Microcontroller and lcd

Thread Starter

kuannygohcheetatt

Joined Oct 31, 2013
61
Can a microcontroller pic16f877a control a number of lcd? Normally its just one but in my case since i am doing food ordering system , i nid the microcontroller to display data in various stall , is it possible?
 

tshuck

Joined Oct 18, 2012
3,534
Yes, however, the more you add, the slower the system will become.

How many are we talking here? What kind of LCD, character?

You will probably be better off having local microcontrollers handling each individual LCD display and relaying information to a master controller...
 

THE_RB

Joined Feb 11, 2008
5,438
You can buy text LCDs now on ebay, with a tiny "backpack" attached that accepts I2C or serial data.

That way the remote LCDs only need one or two signal wires to send text data to them.
 

AfdhalAtiffTan

Joined Nov 20, 2010
120
@spinnaker
I was thinking about cost saving. :)

@THE_RB
I like yours better. Sending data to 'various stall' might need better noise immunity, RS232 might be suitable.
 

tshuck

Joined Oct 18, 2012
3,534
You can buy text LCDs now on ebay, with a tiny "backpack" attached that accepts I2C or serial data.

That way the remote LCDs only need one or two signal wires to send text data to them.
...how should the user interact with them?

Either the main controller will need to offer up more I/O for each stall (two for LCD serial, assuming RS-232, or I2C, and however many are required for the user to interface with), or a few wires (I2C, RS-485/422), CAN/LIN, ethernet, etc.) and multiple controllers (one per stall). If the number of stalls and their distance from the main controller is small, you could probably make do with a single controller, but without more information from the OP, I am suggesting a more general and modular approach.
 

MrChips

Joined Oct 2, 2009
30,711
When you are considering multiple stations you really want to be looking at distributed networks.

RS-485 or wireless comes to mind.
 

THE_RB

Joined Feb 11, 2008
5,438
...how should the user interact with them?

Either the main controller will need to offer up more I/O for each stall (two for LCD serial, assuming RS-232, or I2C, and however many are required for the user to interface with), or a few wires (I2C, RS-485/422), CAN/LIN, ethernet, etc.) and multiple controllers (one per stall). ...
...
It wasn't asked and wasn't considered. :)

Maybe the OP already has a separate system for user input? Or maybe he just needs to display data in each stall?

Either way I think we might have lost the OP.
 
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