jk
Junior Member
Posts: 10
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Post by jk on Aug 30, 2014 1:38:40 GMT -8
Hello all, I am new in this forum. I am looking for a solution with an Arduino for an Home automation project including a LCD touch screen. I found the Gameduino 2 and the VM800B board from FTDI, which seems to be nearly the same, both with the FT800 controller. Looking for libraries for Arduino I found the GD2 libs which are much easier to understand (great job!) and to handle for a "hobby programmer" (not so experienced in C) as the original ones from FTDI. On the homepage of FTDI I found an interesting announcement of a new chip FT801 and new boards, which will be released and sold in 4. quarter. Improvement in my eyes is the capacative touch screen. So I took that one in my closer choise. All technical data is also already available. It seems for me that controlling of the Touchscreen is different to the resistive one and probably along with that needs other routines for controlling. Did anyone already look to that? So my questions would be - Can the GD2 libs used for this chip without modification - Does someone plan to produce a "Gameduino3" with a capacitive Touch? jk
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Post by jamesbowman on Aug 30, 2014 9:48:26 GMT -8
Well, interesting question. The FT801 touch-system looks very compatible with FT800's, so GD2 libs should work fine. They will need extending for multi-touch mode, but that seems quite easy.
Regarding a capacitive version of Gameduino2 - what kind of price increment would you think is OK? The cost of the capacitive panel is quite high, so the retail price would have to reflect that. (Resistive panels seem to work pretty well considering their incredibly low cost - they cost about $1 in quantity, AFAIK.)
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jk
Junior Member
Posts: 10
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Post by jk on Sept 3, 2014 9:33:56 GMT -8
Hello jamesbowman,
thanks for your estimation for the lib compability. I had just a quick look what's the current price of a gameduino here in Germany: ~ €52. So an increase of aprox €10 would be ok for me. But I don't have any idea what's the difference resistive versus capacative. So lets wait another month, what will be price of new FTDI board.
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jk
Junior Member
Posts: 10
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Post by jk on Dec 6, 2014 9:36:33 GMT -8
Hi jamesbowman, surfing in the forum I found a interesting threat to my above issue in the category "better display". I followed the link to Newhaven Display and found there the display you proposed but with a capacitve Touch panel: NHD-4.3-480272EF-ATXL#-CTP (price $58). The specs seem to me identical with the one from FTDI. Can you confirm this? If true, 'is there anybody out there' who has the knowlege and "capacity" to adapt the GD2-Lib to that display. That would be great!
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hla
Junior Member
Posts: 29
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Post by hla on Dec 6, 2014 11:44:36 GMT -8
That display uses FT5306 as capacitive touch controller. According to the FT801 datasheet (http://www.ftdichip.com/Support/Documents/DataSheets/ICs/DS_FT801.pdf) FT801 supports FT5x06. I've written a driver for FT5206 (http://weatherhelge.wordpress.com/2014/02/14/got-my-7-lcd-upn-running/ ) that might be used for FT5306 as well. Instead of programming it explisitly though I2C bus, it may be programmed directly via internal FT801 registers.
And, a bit on the side, I would love to a see a Gameduino-like design that INCLUDES a 328 processor or something similar... Shouldn't bee to hard for someone with existing PCB competence. Would make a great general purpose platform for experimenting with applications that needs some nice graphics. Waiting for it !
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Post by TCB on Dec 7, 2014 11:30:55 GMT -8
I've been working on similar adaptations of the GD2 library to the FTDI boards for some prototype projects. I would like to see a cap touch version of the GD2, and considering how inexpensive the GD2 is right now, I think an increase of $30 or so would not be that much of a deal breaker. On a side note, I would like to see the GD2 board kitted up as a stand alone board without the Arduino pinout headers - available for various screens (up to 5" I think is max.) So that the screen and board could be more easily incorporated into a variety of situations. I like using the GD2 library as well, much better than the inscrutable code base from FTDI. I hope James Bowman makes some $ off the work he has done with this! I did get this link from FTDI. It turns out they have a GUI programming solution that outputs both FTDI code and GD2 code for the Arduino. I didn't find this on their confusing website, but their support engineer has been very helpful, and sent me the link: www.ftdichip.com/Support/Utilities/FTDI%20EVE%20Screen%20Editor%20V1.14.zipand the documentation: www.ftdichip.com/Support/Documents/AppNotes/AN_281_FT800_Emulator_Library_User_Guide.pdf
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hla
Junior Member
Posts: 29
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Post by hla on Dec 7, 2014 14:03:30 GMT -8
I know that Jason at Atomsoft started working on a standalone FT800 board some months ago ( atomsoft.wordpress.com/?s=ft800). I don't think he finished it, but maybe its possible to convince him to complete the board :-)
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Post by jamesbowman on Dec 8, 2014 9:23:34 GMT -8
Agreed - it would be great to see the library running on more hardware.
I just pinged Jason - his FT800 board looks pretty neat.
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Post by atomsoft on Dec 8, 2014 11:29:16 GMT -8
Hey this is AtomSoft from AtomSoft.wordpress.com I will design a new pcb or well finish mines. Just give me until the end of the week. Pretty swamped here with 2 jobs
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hla
Junior Member
Posts: 29
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Post by hla on Dec 8, 2014 11:57:26 GMT -8
Sounds good!
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Post by atomsoft on Dec 8, 2014 14:45:04 GMT -8
Even tho this is a 3.3v part it requires 5v for the backlight. Or would you guys prefer me to find and use a backlight system that would use only a 3.3v supply?
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Post by TCB on Dec 8, 2014 15:07:37 GMT -8
I'd rather see 5V in and level shift on the board to 3.3
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Post by jamesbowman on Dec 8, 2014 16:15:48 GMT -8
I used the MIC2289-24 for the backlight driver, which takes anything from 2.5v to 10v as the input. This is nice for people who have a 3.3v system with no 5V available.
It's also good for battery people - they can just use the battery voltage directly for the backlight driver.
MIC2289-24 is the 24 volt part - apparently cheap panels vary a lot in their backlight voltage requirements, so using the -24 gives a bit of headroom.
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Post by atomsoft on Dec 8, 2014 18:24:02 GMT -8
Ok just to make this cheaper and save board space its going to be a 3.3v system. You can drop 5v to 3.3v off board and level shift. I rather keep this small. Ill use the micrel part.
How about audio? Should I make audio pin external or have onboard amp?
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Post by jamesbowman on Dec 9, 2014 7:19:24 GMT -8
The FTDI data sheets use a complicated amplifier setup. I got pretty similar-sounding results using a single MOSFET. The trick is to use a separate 3.3v supply - the FT800 and backlight dump a crapload of noise onto the supply rails, so using the same 3.3v supply as the FT800 is a no-no. Giving the board an "audio 3.3v in" pin might be possible?
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