cheap alternative to tft display quotation

Providing a high level of design flexibility and user-friendly programming, the Graphic PMVA technology from GTK and is a cost-effective alternative to TFTs. Since the display can adapt dynamically to show what is required, customers can achieve a greater level of customisation and are not restrained to one single layout by use of graphic technology over segment and icons.

The PMVA technology features a negative transmissive display, which offers a very black contrast ratio, and typically comes with a white LED backlight, though other colours are available on request. Colour content can be added via silk screen printing for fixed colour content, or an LED array which offers a greater choice of backlit colour combinations.

The PMVA is a high performance product with good all-round viewing angles, a high contrast ratio and can operate in temperatures ranging from -10 to +80°C. It has an operating life of 100,000 hours MTBF and interface to the PCB can be achieved via flexible printed circuit (FPC) or metal pins.

"The addition of graphics to PMVA display technology really opens up opportunities for OEMs. The ability to add graphics dynamically means that they can utilise PMVA as a standard technology across their range but still produce custom solutions for different markets or applications: an example of this would be designing and programming the displays for different language requirements. This can also result in economies of scale. Programming this type of display is simpler and less time consuming when compared with TFTs and this assists in reducing time to market for new products. The versatility of this product makes it ideal for a wide variety of market applications,” commented: Clive Dickinson, Business Manager, Optoelectronics, GTK.

There are different components of a TFT displays that can be modified to create a custom color LCD. Some of the modifications are not too expensive, while others can be cost prohibitive. We will cover some of the main options available and their estimated cost when customizing a TFT display module.

Note: If you need a color LCD module, but do not need video or dot matrix (Graphical) capabilities, I would suggest using a lower cost alternative such as FSC*(Field Sequential Color display) aka known as a TN color display. A second option for a lower cost and much lower power requirement would be a custom segmented display module with color overlays.

This is by far the most expensive component of the TFT module to customize. There are industry standard glass sizes for TFT’s. The list includes, but is not limited to, 2.8 inch, 3.5 inch, 5.7 inch, 7 inch, 10.2 inch and larger. If you can design your product to make use of these standard sizes, then do it. If you need a unique size, say a something between a 2.8 inch and 3.5 inch, you may be forced to invest in a custom glass size. We have seen quotes for custom glass sizes for TFT run between $100,000 dollars to $150,000 dollars. Not a minor investment for most companies.

A second major cost to consider for a custom glass size is the high MOQ’s (Minimum Order Quantities). MOQ’s could be as high as 50K to 100K units per year. Not unheard of for a tablet for smart phone.

A TFT LCD display with a modified PCB, is still considered a custom color TFT. Modification costs to customize the PCB is an estimated $400 to $1,200 one-time tooling fee. The unit cost of the TFT display, with a modified PCB will be slightly higher than the cost of the TFT with a standard PCB.

Many products that incorporate a custom color LCD display will contain a touch screen or touch panel. These can be modified to meet a customer’s particular size for an estimated tooling cost of $3,000 to $4,000.

TFT displays are full color LCDs providing bright, vivid colors with the ability to show quick animations, complex graphics, and custom fonts with different touchscreen options. Available in industry standard sizes and resolutions. These displays come as standard, premium MVA, sunlight readable, or IPS display types with a variety of interface options including HDMI, SPI and LVDS. Our line of TFT modules include a custom PCB that support HDMI interface, audio support or HMI solutions with on-board FTDI Embedded Video Engine (EVE2).

The PCB is changing due to a critical component going EOL. The new PCB design will not affect the functionality of the product and it will continue to use the same BT817Q graphical processor. Additional hardware features are added to the new design including land patterns for an ESP32 or XIAO to remove the need for an external processor to drive the EVE4 chip.

ER-TFT028-4 is 240x320 dots 2.8" color tft lcd module display with ILI9341 controller and optional capacitive touch panel and 4-wire resistive touch panel,superior display quality,super wide viewing angle and easily controlled by MCU such as 8051, PIC, AVR, ARDUINO ARM and Raspberry PI.It can be used in any embedded systems,industrial device,security and hand-held equipment which requires display in high quality and colorful image.It supports 8080 8-bit,9-bit,16-bit,18-bit parallel,3-wire,4-wire serial spi interface. FPC with zif connector is easily to assemble or remove.Lanscape mode is also available.

Of course, we wouldn"t just leave you with a datasheet and a "good luck!".Here is the link for 2.8"TFT Touch Shield with Libraries, Examples.Schematic Diagram for Arduino Due,Mega 2560 and Uno . For 8051 microcontroller user,we prepared the detailed tutorial such as interfacing, demo code and development kit at the bottom of this page.

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Another non-related question, how to give power to teensy with a button and shut off with a GPIO, I know a latch or something or auto power off circuit is ok, but um...

I will use a 3.3v 500mA power supply connected to a lipo battery, probably with or maybe without a over discharge circuit. The power supply MIC5219-3.3V have a ENable pin, so if I utilize it, I can get less than 5 micro amps of current draw, which is certainly an overkill, if I use the power on/off thing that cut off 3.3v on the teensy, I can get less than 200 micro amps. I wonder if I can hook a GPIO pin to the power on/off pin, so I can pull it to high or low for a few seconds to turn if off, and also a physical button is connected to the power on/off so I can power it on with one click and hold button to force shutdown.

The linear power supply is [+]Efficient and [+]Small but [-]Can"t output 5v [-]Low max current output [-]Have 500mV dropout voltage @500mA so the battery is unusable when it is 3.7 volts, which is real bad as lithium batteries" protector boards over discharge kicks in @2.4v. I also need 5v for the USB host port for keyboards and mouse. Because the host port is not needed at all times, so I wanted to use existing power bank circuit that auto turns on when peripherals are connected. (Existing circuits are great, maybe efficient and safer), so no boosting required if not needed.

Using the power bank circuit that my li polymer battery comes with (power bank comes with) can [+]output more current, so can also power keyboard mice and hubs. [+]safe, with protection [+]only powers on when there is current draw (Teensy itself may not be able to keep it on, maybe can with the LCD backlight) or/and USB device is connected. Some people add resisters to add current draw, and that is bullshit. Another problem is how to control whether I want the converter to start or not, and have no complete control sucks.

The Numworks calculator I am referencing uses a STM32 f7 and it will work at 2.8v, but not my teensy working at 600mhz. And it doesn"t need 5v because it doesn"t have a usb host port. Power supplying a battery powered project the a pain in the ass.

Unfortunately such screens coupled with Arduino were too slow for my taste that"s why I won"t add them in the future for official simhub support, but on the wiki you will find how to create your own display device if you have some Arduino knowledge :

Anyway, I make NO claim to be an electronics expert. That said, I love tinkering with electronics and one of the reasons I play with old PC"s like these...is because it"s fun to see what I can do to bring them "up to speed". Yes, this will be one of my walls of text.

I"ve also been messing about a bit with upgrading a NanTan 9200 DFI MediaBook to TFT or at least DTSN. So I"ll dump what I have so far here - might apply to Satellites.....I"m planning to put all this on my site once I"m done parsing everything and getting more pinouts from different panels from various laptops. There"s a lot of 486 and 386 machines out there that I feel could possibly be at least hacked, if not legitimatley outfitted with some kind of TFT Color panel - at least anything with later chipsets that were liked up to a TFT.

I found this pinout chart here: https://www.instructables.com/Salvaging-Liqui … -Displays-LCDs/ - I spent hours looking for a Datasheet for the Casio MD820TT00-C1 found in the DFI and came up empty handed, but looking at photos on e-bay, I noticed most STN Monochrome Laptop displays have the same pinout of 14-16 pins, depending on if the CFLs are powered by an on-board ballast board or a separate one like my DFI does.

I own four NEC Versa Laptops (40EC, V/50, M/75, and P/75) - ALL Active Matrix - and one DFI MediaBook (NanTan FMAK9200) - STN Monochrome and likely a similar pinout sans pins 15 & 16- and a common thread I Found between these two is that the wiring that comes off the motherboard/connector board (the part on the detachable screen Versas that attaches the screen to the motherboard), is that they BOTH have 3-wire connectors going to the screen"s controller boards to the screen assembly. The connectors for the Versa darn-near almost match the ones for the DFI.

On the Versas - There are 34 pins total across 3 connectors for the TFT Active Matrix Panels (NL6448AC30-03/06/10, NL6448AC30-09 - which is a special case - I"ll get to in a moment, and the NL8060AC24-01 which is the 800x600 panel used in the M/75 and P/75HC models). These laptops (save for the Versa V series) had detachable screens that could be swapped with STN Monochrome, DTSN Color, and Active Matrix TFT - with later models being capable of using higher resolution panels as an extra multiplexer chip with capacitor was wired into the connector board. The special case was the VErsa M/75TC and M/100TC (PC-570/580) - which used a special controller board (the M/75"s had interchangeable LCD Controller boards on the system planar), and used a special True-Color panel with slightly different wiring but it still had 3 connectors. The panel had extended logic for the higher color range built in. This means that the RAW signals were coming off the Versa boards from the C&T/WD chipsets - and then being sent to the screen, where the signal was handled with the on-board electronics. I took another look at Beige-O-Vision"s video on the V/50 he tore apart - which had DTSN Color - and I saw that the Kyocera panel in his V/50 had a larger control board on the right side of the panel - did not get a good look at the wiring harness though - but I See it"s the same single connector on the Versa base-unit side as my V/50C which has an active matrix NL6448AC30-10 panel.

On the DFI - the three connectors attach to the motherboard and run through the hinges - and connect to a special circuit board that seems to "reduce" the signal down to something the Casio panel understands, which has only 14 wires, as well as provides power to the board for several chokes and a Ballast transformer that powers the CFL backlight.

Now, talking TFT signals vs. STN Signals - STN, DTSN, and TFT seem to share the same signals for power and data enable, though TFTs tend to have extended functions. The NEC Panels are well documented and have a good sheet - and the NL6448AC30-03 is compatible with the 06 and 10 models - I know because I"ve switched these out (you can also upgrade the M and P models to 800x600 if they were original 640p by adding a 500K resistor to the connector board, or removing it to go back to 640x480). IT seems TFTs tend to use raw-signals off the motherboard, doing the work themselves, while STN and DTSN tend to use a separate ballast/control/reducer circuit of some kind to allow for the screen to manage a reduced amount of data lines.

The NLxxxxxx panels I listed all have three connectors: the first a 10 pin containing Clock, 3 grounds, Horizontal and Vertical sync lines, and the Red Data, a 13 pin containing more grounds, Ac Adapter in, Backlight on/off, and the data lines for Green and Blue, and a 11 pin used for backlight power, data enable, mode, vcc on/off, logic power, and of course, more grounding lines. Basically the pinout is

So as we can see - ALL the voltages are self contained on these NEC Panels - now I know this thread is not about NEC - but hopefully this will help trace down what can done as IBM, Toshiba, Compaq, and any other laptop computer uses the same wiring, principles, and general lines. Honestly, I wish I had an oscilloscope so I Could capture the data/waveforms off the connectors and possibly come up with a way to reverse engineer my DFI using those as a guide - as the DFI has more connectors (likely just more grounds).

And the idea/hypothesis that I have that the TFT signals come raw off the chip is further supported by the position of the graphics controller chip on both laptops. The NEC"s have the same connector in roughly the same place on ALL models from the original Ultralite PC-400 20MHz all the way to the P/75 - just different chips, but they use the same data lines and it seems there"s not more than filtering and possibly some resistance added before they go to the screen connector plug.

I also found the pinout to another LCD Panel - this time DTSN - to get an idea what the data/power/control structure of these panels would be compared to the other two. Most of these old Laptops use industrial LCD panels (shame they"re so expensive) - the NEC NL-series panels are used in other things than just Versa Laptops (expecially the NL6448AC30-12 which seems to use a standard connector similar to many TFT panels I"ve looked at, and appears to also require a separate ballast connector for the CFLs).

Being passive matrix, looks like it uses similar data structure (8-bit) to the STN Monochrome panel, with the additional lines for Latch, separate data clocks for lower and upper (Thoguh that could just be another term for the Register Select), and a few more grounds.

CRTs can be abundant if you have good places in your local community to look, but they are getting trickier to track down each passing year. And while nothing’s stopping you from using a modern LCD for retro gaming, you may want to track down a square-shaped LCD (mostly 4:3 aspect ratio) so your classic content seems a bit more “at home” — avoiding those black bars.

So whether you’re looking for a cheap 4:3 LCD to use with your MiSTER FPGA setup, have a classic personal computer, or just want something for watching “full screen” video content or a emulation box to run on, I’m hoping this guide is helpful in your shopping.

Granted LCDs, especially older models, aren’t ideal for retro gaming compared to CRTs. LCDs often down’t have as deep of black colors and there is input lag involved among some other issues.

However, LCDs are easier to move around and store and use less electricity. And even though there are many die-hard CRT fans out there, there are also many long-time retro fans that have been using the recommended monitors below for a while and been happy with their performance. I’ve even quoted and handful of enthusiasts to give you a good perspective on these recommendations. And don’t forget, eventually LCDs might be much easier to find and purchase remotely then the CRTs counterparts.

Early LCD monitors may show a lack of technical maturity, however, near some of the later ones that we are focusing on have some decent IPS technology with reasonable color and response times.

You’ll quickly notice the Dell has had a history of making some solid monitors in the first decade of the 21st Century and they actually had a pretty solid habit of routinely making some 4:3/square LCD monitors. The format was actually quite format for their target market of the enterprise business environment.

These were quite popular in the enterprise world but are now starting to get phased out more, so they are rather plentiful on eBay. But score them while you can.

Note: both the 2007FP and 2007FPB are the same model. The “B” is just for “Business”. They can often be found cheaper, but its just because they were often sold to the enterprise market, which then takes more effort to sell off on the aftermarket.

“I have that exact monitor hooked up to my A2000. You can still buy them used and refurbished on sites like amazon.com for between $40-$100. It correctly displays nearly every screen mode I can throw at it from my Indivision ECS and GVP Spectrum (P96) graphics cards, but does not, to my recollection, display 15KHz modes (even when hooked up to the composite port). That being said, it’s probably the most capable, largest, 4:3 aspect ratio (non-widescreen) screen you’re going to be able to find out there for any sort of reasonable price” – Oldsmobile_Mike

“the one to get [this product era] is the 2007FP because its native 1600×1200 is evenly divisible by 240p and it supports S-Video and Composite input as well.” @retrobitstv

“Towards the end of the 4:3 era you could already find decent IPS LCDs, with reasonable response times (the kind you would get from today’s 60Hz LCDs). The Dell 2007FP is one example. It’s 16ms ISO on paper, 6-8ms average grey-to-grey. The black values were not great, though.”- red_avatar

Another great value from Dell, but it does have a but of a premium in resale over the newer 2007FP model.  This 2001FP UltraSharp model from 2003 is also quite popular for retro enthusiasts (especially popular in the Amiga community) and has a solid industrial design. Not only is a generous screen size, have rotation and VESA mounting ability, but it also has a variety of video inputs — especially interesting for retro gamers that aren’t outputting to Component or HDMI elsewhere.

“The Dell 2001fp is nearly ideal for several reasons. One, it has composite and s-video connectors so you can connect computers like a Commodore 64 or VIC-20 to it. Secondly, it’s old enough that it still has the old-school 4:3 aspect ratio of CRTs. But thirdly, this monitor is able to sync down to 15 kHz, so a stock Amiga works with it (see this Youtube video for example). Yes, this means a cheap and common LCD 20″ monitor can substitute for a rare and expensive Amiga monitor. “

This model was also prized by some in the Amiga scene because it can accept 15khz RGB over the VGA connector but I didn’t find that worked very well for me. Not a big use case for me though.”

If you’re willing to make some compromises, these more budget-minded Dells are a decent option. This is helpful if you’re on a strict budget or you just want multiple square-shaped LCDs in your arsenal and don’t want to splurge on all of them.

The sacrifices of these models compared to the 2001FP and 2007FP above are not only the smaller screen size but they also lack the screen rotation, S-Video and Composite inputs, and they have a lower resolution that doesn’t perfectly divide into 240p like the 1600 x 1200 models.

“Accepts VGA, DVI and has 12vDC out for clip on speakers! I have had it for 5 yrs as 2nd hand. No complaints. I also recommend close cousin 1704FPTi. Ive used them for years in 4:3 arcade cabinets. Best feature: it remembers its power state. Kill power (say from main strip) next time you power on the LCD will return to the ON state.”

If you want a no-frills monitor at potentially a low cost and aren’t stressing about the 4:3 vs 5:4 ratio as much, this generation of Samsung Syncmaster models can work out well.  Some enthusiasts like retrogamesba on Instagram loving having it in their hardware rotation for classic PC goodness.

These are an older generation and style of Dell monitors. Not quite as elegant or “futuristic” and they also don’t have the rotation and flexibility of the later UltraSharp models. But there is still a 1600 x 1200 with this one and the S-Video + Composite inputs.

If you’re looking for a bit of an iconic retro branding in your classic PC LCD, you might want to consider the IBM ThinkVision series (from before they sold the brand to Lenovo).

But as a longtime Thinkpad fan (and an admirer of the Activa and ThinkStation series of desktops/workstations back in the day), I tend to appreciate the IBM industrial design of the late 90s and early 00s.

While the L200P is a larger display and has the desirable 1600 x 1200 resolution, it wasn’t a mainstream unit like the Dells above, so its a challenge to find a good deal on. If you like the IBM styling and branding, you can look into some of their smaller displays that are much more inexpensive, but often have a 5:4 aspect ratio.

If you’re up for smaller units that may be 5:4 ratio, there’s enough different models that it’s not really worth focusing on a particular model at this point (unless somebody shares a really solid recommendation for something I’m overlooking). But because of the era these were sold, you won’t have to weed through any widescreen models while shopping.

While it doesn’t have as many retro gaming bells and whistles as the Dell units above, this one is still available for purchase new today and features some newer screen advancements — including LED backlighting. It does have Display Port instead of something like DVI, but something worth considering

This one is an interesting piece. It’s not the best bang for the buck, but if you’re looking for a bit more of a retro style this. Not only does it have a classic beige case, but it also has some rather interesting buttons on the side. One downside is that it’s VGA input only, but for many of our uses, that may not matter.

LG has made some decent monitors over the years and a handful of square designs. The L1510S is one of the few pure 4:3 models, but some of the newer ones listed below are decent but have a 5:4 aspect ratio.

This one isn’t a super-serious recommendation and you’ll be lucky to find one of these on eBay, but I couldn’t help but share this one I spotted on Reddit.

The LCD is a Sharp QD-101MM, a 640×480, active matrix TFT from 1996 that cost $2,995 at launch! It is actively cooled with a fan that is louder than the LC!

IPS screens were originally advertised as Super TFTs in 1996, so the manufacturer would have likely used that term instead of merely calling it an active matrix TFT, which have been on the market since 1992.”

Do you have a model of LCD monitor that’s been a good fit for you?  Is there one you’re going to add to your watchlist?   I’d love to hear your feedback of this piece in the comments section below.

Great article! I’ve definitely considered getting n 4:3 LCD over the years but had never fully looked into it so this is perfect, thank you for the write up

Thank you! And half the time with an article like this it starts with a similar curiosity and I decide to just document and share the process