At 09:38 PM 9/21/2012, Perry Curling-Hope wrote: >I have recently completed a similar design based on a low cost Freescale >sensor and UP/DOWN buttons in menu driven arrangement. > >I ended up with four tiny 7segment led displays (power hungry, but=20 >this is cheaply overcome) Could you mention manufacturer and part number(s)? >The new Enhanced Performance PIC micro controllers offer vastly increased >functionality (and pin count) at much lower prices than the older=20 >chips...there is no longer advantage to be gained hacking about with=20 >a 'small' PIC and in conjunction with shift registers and decoders=20 >to try and save costs. The current design uses a 16F676 but I would easily upgrade to a=20 larger device as required. The shift register trick is something=20 that I've done several times in the past - its easy and darned=20 inexpensive to interface a static LCD display (40 segments) using=20 only three I/O lines that can also be shared as input lines. I'm not=20 sure that I would do it the same way now but back then, the only=20 readily-available and inexpensive microcontroller that would directly=20 drive LCD glass was the TI MSP430 series. Those projects used=20 special low-temperature displays from LXD Inc - they work down to below -40= C. >The OLED displays will be ideal if their price is acceptable, the one you >mention supports both I2C and SPI ( 2 and 4 wire) interfaces, which are >also supported by many of the newer PIC controllers. I'm trying to find a supplier of those OLED displays but haven't=20 found it yet. I'll keep looking, though. Thanks again for the thoughts. dwayne --=20 Dwayne Reid Trinity Electronics Systems Ltd Edmonton, AB, CANADA (780) 489-3199 voice (780) 487-6397 fax www.trinity-electronics.com Custom Electronics Design and Manufacturing --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .