Update (3rd December 2015)
The campaign is now finished but we still have plenty of the LCD adaptors available in the AusThai Shop.
My name is Tom and I've been fiddling with electronics since I was 12. Nowadays electronics is my business. AusThai Solutions is where I make my ideas happen.
At AusThai we use a lot of LCD displays in our designs. Traditional LCD
character displays come in a package that has 16 pins. That’s a lot of pins on
a microcontroller sacrificed for the display.
So we came up with this Serial Adaptor Board. We’ve made it as flexible
as we can. So it doesn't just work with a UART connection or an I2C
connection or an SPI connection. It works with all three.
In most cases you don’t need to read from the LCD so if you are using
the UART you can operate the LCD with just 1 pin, TX (not including 5V and
ground). It only takes 2 pins if you use I2C or 3 or 4 pins for SPI. So this
little board will free up lots of pins on the micro for other uses in your
project.
The best bit is we know we can do it for $6 a board.
We already have a working prototype and can start production now. All we
need is some funding for the first run. To get the cost down to $6 we need a medium
sized run.
We are excited about this project. We’ve looked around and found stores selling LCDs with serial capabilities. There are one or two out there already but none that will give you all three serial capabilities and none that match our price.
What do you get?
If you contribute we will thank you by giving you one of the boards. For a contribution of $6 you get the PCB and controller with the list of parts. This is for those of you who like to do it all yourself.
For a dollar more we supply all the parts and you build it. For one
extra dollar we will build it for you.
For a bit more we will supply it already attached it to a display of your choice. (For details see the perks)
What do we need?
The main costs in this project are the PCBs and the on-board controller. Both of these are cheaper when bought in bulk. We can meet the $6 a board with an order size of $600 or
more, so that is our funding target.
We know what you’re thinking….
Can we really deliver?
When I finished high school I studied engineering and made electronics my profession. In 2002 some friends and I set up AusThai Solutions to design and develop electronic solutions for all sorts of applications from industry to education and hobby electronics. Our industry designs are sold exclusively to the client while our educational and hobbyist kits are sold online under our AusThai Educational and Maker’s Corner brands. This is the sort of project we are designing all the time.
How long will it take?
We have the PCB design ready to go. As soon as the campaign is over we
will order the PCBs. These will take two weeks to arrive. We have a supplier
who has the controller in stock so we will have them before the
PCBs arrive. Then we assemble and ship. The whole process wont take longer than 4 weeks.
What will we do if we don’t hit the $600 target?
With a deep sigh we will reach into our pockets and make up any difference needed to make it happen.
There's more coming....
We don’t intend this to be our only project for crowd-funding. We have
lots of ideas in the works and we will be rolling them out over the next few
months. If you have an idea for a project you haven’t seen on the market then
click here and let us know. If it fits with our capabilities we’ll put it on
the list and when we develop it we’ll give you one for free.
If this project doesn’t match your current needs but you’re a Maker or
an electronics enthusiast then keep an eye on us and check out our future
projects. You can follow us on Twitter or like us on Facebook.
Tell your Friends
If you know someone who might be interested in this project please feel
free to spread the word using the Indiegogo share tools.