reverse engineering lcd display pricelist

Next check the display response by changing the signal inputs and recording the response. You don’t need to record everything the display does just if it changes or not and if the display goes out. Since Pin 1 is negative voltage and no signal, and pin two is 0 voltage and no signal we can assume they are Vss. and ground.

Pin 3 and 4 are fixed high so start with Pin 5 checking one pin at a time, fix the voltage too high, or in this case 2.3 volts and observe what happens to the display.

Record the response of pin 5 then move to Pin 6 fixing it to high then observe the response on the display and record it. Continue with this process for pin 7 and pin 8. The changes on the display were funky symbols in the alphanumeric segments and random lighting up of the custom bar. You may notice the response only affects the custom bar or the alphanumeric bars make note of that because the pin data inputs may be bar specific.

Starting with Pin 3 start checking one pin at a time, fix the voltage to low or in this case 0 volts and observe what happens to the display. Pin 3 and 4 when set low shut down the display, pins 5 to 8 when set to low or 0 volts made different symbols in the alphanumeric segments, and different random lighting up of the symbols in the custom bar.

The current marketplace allows hobbyists to easily find inexpensive, well-documented displays, but what if you wanted to interface with something more complicated, such as the screen on an iPod Nano 6? [Mike] has given us a detailed and insightful video showing his process for reverse engineering a device with little-to-no documentation. Here he covers the initial investigation, where one scours the web in search of any available information. In [Mike’s] example, the display uses an MIPI D-PHY interface, which he has never worked with. He learns that the MIPI Alliance will provide design specs in exchange for a signed NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) and a modest $8000 fee. Nice.

[Mike] shows off some serious hardware hackery, tackling some extremely difficult soldering in order to set up a proper test platform. He then demonstrates how to use a rather awesome oscilloscope to better understand the display protocol. We found it fascinating to see the video signals displayed as waveforms, especially when he shows how it is possible to count the individual binary values. The amount of information he uncovers with the oscilloscope is nothing short of amazing, proving these little devices are more complex than they seem.

Margin-scaled price sheets are vulnerable to a rounding exploit based on defaults and social factors, and in certain circumstances this allows you to reverse-engineer the markup or margin level purely from the price data itself.

A large share of our business originates from customers who need our LCD reverse engineering services for a replacement display module. Their current supplier has discontinued the LCD series or no longer supplies Liquid Crystal Displays.

A short time ago a customer contacted our technical engineering support department and asked if we could develop a 40x2 custom character LCD display to replace a module that their previous supplier had discontinued. They required our LCD reverse engineering services to provide a drop-in equivalent including EL backlight and exact pin-out.

This display is much larger than most character LCD displays with a length of 9.8 inches and a width of 1.5 inches. Its character height is a little over ½ inch.

This large character display is a good solution for products that need to be read at a distance. This includes industrial, test and measurement, scales and many outdoor applications.

Although the standard display configuration is with an EL (Electro-luminescent) backlight, the character display can be manufactured with a LED (Light Emitting Diode) backlight.

EL backlights are AC (Alternating Current) driven which means there needs to be an inverter on the LCD or on the customers PCB to convert the DC (Direct Current) to AC. This adds cost and requires real estate on the PCB.

EL backlights now have a higher minimum order quantity of 500 displays per build. Focus is able to hold inventory in our Chandler warehouse if necessary.

EL backlights are limited in their size, when a larger backlight is required, a CCFL (Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp) is required. The challenge is that CCFL backlights in LCDs have been phased out.

LEDs can create hot and cold spots under the LCD glass. Most of the time the light can be ‘smoothed’ out with a diffuser, but the brighter the LED backlight is driven, the greater the chances of hot spots.

Character displays can be built in a variety of background and backlight colors. The photos below present a sampling of different options. Available colors include:

The standard operating temperature range for this character display is -20C to 60C, but it is possible to build the display as a wide temperature version that will operate from -30C to 70C.

If the display needs to operate to a lower temperature than -30C, it would be necessary to add a heater. Contact Focus Displays for help with your custom LCD heater.

The standard, stock display is built as a positive mode, but can be built as a negative mode.Positive mode means that there are dark letters on a light colored background.

Below are photos of two character displays in both positive and negative mode. Positive mode is standard, but the character LCD can be built as negative mode

The negative mode version requires the backlight to be on for the display to be readable, and is not the best solution for battery and solar powered products.

FSTN monochrome LCD displays contains a retardation film applied to the STN display to produce a black and white display. The film produces a higher contrast and wider viewing angle than STN or TN.

STN monochrome LCDs require less power and are less expensive to manufacture than TFT’s. They produce a sharper contrast then TN but less sharp then FSTN. Basic color options are Gray, Blue and Yellow/Green (most common). Other colors are available through the use of filters.

TN monochrome LCDs is the lowest cost of the three options. Contrast is not as sharp as STN and FSTN. Primary color options are black letters on a gray background. Other colors are available through the use of filters.

As mentioned at the beginning of the article. Focus Displays is able to design and build an equivalent character LCD to take the place of a discontinued display. Sometimes it may require LCD reverse engineering services.

Many times a one-time tooling or NRE (Non-Recurring Engineering) fee is required. This tooling fee is much lower for segment, character and monochrome graphic displays than it is for OLEDs (Organic light emitting diode) and TFT"s (thin-film-transistor).

The first step is for the customer to send Focus Displays the datasheets for the LCD they were using. If the customer does not have a current datasheet or there is a concern that it may not be accurate, Focus may be able to ‘estimate’ a cost from a photo.

Most LCD displays require some type of on-board controller driver processor. There are many companies that manufacture LCD IC’s. The challenge is that a controller from one company may not be 100% compatible with the controller from a second company.

Focus Display Solutions provides off-the-shelf standard displays as well as custom LCD design services to help companies replace their current LCD. Call Focus now (480-503-4295) if you need LCD reverse engineering services. Or fill out the contact form.

When sourcing and analyzing competitor price data, it’s easy to assume that the competitor location you are analyzing has pricing that represents the total market. But our research consistently shows that those assumptions would be incorrect, and will often lead to incomplete pricing decisions. Understanding how your competitors’ price within their price zone structure, is critical to executing pricing decisions that put you in a position of strength within your markets. Engage3 uses proprietary analytic methodologies for data collection, product matching and price pattern analysis, to reverse engineer a competitor’s price strategy, including price zone structures and item price variations. This can then be done for all relevant competitors in a market, allowing you and your merchant teams to fully understand who is leading the market, who is reacting to who, and how they react.

If you are interested in more information on how to reverse engineer your key competitors pricing strategies and price zones, please visit www.engage3.com or email Lyle Walker at LWalker@engage3.com

At 11 June 2013, 13:42:13 user Allan wrote: [reply @ Allan]Very interesting. Thanks for taking time to make these videos. What exactly does your breadboard circuit do in order to shift (scroll) to the next scan line on the LCD ?

At 24 August 2012, 7:22:43 user Giorgos Lazaridis wrote: [reply @ Giorgos Lazaridis]@kiranvarma-npeducations which software do you mean? The PIC software? It is very messy and i made it only for testing the LCD. If this is what you want, i can certainly give it to you. But it is not commented.

At 3 July 2012, 8:36:44 user kiranvarma-npeducations wrote: [reply @ kiranvarma-npeducations]Is that software shown in video is designed by you, its cool! simply generating binary code for bitmap images and serializing.. to LCD panel via some controller (i think from Philips). Which language that u have used to develop software. Final output in LCD panel is mind blowing, you are genius in both software and hardware part. Really amazing video, really reverse engineering. Thanks for such wonderful project tutorial. I will bookmark your site for my learning benefit

At 6 May 2012, 20:31:17 user Giorgos Lazaridis wrote: [reply @ Giorgos Lazaridis]@sdfdsfadsjk But first i will finish my coffee maker for which this LCD is supposed to go. But due to lack of funds, the project will be delayed for a while.

At 21 November 2011, 5:41:30 user Kammenos wrote: [reply @ Kammenos]@Annonymois sure there are methods for this, but not by hacking the LCD that way. There are programs for example for PCs and others for telephones to do this, there are also very VERY cheap gadgets (http://www.ebay.com/sch/?_kw=gsm%20spy&_clu=2&_fcid=5&_localstpos=&_sop=15&_stpos=&gbr=1). If i were you, i would start with a simple PC format, and then install a firewall on the PC. Any surveillance program installed would then be erased.

At 20 November 2011, 22:10:52 user Annonymois wrote: [reply @ Annonymois]Hi. I saw your YouTube video about reverse engineering an LCD screen. And some posters had said this process is used by hackers in order to spy on people through their computer screens? And I started googling this questions because I perceive I am being watched by people I know. I don"t know how. I suspect there is a website where the hackers stream the audio and visuals to the recipients who include friends and so-called family members. They drop subtle hints to me as to the fact they they know what I"m doing by posting comments on YouTube videos I"ve just watched or they repeat the words I"ve just spoken by writing it down on my Facebook wall or in my junk email subject line. If you google gang stalking, cause stalking, gas lighting, you will see that there are a lot of people who are experiencing electronic surveillance. It"s crazy. I know I saw a real life police show once and they were receiving visual feed from the cell phone of a criminal. I don"t know how they did it. But I have been abused by people I know at work and in the last year by my own family because they used to like / love me and now they hate me. My brothers family in particular and my nephew from my sister have been befriended by these cause stalkers and they constantly let me know I"m being watched. They don"t admit it but I"ve heard them talk about private conversations I"ve had when they were no where near me! It"s crazy.

I finally got my display working! It"s only 160x80 so I can get great refresh rates from a pic... right now the controller is an 18f2455 and i"m using it"s internal ram for the display. Currently it only displays a test image that I stored in program memory, but I plan to add a 5x7 font, a gal for timing logic, external serial display ram, and serial character input... then I"ll use it for console output on a couple of hacked linux devices. Thanks for all the information!!

I have obtained a large (200-300) lot of bare LCD Screens (no driver/controller boards). About half of them are 3.8" Sharp LQ038 screens. These were stored loose in a box and many are obviously broken. I would like to do something with these and I am at this point looking for a simple circuit so that I can test them, also possibly a way to turn them into digital photo frames. I am an Electrical Engineer, but it has been a while since I have done detailed component work like this and I have never worked with Color LCD displays before. Can someone direct me to where I can find some circuit designs that I may be able to use?

At 2 August 2011, 18:30:42 user Tom wrote: [reply @ Tom]Just recently got back to my lcd project... The M signal is to drive the LCD voltages: the col/seg drivers use it to alternate the voltage applied to the cells, otherwise the lifespan is shortened. The pic simply alternates M from high to low every frame.

My lcd is only 160x80, and I"ve generated a test image with a pic18f2455... I"m only running at 20MHz right now but the refresh rate is good because it"s a much smaller screen. Thanks again!!

At 12 April 2011, 21:00:08 user jparker wrote: [reply @ jparker]You are very good at debugging (reverse engineering). I like your honesty when you talk about your projects/experiments. You also inspire me to explore some of my broken devices parts. Hang on to the curiosity you have and it will be kind to you in the future I"m sure. Thx for the website.....

My first monochrome LCD, like yours, didn"t have a smart controlle, I put the LC7981 controller on it and it worked. My second monochrome LCD was this:

I had to do a change there. It"s been a long time and I don"t remember but here is bottom line: The SED1335 supports a 16 bit address bus and the memory on this LCD is only 8 kBytes. I found an 32 kBytes RAM with the same layout as the 8 kBytes. The difference was that the 8 kBytes RAM had two NC lines in the place of the two extra address lines on the 32 kBytes RAM. So, I replaced the RAM, hardwired the NC pins to the correct SED1335 pins and it worked perfectly :)

At 27 March 2011, 21:10:58 user Tom wrote: [reply @ Tom]Nice work! You gave me the idea to work on my own 160x80 lcd which has the same common and segment driver. Two questions if you don"t mind...

2. what is the M pin (pin 94 on the 79430 and pin 86 on the 79401) on your lcd connected to? i have a pin on my connector that goes to M on the drivers and i"m not sure what to do with it... the specs say M is an input - "LCD drive output alternating current (AC) signal"

You can have a 32MHz INTOSC (8MHz with 4x PLL; see section 5.2.2.6 of the 16F1934 data sheet). You can also use the MSSP to fetch bytes from the external memory for you at one bit per CPU cycle while sending the previous byte to the LCD, or get display data from internal program memory or even RAM instead.

Of more interest is that with small changes you can store tiles in program memory for easy character display. It is slightly slower, but can (barely) achieve 50Hz screen refresh with a fully tile-based screen layout. For example, code to choose among 64 tiles, 16x16 pixels in size (2kword program memory), might look like:

At 11 June 2013, 13:42:13 user Allan wrote: [reply @ Allan]Very interesting. Thanks for taking time to make these videos. What exactly does your breadboard circuit do in order to shift (scroll) to the next scan line on the LCD ?

At 24 August 2012, 7:22:43 user Giorgos Lazaridis wrote: [reply @ Giorgos Lazaridis]@kiranvarma-npeducations which software do you mean? The PIC software? It is very messy and i made it only for testing the LCD. If this is what you want, i can certainly give it to you. But it is not commented.

At 3 July 2012, 8:36:44 user kiranvarma-npeducations wrote: [reply @ kiranvarma-npeducations]Is that software shown in video is designed by you, its cool! simply generating binary code for bitmap images and serializing.. to LCD panel via some controller (i think from Philips). Which language that u have used to develop software. Final output in LCD panel is mind blowing, you are genius in both software and hardware part. Really amazing video, really reverse engineering. Thanks for such wonderful project tutorial. I will bookmark your site for my learning benefit

At 6 May 2012, 20:31:17 user Giorgos Lazaridis wrote: [reply @ Giorgos Lazaridis]@sdfdsfadsjk But first i will finish my coffee maker for which this LCD is supposed to go. But due to lack of funds, the project will be delayed for a while.

At 21 November 2011, 5:41:30 user Kammenos wrote: [reply @ Kammenos]@Annonymois sure there are methods for this, but not by hacking the LCD that way. There are programs for example for PCs and others for telephones to do this, there are also very VERY cheap gadgets (http://www.ebay.com/sch/?_kw=gsm%20spy&_clu=2&_fcid=5&_localstpos=&_sop=15&_stpos=&gbr=1). If i were you, i would start with a simple PC format, and then install a firewall on the PC. Any surveillance program installed would then be erased.

At 20 November 2011, 22:10:52 user Annonymois wrote: [reply @ Annonymois]Hi. I saw your YouTube video about reverse engineering an LCD screen. And some posters had said this process is used by hackers in order to spy on people through their computer screens? And I started googling this questions because I perceive I am being watched by people I know. I don"t know how. I suspect there is a website where the hackers stream the audio and visuals to the recipients who include friends and so-called family members. They drop subtle hints to me as to the fact they they know what I"m doing by posting comments on YouTube videos I"ve just watched or they repeat the words I"ve just spoken by writing it down on my Facebook wall or in my junk email subject line. If you google gang stalking, cause stalking, gas lighting, you will see that there are a lot of people who are experiencing electronic surveillance. It"s crazy. I know I saw a real life police show once and they were receiving visual feed from the cell phone of a criminal. I don"t know how they did it. But I have been abused by people I know at work and in the last year by my own family because they used to like / love me and now they hate me. My brothers family in particular and my nephew from my sister have been befriended by these cause stalkers and they constantly let me know I"m being watched. They don"t admit it but I"ve heard them talk about private conversations I"ve had when they were no where near me! It"s crazy.

I finally got my display working! It"s only 160x80 so I can get great refresh rates from a pic... right now the controller is an 18f2455 and i"m using it"s internal ram for the display. Currently it only displays a test image that I stored in program memory, but I plan to add a 5x7 font, a gal for timing logic, external serial display ram, and serial character input... then I"ll use it for console output on a couple of hacked linux devices. Thanks for all the information!!

I have obtained a large (200-300) lot of bare LCD Screens (no driver/controller boards). About half of them are 3.8" Sharp LQ038 screens. These were stored loose in a box and many are obviously broken. I would like to do something with these and I am at this point looking for a simple circuit so that I can test them, also possibly a way to turn them into digital photo frames. I am an Electrical Engineer, but it has been a while since I have done detailed component work like this and I have never worked with Color LCD displays before. Can someone direct me to where I can find some circuit designs that I may be able to use?

At 2 August 2011, 18:30:42 user Tom wrote: [reply @ Tom]Just recently got back to my lcd project... The M signal is to drive the LCD voltages: the col/seg drivers use it to alternate the voltage applied to the cells, otherwise the lifespan is shortened. The pic simply alternates M from high to low every frame.

My lcd is only 160x80, and I"ve generated a test image with a pic18f2455... I"m only running at 20MHz right now but the refresh rate is good because it"s a much smaller screen. Thanks again!!

At 12 April 2011, 21:00:08 user jparker wrote: [reply @ jparker]You are very good at debugging (reverse engineering). I like your honesty when you talk about your projects/experiments. You also inspire me to explore some of my broken devices parts. Hang on to the curiosity you have and it will be kind to you in the future I"m sure. Thx for the website.....

My first monochrome LCD, like yours, didn"t have a smart controlle, I put the LC7981 controller on it and it worked. My second monochrome LCD was this:

I had to do a change there. It"s been a long time and I don"t remember but here is bottom line: The SED1335 supports a 16 bit address bus and the memory on this LCD is only 8 kBytes. I found an 32 kBytes RAM with the same layout as the 8 kBytes. The difference was that the 8 kBytes RAM had two NC lines in the place of the two extra address lines on the 32 kBytes RAM. So, I replaced the RAM, hardwired the NC pins to the correct SED1335 pins and it worked perfectly :)

At 27 March 2011, 21:10:58 user Tom wrote: [reply @ Tom]Nice work! You gave me the idea to work on my own 160x80 lcd which has the same common and segment driver. Two questions if you don"t mind...

2. what is the M pin (pin 94 on the 79430 and pin 86 on the 79401) on your lcd connected to? i have a pin on my connector that goes to M on the drivers and i"m not sure what to do with it... the specs say M is an input - "LCD drive output alternating current (AC) signal"

You can have a 32MHz INTOSC (8MHz with 4x PLL; see section 5.2.2.6 of the 16F1934 data sheet). You can also use the MSSP to fetch bytes from the external memory for you at one bit per CPU cycle while sending the previous byte to the LCD, or get display data from internal program memory or even RAM instead.

Of more interest is that with small changes you can store tiles in program memory for easy character display. It is slightly slower, but can (barely) achieve 50Hz screen refresh with a fully tile-based screen layout. For example, code to choose among 64 tiles, 16x16 pixels in size (2kword program memory), might look like: