Matrix Orbital VFD2041 Legacy User Manual

Page 5

VFD2041 rev 2

Figure 1-1 Connections for Testing

1. Refer to the diagram above and Figure 2-1 for the following steps.

2. Wire the connector to the power supply. On most connectors the RED lead will go to +5V and the

BLACK lead to GND. See Section 2.1.1 for details.

Note: The manufacturer's warranty is void if the

unit is subjected to over-voltage or reversed polarity.

3. Connect the VFD2041 to the PC using the serial cable and adapter if required. Make sure the RS-232

cable includes the required ground lead. There must be no voltage differential between the RS-
232 ground and the power supply ground.

4. Connect the power connector, making sure that the +5V goes to V+ as shown in Figure 2-2. Turn on the

power: the display will power up and a blinking cursor will appear in the top left corner.

Now you're ready to try it out.

1.4 Trying Out your VFD2041

The unit is connected to power and the PC and the backlight is on. You're ready to make sure it's working
properly. To experiment with typing text, run a PC terminal program, such as Hyperterm. Make sure it's
configured to use the correct port. Set the baud rate to 19,200.

If you type characters on the keyboard, they should now appear on the VFD2041 screen. (It is normal for
text to wrap from line 1 to line 3, then to line 2 then 4. See section 3.4.1). A few common ASCII control
characters work as follows:

Character Hex

value Function

0x0A

Moves cursor to the beginning of the next (or previous) line.

0x0C

Clears the display and puts the cursor at the top left

0x08

Moves the cursor one position to the left and clears that position.

Note: These command characters are not guaranteed to work on other Matrix Orbital display
modules. If you want your code to be portable, use the appropriate commands listed later in the
manual instead.

If you want to exercise some of the other features of the VFD2041 you'll need to write a program (in any
convenient language such as Basic or C) to issue the required command strings. Most terminal programs are
unable to issue the 0xFE character needed as a command prefix. You probably won't need to do this at the
initial testing stage.