Hello all.
My Propeller Backpack modules arrived yesterday, and I got a chance to tinker with one of them today.
This thread is just my thoughts on the module, as others probably have already experimented with it.
http://www.parallax.com/Store/Sensors/ColorLight/tabid/175/CategoryID/50/List/0/SortField/0/Level/a/ProductID/602/Default.aspx
They certainly are very impressive and easy to use.
At $40 each, they are considerably more expensive then the likes of the TellyMate TV-Out device, but the Telly Mate is only black-and-white, whereas the Propeller Backpack is colour. Probably worth the extra cash for a colour display for your PICAXE project.
The module outputs NTSC composite video by default, but I think there are PAL versions of the code available for download if you really need PAL format. Not that this really matters anymore, because every flat-screen TV in the world these days is multi-zone, and I would be very surprised if you can't find one with NTSC ability on it. The NTSC thing is really only going to be a problem if your standard is PAL, if you try to use the Propeller Backpack with an older CRT(glass screen) TV set, as these generally, will not work unless the video format is correct for the TV set in question.
Even the cheap $50 reversing camera LCD's I have, have auto-switching between NTSC or PAL, and work just fine with this module.
The board interfaces at 9600 baud, standard 8N1 protocol. This appears to be fixed and cannot be changed.
The default screen size is 40 columns by 13 rows, which means that even the default text size is quite large, and makes it ideal for nice easy-to-read text displays and basic graphics. The screen can be resized to make the text larger, but this will result in pixelation of the appearance of the text characters.
My Propeller Backpack modules arrived yesterday, and I got a chance to tinker with one of them today.
This thread is just my thoughts on the module, as others probably have already experimented with it.
http://www.parallax.com/Store/Sensors/ColorLight/tabid/175/CategoryID/50/List/0/SortField/0/Level/a/ProductID/602/Default.aspx
They certainly are very impressive and easy to use.
At $40 each, they are considerably more expensive then the likes of the TellyMate TV-Out device, but the Telly Mate is only black-and-white, whereas the Propeller Backpack is colour. Probably worth the extra cash for a colour display for your PICAXE project.
The module outputs NTSC composite video by default, but I think there are PAL versions of the code available for download if you really need PAL format. Not that this really matters anymore, because every flat-screen TV in the world these days is multi-zone, and I would be very surprised if you can't find one with NTSC ability on it. The NTSC thing is really only going to be a problem if your standard is PAL, if you try to use the Propeller Backpack with an older CRT(glass screen) TV set, as these generally, will not work unless the video format is correct for the TV set in question.
Even the cheap $50 reversing camera LCD's I have, have auto-switching between NTSC or PAL, and work just fine with this module.
The board interfaces at 9600 baud, standard 8N1 protocol. This appears to be fixed and cannot be changed.
The default screen size is 40 columns by 13 rows, which means that even the default text size is quite large, and makes it ideal for nice easy-to-read text displays and basic graphics. The screen can be resized to make the text larger, but this will result in pixelation of the appearance of the text characters.
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