Need help finding info on Futuba VFD display. - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2016, 05:33:09 am
content: So, Dave's video on hacking VFD's came up again, and I'm hoping I might be able to find a datasheet for the display and save me the trouble of reverse engineering it, but so far no luck. I had actually posted about these some time ago looking for ideas but they just slipped my mind.It's made by the Futuba corp, one number is JCI-D1S but that doesn't bring anything up. The model number which brings up a lot is M402SD06AA, however I have not found any datasheets or useful information on them (and on one site selling them, they are listed as hard drives, what???)Anyways, I was hoping some of the more resourceful might be able to find some info on these, a pinout, the communication protocol, anything. I'm going to keep looking for a bit but it's been a pretty long day.Edit: Alright, come up pretty much completely dry, so I sent off an email to futuba using the form on their website, hopefully they can actually provide a datasheet or something as I can't even find this model number listed anywhere on it.The main chip seems to be custom, the only decent information I can find links to this, which further links to a blog by some german guy, but doesn't actually show/explain the connection on the one that I have, though he did get it working from the looks of it.http://lists.omnipotent.net/pipermail/lcdproc/2006-May/010844.htmledit 2: oh man, to make things worse, the board is conformally coated. So much for checking the IC pins for common ground and power, I don't have any good ways of removing that which wouldn't risk damage to them.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2016, 06:35:50 am
content: Alright, so the conformal coating didn't work so well on vias and long leads, and I managed to find the power bus, and get it powered up, which gives a blinking cursor.Now the question is if this is serial, parallel, or both, because on the Futuba website it seems that they have both available, maybe on the same unit.Unfortunately as you can see, this uses a quad flat pack, and the pins for the connector are under the vfd itself, so no easy access to trace those out.The nice thing is these only need 5v, granted at 500ma or so, but still, pretty good. I can power this and the arduino pro mini that will be powering them from one supply.If I was designing it that one odd one out underneath the grounds seems like it might be a good spot for the reset pin but aside from that, I don't have anything else at this point.

author: mojoe
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2016, 02:29:37 pm
content: It's good that you got a blinking cursor. That means that you definitely have a display with some smarts on it. I have some VFD's that have no processor on them.Can you find a datasheet on any Futaba that has a similar 26-pin connector? My guess would be that your display is both serial and parallel.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2016, 04:12:45 pm
content: Quote from: mojoe on March 17, 2016, 02:29:37 pmI looked at similar model number ones but there isn't much luck on datasheets for these at all it seems. I'll have to do some more searching. If this accepted serial input that would be fantastic as I haven't dealt with parallel before, and typing the binary in to get it to display anything would kind of suck lol

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2016, 04:22:53 pm
content: I looked for some 40 x 2 displays and found this, not very helpful, but it seems they have some which are directly compatible with the hitachi LCD controllers, man, that would be absolutely perfect if mine did that as well.No real info or even hint at the connector type though.http://www.futaba.com/products/display_modules/lcd_emulator/products/details/vfd07.asp

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2016, 07:49:44 pm
content: Alright, so this is what I got using the vias I could access, I'm not sure, but does parallel use 5 pins by any chance? If so, I would then guess that pins 18 through 22 might be the parallel bus, and pins 27 and 28 might be serial.I suppose there is no harm in powering it up, sticking my usb uart adapter's rx and tx lines on there (as well as commoning ground), and see if I get anything out of it. I'm not sure what sort of stuff I'd have to send down to get a response if it does that, or maybe get the display to do something, but I'll give it a shot.Heck, maybe this will be familiar to someone here, and it's actually just a re-branded chip.

author: bktemp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2016, 08:07:10 pm
content: This one seems to have an identical pinout.The basic commands are typically common to all Futaba VFDs.You can try the TEST pin and see if it displays all available characters.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2016, 08:14:48 pm
content: Alright, I'll poke at it some more, too bad that thing doesn't show the pinout of the connector itself, I'm not sure if they would go 1-13 on the side of the arrow and continue on, or if the arrow is 1, then beside it 2, above 1 is 3, etc.I did get it to display a bunch of 3's on the bottom row, but some were faded, and it was likely just some stray signal. I couldn't get anything poking at it through realterm.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2016, 08:27:25 pm
content: Oh you beautiful man you, every segment lit up and had me worried, but then it started doing this. Huzzah!Now I just need to find out how to talk to it via serial, but I need to get something to eat first.https://youtu.be/b50WmQYMH8E

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2016, 09:59:08 pm
content: Aha, interesting, so apparently the jumpers control the baud rate but also what sort of connection, so J5 open is for parallel, but if I short it, it should change over into serial mode.J1-3 control the baud rate so right now it's at 62500, but I can change that to all sorts of combinations, I'd likely go with 9600 as that seems to be a good standard. There's also a fourth jumper which just goes to ground from pin 14.I think I'll solder up the appropriate jumpers and then try connecting again, after reading into this a bit more. This is very, very nice that you can change things so easily.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2016, 10:17:06 pm
content: Hmm, this is a little strange, so I hooked up, it doesn't have a TX pin oddly, I thought all serial needed RX and TX, even if it was one way, but I can't see any unless they call it something else, which I doubt.However, hooked in with power, when I first give it power, it flashes the cursor as normal, then, when I plug in the usb uart adapter, it continues to work, but once I disconnect it, the cursor stops flashing, until I either cycle power or plug in the usb uart adapter again, so maybe it is recognizing that there is a serial connection?I haven't really messed with serial much aside from the i2c lcd adapters for arduino stuff so forgive me if this is something super obvious.It does have a reset pin, so I figure i might be able to directly talk to it with the adapter but maybe I need to stick an arduino in the way and see if it works with the i2c lcd library (which would be epic)Edit: tried it with another uart adapter as I recalled the one I had doesn't program arduinos for some reason (but does pass the loopback test), and now when I have it connected, same as always, until I open a terminal program (realterm or arduino monitor), then the cursor stops blinking. Sent it some display codes but no luck.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2016, 11:05:25 pm
content: Damn, so this display is really dim compared to the other one I have, and two of those have perished, one is completely dead, and the other lost vacuum because the getter has gone white.The remaining one I have is likely part compatible but a different number, and different jumpers and the like.It's an M402DD07A, rev b, trying to find that but I could only find an older one.anyways I'll continue with this one and maybe the other will be the same. I could also try swapping the actual vfl over to see if it works but that's a lot of pins and not worth the time right now.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2016, 11:29:17 pm
content: Quote from: XOIIO on March 17, 2016, 10:17:06 pmBidirectional serial requires RX and TX, but this display won't ever send anything to your controller so only needs an RX pin. Therefore, you should leave the RX pin on your Arduino disconnected.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2016, 12:31:10 am
content: Alright, so, this is the setup so far, I tacked on a pro mini with a double sided foam rectangle, crimped on female .01 inch headers on the ends so I can change things around, and this is on the other display but it seems to be working, so far I only have it toggling the test pin, 9.5 seconds on to go through, 5 seconds off, and that's working alright (had to set the blank and reset pins high).Now I need to figure out what serial data I need to send to get it to display stuff lol

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2016, 01:00:39 am
content: I just jumped the wires over to the old display and did see my text, along with a jumble of other letters, so now I just need to find the right jumper combination on this board, I can't find jumper 5 anywhere for some reason however, assuming they are the same, the jumpers actually go up to 8 on this one.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2016, 01:44:08 am
content: Super close now, it got rid of the random gibberish I was seeing before, however, the character set seems all screwy, as you can see in the last clip in the following video.It's almost usable but now I just need to figure out what's causing this. I'm going to try hooking it up to the other one again, if I don't edit this, assume I had the same result there.https://youtu.be/i1dzDFq3c0I

author: MLXXXp
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2016, 02:24:17 pm
content: It looks like the baud rate is correct. I'd fiddle with the number of data bits, stop bits and parity to see if you can fix the problem with some of the characters being bad.

author: bktemp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2016, 02:40:25 pm
content: Maybe you are sending data too fast? I have seen VFDs needing some time to process commands/data.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2016, 03:33:38 pm
content: Quote from: MLXXXp on March 18, 2016, 02:24:17 pmYeah, that's what I figured, because it sort of works, if the baud rate was off, surely it would be completely scrambled. I'll have to just randomly try all the settings for stop bits and parity, since the arduino guides don't mention what they are. I figured it could be something like that but I was not sure.Quote from: bktemp on March 18, 2016, 02:40:25 pmMaybe, but the manual does show a very wide range of speeds, going way higher than 9600, but it might be worth messing with the jumpers again if the stop bit/parity settings have no effect.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2016, 04:04:15 pm
content: I tried 8N2 as a first go and it seemed really promising, and it is in fact the best out of all the others I tried, but it still has a little bit of a corruption issue, It's so very close, but in the first few characters it gets corrupted, except for sometimes when that is the trailing end, though even then it happens quite a lot.

author: MLXXXp
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2016, 10:20:42 pm
content: Quote from: XOIIO on March 18, 2016, 04:04:15 pm8N2 is the same as the default 8N1 except there will be an extra 1 bit delay between each character, so I looks likebktempmay be correct that the data is being sent to fast and the display can't keep up. Try sending each character individually with a delay between each.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2016, 03:06:58 am
content: Well, tried out a 10ms delay and that seems to have done the trick, however writing everything out one letter at a time is, well, less than idea, so I'll fiddle with the jumpers and see if I can drop it to 4800 baud or something like that, and hopefully that would fix the issue?I also needed to add the delay before the first letter interestingly.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2016, 03:14:07 am
content: I just noticed something interesting, I have it print out "testing." and a space, and sometimes the cursor goes one too far and backs up. Very odd.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2016, 03:43:13 am
content: Alright, we have a success! 4800 baud works great, however, you need a very slight delay when you first start sending stuff over serial, 10ms works, but without it the first part of the data gets garbled, even if you reset the display.Now you can print out a whole string of text without issue though, which is awesome. I think I want to use this as an ethernet or wifi connected monitor for the system resource usage of my computer/servers, but that is a long way off, I'd have to get a wifi adapter, but most importantly figure out how to send that data to the arduino, and have it pick it up for the appropriate machine, I bet you can do it with a pretty basic program but C programming for windows is out of my league right now. I think it would probably be a tough first project lol.edit 2: there are these $3 wifi modules which are pretty good looking, I'd have to remove the headers, but then basically I would just need a little program that would broadcast the computer name, cpu usage, and ram usage, and then figure out how to get the arduino to get that from the network, and just use variables for the cpu and ram percentages, while the rest is just pre-set code looping around. It needs a logic level converter, and I am using tx on the arduino, but since serial only needs common ground and rx or tx, this should be able to work quite well, depending on how well the arduino will work for receiving info from one source then spitting it out the other, hmm.http://www.ebay.ca/itm/ESP8266-Serial-WIFI-Wireless-Transceiver-Model-Send-Receiver-LWIP-AP-STA-arduino-/322035894894?hash=item4afad5ca6e:g:7PcAAOSwt6ZWT~rfEdit: damn, I just noticed the typo in the title *palm*

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2016, 09:38:56 am
content: Man, I need a project for this one, the other displays support custom characters, but even if you had to use the full segment lit up, imagine using this thing as a visualizer, how sweet would that be?Problem is, with a serial interface, I don't even know how you would do that or if it would even be possible, it would probably need a whole custom board to be able to do that. Damn it would be cool though. Could use the cursors in the bottom row as the baseline.It's an NEC FMA40x6AA-A, trying to find a datasheet for it or something similar now to at least get the serial pins. I need to grab some sleep though lol.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 21, 2022, 09:15:31 pm
content: in the lobby of the New York Times building, on 8th Avenue in New York City, between 41st and 42nd street, last year they had an exhibit involving a great many boards with that exact display on them, displaying lots of short news articles from around the world. Maybe they describe it in more depth somewhere on their web site.Next time I go there I will check to see if its still there and whose art it is. You could probably ask the artist..

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2022, 08:08:56 am
content: Quote from: cdev on April 21, 2022, 09:15:31 pmSame thing in the Science Museum, UK - I think it was showing live messages from the internet though. Not around any more, but the VFDs were gorgeous!

author: timenutgoblin
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2022, 10:44:19 am
content: Quote from: XOIIO on March 20, 2016, 03:43:13 amThat's not a typo, that's an upside-down letter 'f'.It just looks like the letter 't'.It's probably just a glitch