LCD1100 User Guide

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Getting Started

Welcome to the LCD1100 user guide! In order to get started, make sure you have the following hardware on hand:

Next, you will need to connect the pieces:
LCD1100 Functional.jpeg
  1. Connect the LCD1100 to the VINT Hub using the Phidget cable.

Using the LCD1000

Phidget Control Panel

In order to demonstrate the functionality of the LCD1100, the Phidget Control Panel running on a Windows machine will be used.




Windows PhidgetTaskbar.PNG




Linux users can follow the getting started with Linux guide and continue reading here for more information about the LCD1100.

First Look

After plugging the LCD1100 into your computer and opening the Phidget Control Panel, you will see something like this:

LCD1100 Panel.jpg


  • Serial number: allows you to differentiate between similar Phidgets.


Graphic LCD

GraphicLCD Example.jpg

When you double click on a Graphic LCD object, a window like the one pictured will open.

  • At the top of the window, information about your device and the properties of this particular channel will be listed.
  • In the middle, brightness and contrast of the LCD screen can be adjusted.
  • At the bottom, there are a number of buttons to demonstrate the functionality of the graphics LCD:

  • Basic Example: Write some text, lines, boxes and a bitmap to the screen.
  • SaveFrameBuffer: Save the current screen to memory.
  • RecallFrameBuffer: Load the saved screen from memory and print it to the screen.
  • Async Example: Prints a bitmap to the screen asynchronously (can occur while other draw functions are still running).
  • Async Text: Prints text to the screen asynchronously.
  • Async Timer: As above, but constantly prints numbers in random locations.
  • Image: Loads an image from file and converts it to a bitmap to be displayed on the screen.
  • Sleep/Unsleep: Toggles sleep mode, where the Phidget is still attached but in a minimal power consumption state.
  • Clear Screen: Erases the screen.

Finding The Addressing Information


The locate Phidget button is found in the device information box


All the information you need to address your Phidget

Using Your Own Program


This Phidget is compatible with the LCD Examples.


Technical Section

Custom Characters


Bitmaps define images to be drawn on the screen of the Graphic LCD display. Bitmaps on the Graphic LCD display are made up of pixels arranged in a grid with a size defined when the bitmap is drawn.

You can create a bitmap by defining a byte array of ones and zeroes. Ones are colored in, and zeroes are empty. If you put a line break after each row, it'll be easy to edit the bitmap.

In C#, this may look something like this:

Byte[] heart = 	[0,0,0,0,0,

gLCD.WriteBitmap(0, 0, 5, 8, heart);

Custom Characters

Custom characters are images associated with given unicode characters. A custom character can be any arrangement of pixels within the space allotted for a single character. Single characters are made up of pixels arranged in a grid with a size defined by setFontSize().

As with regular bitmaps for the Graphic LCD display, you can create a character bitmap by defining a byte array of ones and zeroes. Ones are colored in, and zeroes are empty. If you put a line break after each row, it'll be easy to edit the bitmap.

In C#, this may look something like this:

Byte[] heart = 	[0,0,0,0,0,

gLCD.SetFontSize(LCDFont.User2, 5, 8);

Once stored, characters can be recalled into a text string by using the unicode value for the location (in this example, "\x6"). For example, in C#:

gLCD.WriteText(LCDFont.Dimensions_5x8, 0, 0,"I \x6 Phidgets!");

Custom characters on the LCD1100 are stored as images on the frame buffer for their font. FONT_User1 is stored on frame buffer 1 and FONT_User2 is on frame buffer 2.

These characters occupy the same space as drawings on their framebuffer, and will be displayed onscreen if their framebuffer is flushed. They can also be overwritten by using drawing funcitons on their framebuffer, so it is recommended to only use a given framebuffer either for drawing or storing fonts, but not both.

We recommend using FONT_User2 (frame buffer 2) to store custom fonts, as it can be saved for later use.

In order to use the custom fonts, you must first define their size with setFontSize(). Once the font size is set, custom characters will be placed on the font's frame buffer at a location corresponding to the character number provided.

Characters for each font are stored in rows ordered left-to-right, top-to-bottom. Rows are filled with as many characters as will completely fit across the width of the screen. There are as many rows as will fit on the screen vertically.

On a screen 128 pixels wide by 64 pixels high, if your font is 10 pixels wide by 20 high, you will have 3 rows of 12 characters. This allows for a maximum of 36 characters of that size.

A demonstration of how many 10x20px characters can fit on the screen.

To quickly determine how many characters can be in your custom font, you can call getMaxCharacters() in your code.

Custom character indexing starts with character 0x01 and can be any character between 0x01 and the maximum number of characters that fit on screen.

To determine if an ascii character can be used in a given custom font, you can look at its corresponding ascii value on an ascii table to determine if it is within the limit determined above.

What to do Next
