Adding Spark Fun Product Support to the Forums....

Archive SparkFun Site Questions/Comments
1

Hi,

I think you should add a dedicated Spark Fun Product Support area to the Forums. On the Spark Fun Homepage there is a “Tech Support” link that dumps you into the Forums, but once inside, there is no obvious place for Spark Fun product support :frowning: !! For example, I have a couple of questions about the SerLCD v2, but I’m not sure where they should go??

Thanks!

John

2

Good question. Unfortunately most of the SFE products have forums for themselves (GPS, RF, etc). GM862 Cellular has it’s own forum elsewhere. The SerLCD questions can really be asked anywhere.

What questions have you got?

-Nathan

3

Hi Nathan,

My problem is that I can’t seem to turn-off the backlight on the LCD. I have successfully set the display type (20 X 4), and I can display text on the LCD, but the LCD backlight on/off function is not working :frowning: ! I am using this code to toggle the LCD backlight off:

	fputc(0x7c, Console); //special function CMD
	delay_ms(100);
	fputc(0x02, Console); //LCD OFF

I have also tried setting the backlight level to OFF, using:

	fputc(0x7c, Console); //special function CMD
	delay_ms(100);
	fputc(0x80, Console); //LCD value @128 (OFF)

So far, nothing I do seems to turn off the backlight. Oh yeah, I figured the xsistor might be shot, so I measured the voltage at the base and found it to be about 5V…

Also, I found that commands that write to EEPROM on the SerLCD take a long time to process, so you have to put in a healthy delay to avoid losing characters. That needs to be in the docs…

Thanks!

John

4

Nathan,

Unfortunately, I think this is a bug in the SerLCD v2 code :frowning: ! I just power cycled my LCD and I am seeing the “splash screen” without the backlight! As soon as the screen is cleared, the backlight comes back on. If I enable the backlight and cycle the power, the “splash screen” is shown with the backlight on. Can you look at that? For now, I’m just disconnecting the backlight!

Thanks!

John

5

Nathan,

Any comments on the SerLCD v2 backlight issue I’m experiencing?? I’d dig into the code myself, but unfortunately I use CCS ‘C’, and porting the code to debug this problem would take more time than I have available at the moment. I’m sure it would be pretty easy to find the bug using the native compiler?

Also, not to beat on you guys, but I really think you need to add a dedicated Tech Support area for these problems! Otherwise they just get lost in the shuffle if they are randomly sprinkled throughtout the site! I’ve been poking around and there are lots of support type threads that just seem to die on the vine without any obvious resolution… In my case, after a quick initial reply, I haven’t heard anything in almost 2 days…

Thanks!

John

6

Sorry for the long reply. Forum postings have been neglected lately due to a whole batch of other problems we are addressing before the new year (checkout the new site). We should be able to get to it this week.

When you boot your SerLCD backpack, what version do you have coming up? I need to find out what firmware version you are playing with.

-Nathan