Small LCD to PC motherboard for cheap front panel display - can it be done?

[Atheus]

Hi all,

Simple one for ya. Well, hopefully. Can I connect a PC motherboard to a 'normal' basic old LCD - lets say the LCD1602 (because that's what I have lying around...) as opposed to a monitor - to a mini-ITX server? Or any PC in general?

What connector on the motherboard would be most likely to support an adaptor, and might such an adaptor be available? Could I use a USB to UART device (cheap) to control it, UART being so flexible?

I will be buying the board (if I do this project) so please suggest any connector which is widely available and I can seek it out.

If I'm on to a loser and there's no easy way, how difficult would you say it would be to build a USB to LCD1602 adaptor, using something like a Tiny85 and a 16 bit shift register? Or if possible without the micro at all and just the shift register & a few spare parts?

Really any suggestions or LCD-based musings of any kind are much appreciated

Cheers!

~Atheus

[MrAl]

Hi,

You have to specify what it is you want to measure or read on the display.
if you want to measure voltage, then you have to use an ADC with the display as well as a control circuit.
If you want to measure temperature, then you need a temperature sensor and circuit to drive the LCD.

What does work is if you use an Arduino like the Uno or Nano and create a volt meter for example.  Then you just need the LCD display plus one Arduino board.

For example i have one hooked up to mine that is a clock and timer and also shows the date and day of week and what day to change the clocks for daylight savings time.  It runs whenever the PC is turned on, and has an RTC to keep the date and time accurate.

[FreddyVictor]

How about this backpack for LCD ? - found it on OSH shared projects, but there may be others

Sparkfun do have some Serial enabled LCD's but they're pricey and only have UART (5volt) rather than USB which is what you'll need

[Nusa]

How about this backpack for LCD ? - found it on OSH shared projects, but there may be others

Sparkfun do have some Serial enabled LCD's but they're pricey and only have UART (5volt) rather than USB which is what you'll need

That backpack looks like exactly what the original poster was asking for. That link also gives some clues as to the software side of things, since the hardware is only half the project.

[rdl]

Matrix Orbital probably sells something like what you are looking for. They seem to cater mostly to the PC modding crowd and their prices are somewhat high in my opinion. Back around 2003 or so, I bought one of their PC drive bay inserts. It worked as advertised and lasted several years until the backlight started flickering.

[james_s]

There are any number of ways to do this. With a modern PC I think one of the commodity USB to serial or parallel interface ICs would be the way to go. The hardware will be fairly trivial but software will be required too. Look around and see what's out there, someone may have an arduino project or something that does exactly what you want.

[shteii01]

LCD to Uno, Uno to PC via USB.

[Rick Law]

How about this backpack for LCD ? - found it on OSH shared projects, but there may be others

Sparkfun do have some Serial enabled LCD's but they're pricey and only have UART (5volt) rather than USB which is what you'll need

LCD to Uno, Uno to PC via USB.

+1 for the Arduino path.  But, I prefer the cheaper/smaller/better^* NANO.

^* "better" because NANO has two more ADCs comparing to UNO.  Great if the goal is to read various voltages.

[james_s]

The nano clones are also dirt cheap, I got mine for around $2.50 shipped from China, works fine. Theyr'e cheap enough that I can build them into projects, handy when I'm just duplicating something that someone else already designed.

[ruffy91]

Get a Nextion HMI. LCD including Touch and easy editor for cheap. Saves CPU time as you only have to send the values over a serial connection, not refresh the LCD the whole time. https://www.itead.cc/nextion-nx4024t032.html

[macboy]

parallel interface LCDs can be connected to a parallel port directly. You will need to supply +5 V power separately. There are various programs that support output to LCDs connected this way: LCDSmartie (Windows) LCDProg (Linux) have been around for many years. Most PCs no longer have a parallel port on the back panel, but some still have a header on the motherboard. If you have one, that is actually quite fortunate, the header accepts standard 0.1" connectors ("Dupont" style) for easy wiring to the LCD.

Another option is to use an LCD with a serial (RS232/UART) interface, but those are expensive. And this also implies that you have a serial port available. Again, some PCs have only an internal header (and again, this is even better than a back panel port for this purpose).

Finally, as mentioned, there is the possibility to use a cheap Arduino clone as a USB interface module. The Arduino appears to the PC as a serial port. Any program can open that serial port and start sending bytes. The Arduino sketch will need to receive bytes on the serial port, interpret them (distinguish between commands and data to be displayed), then send the appropriate commands/data to the LCD over its parallel interface. I haven't looked, but I am sure that there are many examples of this to be found.

[dmills]

I2C/SMbus IO expander hung on said bus, then Parallel to the module?

NXP and Microchip (as well as dozens of others) have suitable parts.

Then just fire commands at it over I2C by whatever api your operating system provides for the purpose (May need to be Root/Admim for this to work, or write a toy SUID program). 

Regards, Dan.

[ebclr]

It's possible and easy

http://store3.sure-electronics.com/de-lp12111

https://pt.aliexpress.com/item/2016-Newest-5-25-inch-PC-Fan-Speed-Controller-Temperature-Display-LCD-Front-Panel-Hot-Promotion/32722758883.html?spm=2114.10010308.1000016.1.cP9lIH&isOrigTitle=true

[VladimirM]

I agree with  ruffy91

Most of motherboards even have Serial port ready, you just need to connect to its connector board. RS232 connector is often not placed outside of PC casing, but when you enter bios, you can find option to enable serial port. So just connect Nextion display to that serial port directly on motherboard and use your program to send/receive strings to this COM port and drive display.

you can see short tutorial on how to change variable values and text string s on Displays using RS232 terminal  Docklight (any Serial port terminal will do the job here such as Docklight, Teraterm,  Bray..)
http://www.electronics-base.com/featured-components/display/nextion-display-and-docklight-adding-gui-to-your-microcontroller-projects

Once you control display with this example it is not problem to make custom program to show on display whatever you need.

I hope this helps a bit.

[water]

Use the best screen possible.Not only long service life.It also feels good.