Using spare outputs on the Budget OLED driver board - Some pointers

[Blazemaguire]

Hello,

I've got several of the budget OLED display modules with the 18m2 based firmware driver board -I'm very practiced in using them in their normal intended use, but I spotted in the documentation that 3 of the firmware chip's pins (c.0,c.1,c.2) are unused by the LCD and it is possible to use them.

My questions then:

1) Can these pins also be used as inputs as well as outputs , as they could be if it were just a plain old 18m2, or are they specifically output only?

2) Assuming I can use them as Inputs ( I'm making a simple temperature sensor with a DS18b20, and diddn't see the point in a 2nd board and PICAXE if it can be done with the module), how would I write a message to display on itself? - I know that 'sounds' simple, but I'm not great with code and don't really know where to begin messing with the firmware.

As said, I'm very confident in using and writing messages to the OLED module and using the serout command in its normal off the shelf mode, but this sends data out serially from one picaxe to be read by the firmware picaxe on the board.... how does this work if the data is being 'sent out' of the same chip but also then needs to come back in to the same chip to be displayed? (hope that made sense!) - Do I need to connect one of the spare outputs on the onboard picaxe to the serial in header pin on the same board, or can it be done within the code somehow?

If it's not possible to use C.0,c.1 or c.2 as inputs either, then this whole thing is a non-starter. - I just wanted to make the temp sensor as compact as possible by utilizing the PIC that comes piggybacked on the back of the OLED module.

The pdf that comes with the modules doesn't go into much detail, nor do the comments in the firmware code for the chip.... the forum search is not prooving fruitful either as it's too complex a question to provide any hits!

Any pointers to get me started?

thanks

 

[JimPerry]

Certainly possible see http://www.picaxeforum.co.uk/showthread.php?22014-Squeezing-functionality-out-of-an-OLED-display&highlight=bike* for some ideas

 

[Technical]

If you reprogram the firmware you can use the spare pins however you want.

To send a word like "hello" directly in the firmware simply do something like this

        let pinsB = "h"        ; output the data
        pulsout enable,1      ; pulse the enable pin to send data.
        let pinsB = "e"        ; output the data
        pulsout enable,1      ; pulse the enable pin to send data.
        let pinsB = "l"        ; output the data
        pulsout enable,1      ; pulse the enable pin to send data.
        let pinsB = "l"        ; output the data
        pulsout enable,1      ; pulse the enable pin to send data.
        let pinsB = "o"        ; output the data
        pulsout enable,1      ; pulse the enable pin to send data.

 

[Blazemaguire]

Thanks Jim & technical.

Some useful stuff to get me started, just what I needed.

 

[neiltechspec]

I have used them very successfully on OLED & LCD for simple stuff.

For some of my projects.

The OLED's have an LED on c.1 and a piezo buzzer c.2.

The LCD's have backlight control on c.0, LED on c.1 & piezo on c.2.

Controlled by - serout lcd,baud,(255,%00000XXX) - XXX being 0 or 1.

Neil.