not really worth it as I don't have the space to place all the buttons with descriptions in the right place anyway.

Incidentally I've added basic functionality for other LCD's that use the "Alpha" protocol, such as a bunch of seetrons (This is a beta that's not on the website yet). Specifically the bpp440: http://www.seetron.com/bpp440_1.htm that Circo uses. It's a 4 x 40 display and you can see that Circo lays out the text differently: http://www.emumovies.com/pictures.html which has the button layout on the left in a compact form.

When you select BPP440 in the LCD list it will display it in this manner. I've also done some looking at BetaBrites - which happen to use the alpha protocol too - which means they could work with this as well.