Any electronic engineers in the house?

[green-boat]

Has anybody or know of anyone who has hacked one of those color LCD displays on one of those flip type cell phones. I had this crazy idea of using one of the displays to simulate a radar or sonar screen. If you could get both the radar and sonar to move on the same LCD, you could mask off the unused portion of the LCD. Heck, why not make the whole helm digital.

Have I finally fallen off of my rocker or just insane.

[more coffee]

I'm quite sure they make pills for this :D,

GOD i hope they make pills :o

[patmat2350]

Those screens and computers to control them are available ($$) and popular with electronics hobbyists. For a radar, I'd just make a plastic screen maybe with a rotating disk behind it, then a lamp.

Pat M

[green-boat]

Someone threw one away at work and I took it apart to see what was inside, that's what got me too thinking. Thinking gets me into trouble.

[der kapitan]

Pat's right, why go to all the time and expense to create a feature that probably won't get noticed anyway?

Green-boat, it's time for your medication---.

[LtDoc]

It's a nice idea, but sort of impractical (basically what everybody is saying) from the expense point of view. Lots of potential possibilities though! If you happen to get it to work, I have this old cell phone I'm not using...
- 'Doc

(I'm no electonics engineer! Know just enough "dated" stuff about electronics that I ain't going there, too lazy.)

[Kmot]

Actually, I think green-boat's idea is pretty inventive and cool. If you had a large enough scale model where you could easily detail the pilot house and see inside it, then at a model boat show it would be a sensation to see a CRT radar display going on inside as well as the usual interior and exterior lighting. Etc.

My cell phone has two LCD screens. The one on the outside of the phone is 1"x5/8". That size screen could be used in many of the larger model boats, no? Maybe a Mr. Darby size? Or maybe even smaller. I don't know, never have seen a Darby in person.

Thinking about it just now, they could even be used in r/c airplane cockpits. All modern craft, including the schmantzy new homebuilts have "glass panels" meaning CRT displays instead of the "old fashioned" round instruments.

I think this should be pursued further. ;)

[Shaun Hendricks]

The easiest way to accomplish this is using tools already in place. You can get an older PDA (iPAQ, Palm) with a color screen and either a real GPS for it for one screen or program an animation for each screen. Then embed the 'screen' into your dashboard and off it goes. You can even make a voltage regulator so the PDA runs off the main battery. You'd have to store the software in the storage card though because the PDA would 'forget' when the power was removed. The storage card wouldn't.

I could also describe how to do perfect visual copies of actual instrument panels using the "Star Trek" technique of linotronic photo film (This is how they did the panels on the Enterprise D and other models. You can backlight with fiber optics and even use real instruments to give readings... if your model is large enough. It's all do-able.

[keith S]

This would make for an interesting item in the wheel house on the correct scale. It would need to be (in my opinon) an a 1/16 or larger model to be effective and noticeable. Figure the screen is 1" that would make it a 16-20" screen in scale. Most of the new "digital" screens on a boat are in @12-14" and on a ship 12-20". Besides the cost, how many people would really see it if that is your objective. If you want to do it just for S :censored:&G, and cost is not important...go for it! It is your model and the only person that needs to be impressed is yourself. ;) :D Keep us posted if you do this.

[Dragooneye]

Its not to difficult but you need to know some information about the LCD screen and what it takes to drive and power it.

First thing I would do is find out the manufacturer and see if I could get a specification sheet for it. That will tell you what you need to obtain to even get it to run and show data. Usually on the LCD there are numbers or manufacturering marks that can help you with finding out who makes it. If it doesnt trace out the traces to the chips powering it and get those numbers. Once you have those number do a web search and see if you get an information for it.

I would start there and if you still interested post here. Been a while since I used my degree so I might have fun at this.

Most likely the LCD is ran off a serial connection from a parrellel to serial converter/LCD Driver. The information coming to the LCD driver is probably coming directly from the microprocessor running the phone. If it is that easy then it is possible to put in a smaller chip or hardwire in what you want it to do. The other way is that the microprocessor is also controlling the LCD display. In this case the Mircroprocessor is driving the LCD and it gets more complicated. Most of the newer phones are this way I think (been a while since I read a tech magazine) but it would make sense since the phones are getting smaller and the battery life would be extended with one less chip eating away at the power and space.

PS. Size could be an issue depending on your boat. Your cell phone is small do to it having a 4 to 8 layer PCB board and small surface mount chips. Most likely you would have a 2 layer PCB board plus power supply and end up with regular chip size making this anywhere from a 4x4 inch box to a 6x6 inch box depending. Not trying to discourage you just letting you know to save room in your boat.

[rlboats2003]

Your not crazy - If you go to towboat Joes web page on river towboats he actually show you how to make radar for your boats. If you go to the Tugboat Luna home page they actually have mini charts of boston harbor that you can print out or down load and make smaller (in color) (look good in a chart room hanging on the wall) If you are careful you could print a chart onto overhead projector slide plastic over spray it with a clear lacquer and cut it out for your gps/radar screen and back light it with the leds.

I always look at work for the good stuff - we have a medical component machine operations that makes a 1/8 dim ss rod that is centerless ground to a tenth that is about 12 inches long of usable length. Have a large group of scrape one - great prop shafts. All kind of other goodies that make great scale port holes and bolts.

Happy modeling
Rich

[Accu157]

Someone on here or another forum (unsure) reverse engineered the software to operate a small digital video camera... no doubt something could be done with a BASIC stamp type controller to simulate a radar screen.