The ultimate display terminal ?

albertsm · Joined: 09 Apr 2004 Posts: 5916 Location: Holland

FT800 : i thought about that too but at the end, a piece of hardware becomes more popular when it is native supported. And bascom had many different hardware related statements as a super set.
Ans besides that, there is a lib and the most code is inside a lib in INC form. So i do not see that as a problem. As a bonus the FT800 commands are documented and supported too.
So i do not understand the irritation.

Per, the most active/contributing users are on the German forum. Maybe an idea to pitch the idea there.

When graphic LCD became popular i supported the most common ones like T6963 and some SED. But it also became clear that there was no real standard and manufacturers change the chips already after a short time.
I thought to wait till things would stabilize and see if there was a winner, but there is not really one.
Because the nature of graphics, it will be very hard to set some standard. Even big companies could not do so.
And while we think capacitive touch is great, others prefer an old style know/mouse.

There could be many solutions. I think that is is best to first check which manufacturers can deliver screens for a long time.
And how they are interfaced. It is not so hard to make a pcb and different control software. for example :
- simple text lcd only
- graphic lcd with basic graphics
- windows style interface with buttons, etc.
Even the hardware could be different. At the end i think it will be impossible to get 1 solution for all.

Paulvk · Joined: 28 Jul 2006 Posts: 1257 Location: SYDNEY

I have ordered two 7 inch Nextion displays to have some fun with.

I think the Nextion is a good choice at present but other ones may overtake it in the future.
The good points of it are
Lots of raspberry pi use
Lots of Arduino use
So plenty of examples and cost reduction due to volume

Its a serial display rs232 no extra commands needed for bascom
Mark does not have to do any work to support it.
3D printer bezels and boxes are already available to buy or print
It can do some processing of data taking some load from the AVR

Because I have done some work with RS232 I have a lot of code ready to use
so I think I will quickly be providing code for people to use.

Regards Paul

Duval JP · Joined: 22 Jun 2004 Posts: 1161 Location: France

Hi Paul
Well done !
I am waiting for your help to finalize the Inc file
I will take up the message from EDC, which has done a good job in managing the responses [url] https://www.mcselec.com/index2.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=59&page=viewtopic&t=13923&highlight=nextion[/url]
It necessary to have the possibility to use another serial port as he does.

Hi Mark
I'm sure the FTxx are better than the nextion for many things but ftdi is "English" : I remember working a lot with the Psion organizer. Great, they had developed a Basic-like language = the opl
I won a development prize with the most original application: a cocktail piano

Very simple but very poorly explained. And now I find myself in the same situation. Your wiki is great but how to get started ?
We have samples with Bascom but how use it ?

That's why I made the PPS on nextion : how to start step by step. see on page 2

The IDE from Ftdi EVE seems to me absolutly "nude" Razz

I bought a screen with FT8xx
https://www.hotmcu.com/5-graphical-lcd-touchscreen-480x272-spi-ft800-p-124.html?cPath=6_16&zenid=36rijsmvtb6hmp5n3hf2sg33g6 I'm going to use it as a table mat.

jp

albertsm · Joined: 09 Apr 2004 Posts: 5916 Location: Holland

Peter Maroudas and Per Svensson were the active spirits behind the FT support.
Peter (RIP) made most of the samples and did a lot of calls to FTDI support.
My role was limited to convert the code to asm lib and adding some new features to bascom.
I also tested all the samples with 2 different lcd.

There are plenty of demos but you still need to read the documentation of the FT800 chip. Otherwise it is hard to understand.
Peter did also most documentation and one thing he(we) did not want is to repeat the info from the FTDI PDF.
I know this is always a problem as i also include info form atmel datasheets.

You have a good point. There is a getting started but it is not a step by step guide.
Maybe Per can do it? Or some other inspired member? I do not have the time for it at the moment as other more important tasks are waiting.
I only looked at early versions of EVE and was not impressed. But as all demos were made i also did not felt a need for it.

Per Svensson · Joined: 03 Oct 2004 Posts: 235 Location: Gothenburg, Sweden

It is certainly a pity that Peter is no longer among us. Otherwise I'm quite certain that he would have written a handbook for the FT800 series use within Bascom.
I could probably do that too, but it is a major task and as long as very few seem to be interested I am reluctant to take on that workload.

Generally I think that there is a tendency that Bascom users are getting more and mor advanced, which also goes hand in hand with the MCS development of the IDE.
the easier it gets to design software the more complex software we write. More complex software often lead to more sophisticated user interaction. This will mean that more and more
cpu power will be used solely for driving that interactive interface. However, an AVR is an AVR and will never be an ARM Cortex.. Consequently, if we like Bascom, and Bascom will not support
other chips but AVR's, then we must let the Bascom environment be focused on what can be written in Bascom .Right?
So in order to protect the survival of Bascom we need to offload our midget AVR's the most heavy tasks, like graphic IO.
Yeah - I know that many programs can do with just a simple text display, but that will never drive Bascom into the future. Bascom must instead stay modern by heavily lean on peripherals that can offload
as much burdens as ever possible. Or we can put it like this - AVR's are not powerful. They are versatile. Let us use that fact.

Finally, it is true that I like FT8xx for its incredible power, flexibility and Bascom integration, but I also admit that it is somewhat hard to understand. It is however NOT important that we select FT8xx as some kind of standard IO.
It could be any display family. But I still think the Bascom community would benefit a lot by gathering on a well behaving and yet powerful human interface. Perhaps Nexius?

/Per

Paulvk · Joined: 28 Jul 2006 Posts: 1257 Location: SYDNEY

Something negative about nextion.
I posted my problem on their forum and got no help
infact I got very negative unhelpful comments
It appears their forum may be the opposite of the bascom forum

Also reading some more
there are two nextion displays
one itead
the other for china
the china version only works with Chinese editor
so ones on e-bay you may need to read Chinese !

Regards Paul

Duval JP · Joined: 22 Jun 2004 Posts: 1161 Location: France

yes right !

I said in my fist post about nextion

Paulvk · Joined: 28 Jul 2006 Posts: 1257 Location: SYDNEY

They have arrived !
But I have to go pick them up Very Happy

Regards Paul

GerTronic · Joined: 17 Dec 2012 Posts: 7

Paulvk · Joined: 28 Jul 2006 Posts: 1257 Location: SYDNEY

bifi · Joined: 28 Feb 2005 Posts: 25

Finally I got mine too,
an 480x272 enhanced nextion display.

They have a nice demo on that display.
Did anyone manage to download a HMI from the display back to disk ?

Michael

Duval JP · Joined: 22 Jun 2004 Posts: 1161 Location: France

Hello Bifi
Welcome to the Nextion Users Club with Bascom ! Wink

No, I've never done this before but maybe you can ask on the Nextion forum
I did it for the RTC and I even noticed an error in their program... Rolling Eyes

JP

Duval JP · Joined: 22 Jun 2004 Posts: 1161 Location: France

Hi all,
I come back to the various topics that have been discussed here
we all need an interfaces between our applications and the user. whether it is touch screen or not, whatever, in the 21st century we are so used to touch screens that we catch ourselves touching screens that are not touchable (my camera for example) Wink

Per, There will never be a universal interface because, depending on the application, we will need a simple indicator (led for example) or for a project like the one I am currently working on, a very complete screen with design aids like FT8xx, Nextion, 4dsystem or others to control machines, with sensors that give values to be indicated permanently.
but I am also working on a mini-project where a small 0.96" oled screen is perfect, this project will run on batteries for a whole day and will only consume a few milliwatts; in the latter a 4-line LCD would have been too greedy and too cumbersome.
On the other hand, I would like to finalize the Nextion library with the whole forum to propose an alternative to FT8xx.
Mark, could the German forum help us in this project? I saw that hkipnik (who helped me a lot with the SSD1963 Applause

) had worked on it. I don't speak German but maybe you could ask them ?

JP
Wink

Pikczu · Joined: 22 Jan 2006 Posts: 72 Location: Dublin, Ireland

Hi All,
I finally found time to read all pages of this exciting topic and looks like we all looking for "holy grail".

I have been looking for a good display for a while, but for me, the touch panel needed to be capacitive.
I thought I have found an ideal solution from DWIN, Chines manufacture of the intelligent display.
http://www.dwin.com.cn/home/English/Index
It was a 7-inch display with capacitive touch and serial port. I have got it for around 130euro from Polish distributor, not cheap but not a crazy price either.
Everything looks fantastic at the beginning, with very easy and intuitive software for designing the screens. And only one PDF files describing commands and features.
Communication with the display was relatively easy too. I quickly wrote some basic code for it to send whole arrays.
You can see it in action here, just ignore my voice in the background as this was part of the bigger project.
https://youtu.be/2JEZTlqDW5w?t=159
Whats happens after I try to add text into the menu and this becomes a nightmare. I have spent months trying to get it to work. I have contacted support and various distributors around the globe!
I was so irritated that I dumped the whole project.

Then I start looking for a whole new solution. My main candidates where Nextion and 4D system. Having in my mind my experience with chines manufacturer, I decided to buy 4D system display.
Which at the end I have to say was a really good choice, I was amazed by the documentation provided by the 4D systems and a very good forum.
But this time 7 inch with capacitive touch cost me 168 euro (188 US dollars) only 38euro more but what a difference!
I have to say, that the graphics are very good. Text is easy too.
Workshoppro4 IDE provides the number of tool for multi-layer graphic design. Comparing to DWIN or Nextion editor Workshop4 pro is light years ahead.
I also wrote Bascom library for 4D system LCD, but I did not share it on the MCS forum as I'm, not 100% happy with it.
As the negative side, I can only say that communication is a bit slow as display send ACK command after each received command.
Therefore you should not send more data without receiving ACK for the previous one.

@Paul I have to say if you look at what 4D systems offer then price is not that bad.