Cheap Datasheetless VFD character Display pinnout Futaba #16-SD-01Z VFD

[BiOzZ]

I was getting some stuff from AllElectronics and i stumbled uppon this Futaba #16-SD-01Z VFD display http://www.allelectronics.com/make-a-store/item/vfd-16/16-character-vacuum-fluorescent-display/1.html a cheap 16 charactor VFD display without souporting circutry, i got 3 of them and they came in today

This display has no datasheet that i can find in any language but at a cost of $1.50 it was too hard to pass up!

I did some testing, the filament had the familiar dull glow of workingness at 5V DC, and the dots had an apparent individual peak brightness at 13.5v but with my knowledge of VFDs if you plan on powering a whole character 15v is the safe option and with no drastic increase in brightness that might cause problems it seems safe but if this is incorrect feel free to express that

so i spent my time with a jumper lead and worked out the pinout, took some photos and photoshopped the pinouts on to them

Click to enlarge





As far as i know and have tested this is correct, BUT i have not displayed characters at this point im waiting on some more parts to come in to make a  little USB connected display

I took what side is up and what side is down fairly arbitrarily with the nub at the bottom as far as im aware its 6 of one but if you start getting electrons falling out or the moon starts reversing you may need to flip the pinouts

I just wanted to create this to put on the allelectronics comment section of the product but hell might as well show it here!

Hope i was some help to some of you!

[dannyf]

You can probably write some code to turn a mcu into a dedicated driver. The commands + data would come in via spi or i2c / uart.

[BiOzZ]

You can probably write some code to turn a mcu into a dedicated driver. The commands + data would come in via spi or i2c / uart.

i have a few of STs new value line of USB capable micros in the mail and a tiva-c series micro with some 74 series buffers capable of 15v and i plan to write some code to get them to display what's sent to them
im leaning towards the tiva C and using its built in RTC but im getting ahead of myself here
EDIT: oh and some boost converters i have not played with yet

[BiOzZ]

If you update the thread title to include the part number it may make it easier to find for others. Thanks for your efforts.

Thanks for the suggestion i was afraid the already too long title might cause some problems but yeah seeing how much time i was looking for a datasheet i agree it would be smart

Updated!

[tom66]

Note some VFDs need AC filament voltage... I am not sure what happens if they are fed DC but it could be bad.

[BiOzZ]

Note some VFDs need AC filament voltage... I am not sure what happens if they are fed DC but it could be bad.

This display appears to be used as part of a display module, i have only seen 2 pictures of it online (here http://www.utasker.com/Shop/VFD2.png and here http://www.utasker.com/Shop/VFD1.png ) but it appears the module runs off DC and no obvious conversions unless there doing somthing funky with the transformer

to be safe i have the unit hooked up to my power supplys displaying a few dots and ill leave it running for a day or two but in my experience using DC in VFTs filaments do not cause damage, they simply cannot be driven as high

[c4757p]

Note some VFDs need AC filament voltage... I am not sure what happens if they are fed DC but it could be bad.

It's not "bad" as in destructive, it just causes an imbalance in brightness across the display. The voltage drop across the filament causes a difference in anode->cathode voltage between the two ends. On many larger VFDs it's very noticeable and thus quite necessary for a decent readout quality.

[BiOzZ]

Note some VFDs need AC filament voltage... I am not sure what happens if they are fed DC but it could be bad.

It's not "bad" as in destructive, it just causes an imbalance in brightness across the display. The voltage drop across the filament causes a difference in anode->cathode voltage between the two ends. On many larger VFDs it's very noticeable and thus quite necessary for a decent readout quality.

Thanks for your feedback, i ran a quick test and there does appear to be a slight drop closer to the anode than the far end but nothing i would call a problem ... i will do some more research with it and see if i can find my function generator (just moved) to run some more tests, im sure there is a simple and compact solution to making the filament AC and would probably be worth it in the long run

[bgct9a]

Note some VFDs need AC filament voltage... I am not sure what happens if they are fed DC but it could be bad.

It's not "bad" as in destructive, it just causes an imbalance in brightness across the display. The voltage drop across the filament causes a difference in anode->cathode voltage between the two ends. On many larger VFDs it's very noticeable and thus quite necessary for a decent readout quality.

Thanks for your feedback, i ran a quick test and there does appear to be a slight drop closer to the anode than the far end but nothing i would call a problem ... i will do some more research with it and see if i can find my function generator (just moved) to run some more tests, im sure there is a simple and compact solution to making the filament AC and would probably be worth it in the long run

Did you ever find or come up with a solution for generating some AC for the filament easily? I have been a massive failure so far when trying to do this for a VFD I have.

[timb]

So, I've got a bunch of these on order and plan to make a controller board for them.

You mention a 15V grid supply, but what about the anode supply?

Note some VFDs need AC filament voltage... I am not sure what happens if they are fed DC but it could be bad.

It's not "bad" as in destructive, it just causes an imbalance in brightness across the display. The voltage drop across the filament causes a difference in anode->cathode voltage between the two ends. On many larger VFDs it's very noticeable and thus quite necessary for a decent readout quality.

Thanks for your feedback, i ran a quick test and there does appear to be a slight drop closer to the anode than the far end but nothing i would call a problem ... i will do some more research with it and see if i can find my function generator (just moved) to run some more tests, im sure there is a simple and compact solution to making the filament AC and would probably be worth it in the long run

Did you ever find or come up with a solution for generating some AC for the filament easily? I have been a massive failure so far when trying to do this for a VFD I have.

See if you can get ahold of an LM9022.

[bgct9a]

So, I've got a bunch of these on order and plan to make a controller board for them.

You mention a 15V grid supply, but what about the anode supply?

Note some VFDs need AC filament voltage... I am not sure what happens if they are fed DC but it could be bad.

It's not "bad" as in destructive, it just causes an imbalance in brightness across the display. The voltage drop across the filament causes a difference in anode->cathode voltage between the two ends. On many larger VFDs it's very noticeable and thus quite necessary for a decent readout quality.

Thanks for your feedback, i ran a quick test and there does appear to be a slight drop closer to the anode than the far end but nothing i would call a problem ... i will do some more research with it and see if i can find my function generator (just moved) to run some more tests, im sure there is a simple and compact solution to making the filament AC and would probably be worth it in the long run

Did you ever find or come up with a solution for generating some AC for the filament easily? I have been a massive failure so far when trying to do this for a VFD I have.

See if you can get ahold of an LM9022.

Seems like it will be a challenge, so far only found it on ebay from china. I don't know how much I trust that. Though you did find a perfect solution!

[timb]

So, I've got a bunch of these on order and plan to make a controller board for them.

You mention a 15V grid supply, but what about the anode supply?

Note some VFDs need AC filament voltage... I am not sure what happens if they are fed DC but it could be bad.

It's not "bad" as in destructive, it just causes an imbalance in brightness across the display. The voltage drop across the filament causes a difference in anode->cathode voltage between the two ends. On many larger VFDs it's very noticeable and thus quite necessary for a decent readout quality.

Thanks for your feedback, i ran a quick test and there does appear to be a slight drop closer to the anode than the far end but nothing i would call a problem ... i will do some more research with it and see if i can find my function generator (just moved) to run some more tests, im sure there is a simple and compact solution to making the filament AC and would probably be worth it in the long run

Did you ever find or come up with a solution for generating some AC for the filament easily? I have been a massive failure so far when trying to do this for a VFD I have.

See if you can get ahold of an LM9022.

Seems like it will be a challenge, so far only found it on ebay from china. I don't know how much I trust that. Though you did find a perfect solution!

I see that UTsource, which are a Chinese eBay seller that specialize in ICs, has them. I've ordered maybe a thousand chips from them over the years and had zero issues. I'd give it a whirl, as it's the perfect chip for the job.

If you check the application schematic on the first page of the datasheet, take a look at how they tapped off one of the filament AC lines to create a diode-capacitor voltage doubler. This solves the problem of providing 15V to the grid as well. All you need is 5V. =)


Sent from my Tablet

[bgct9a]

Okay ordered a bunch of the lm9022's from UTsource. I'll Update when I get them.

[bgct9a]

I saw a comment (via internet search) that the TI LM4871 is the same device. http://www.ti.com/product/LM4871
with a different marketing application.

I'm no engineer so I will leave analysis of the datasheets to others.
I saw the comment here (right down the bottom) and it makes a strong claim.
http://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=23586&start=45

I am no expert or anything remotely close for that matter, but by the looks of the datasheets I would think they are right. Then again my ability to read and understand datasheets is still crude. Thanks for sharing! Hopefully someone more qualified than me can chime in and make the final call on if it really is the same thing.

~also if it really is the same thing atleast now I have a much much cheaper alternative to the LM9022.

[timb]

I saw a comment (via internet search) that the TI LM4871 is the same device. http://www.ti.com/product/LM4871
with a different marketing application.

I'm no engineer so I will leave analysis of the datasheets to others.
I saw the comment here (right down the bottom) and it makes a strong claim.
http://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=23586&start=45

I am no expert or anything remotely close for that matter, but by the looks of the datasheets I would think they are right. Then again my ability to read and understand datasheets is still crude. Thanks for sharing! Hopefully someone more qualified than me can chime in and make the final call on if it really is the same thing.

~also if it really is the same thing atleast now I have a much much cheaper alternative to the LM9022.

Well, I'll be damned. It sure is!

Confirmed by a TI employee: http://e2e.ti.com/support/power_management/isolated_controllers/f/188/p/289255/1009125

Mystery Solved.


Sent from my Tablet

[bgct9a]

I saw a comment (via internet search) that the TI LM4871 is the same device. http://www.ti.com/product/LM4871
with a different marketing application.

I'm no engineer so I will leave analysis of the datasheets to others.
I saw the comment here (right down the bottom) and it makes a strong claim.
http://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=23586&start=45

I am no expert or anything remotely close for that matter, but by the looks of the datasheets I would think they are right. Then again my ability to read and understand datasheets is still crude. Thanks for sharing! Hopefully someone more qualified than me can chime in and make the final call on if it really is the same thing.

~also if it really is the same thing atleast now I have a much much cheaper alternative to the LM9022.

Well, I'll be damned. It sure is!

Confirmed by a TI employee: http://e2e.ti.com/support/power_management/isolated_controllers/f/188/p/289255/1009125

Mystery Solved.


Sent from my Tablet

Awesome news! To bad I already ordered a bunch of 9022's. If I ever run out atleast I know what to get instead. Also now we know where to point people who may need one.

Also it is a good excuse to buy more VFD's. They are slowly becoming my new obsession when it comes to displays.