Using a BOLYMIN BF160160D graphics LCD with the Makingthings Make Controller and the CMG-Framework

Hardware

The Bolymin BF160160D graphics display uses a Epson S1D13700 Controller with a 8 bit port (D0-D7) and four control inputs (A0, WR, RD, DISPL_OFF) plus CS and RESET. In general one could use whatever graphics LCD as long as it uses S1D13700 controller (or one of the other controllers CMG supports).

Since the LCD-Module comes with a ZIF connector, I created a adapter PCB to connect to the makingthings interface board:

Later on I had to add/ change two things, the SEL line needs to be connected to GND to select the 8080 mode (no need to use a precious IO for that), so I soldered a wire directly on the PCB, and I added a potentiometer for contrast (10k). You can see these changes in the circuit diagram, which also contains a FET to switch the backlight LED (power saving function). 

All resistors in the data lines are 1206 0 Ohms (or solder bridges), these will be removed in the next PCB version (see below), R1 stayes 100 Ohms.

New Board Schematics:

New PCB:

Connections

Here is how I connected the adapter board with the makecontroller Interface Board, but you can use whatever portpin you like but then you have to change the setup accordingly in CMG_LLIO_ARM_SAM7X_8D4CTL_8080.c

CMG_D0        IO_PB20
CMG_D1        IO_PB19
CMG_D2        IO_PA24
CMG_D3        IO_PA25
CMG_D4        IO_PA04
CMG_D5        IO_PA03
CMG_D6        IO_PA00
CMG_D7        IO_PA01
             
CMG_A0        IO_PB21
CMG_CS        IO_PB22
CMG_WR        IO_PB23
CMG_RD        IO_PB24
CMG_RST       IO_PB25
CMG_DISP_OFF  IO_PA23
CMG_BKLGHT    IO_PA15

GND to GND and +3V3 to +3.3V

Here you can download the old PCB version (there is also a SPI SD-Card adapter in this file), but keep in mind that you will have to add the connection from SEL to GND and the contrast potentiometer.

Updated/ Corrected PCB PDF-File can be downloaded here, the Eagle 5 project files can be downloaded here.

Links:

BOLYMIN Taiwan
Epson S1D13700 Controller

Software

On the software side I decided to give the CMG framework from Christian Merkle a try. I had read an article about the CMG framework in the Embedded Projects Journal No. 1 which sounded really promising.

You can find more information here:

Embedded Projects Magazine No. 1 page 17/18  (the article is in German only, sorry)
CMG framework home
CMG Subversion
His Masters thesis PDF and files

CMG supports the following controllers (as of May-22-2009):

• S1D13700
• S1D13305
• SED1335
• T6963
• LH155

So if you got a display with one of those controllers it should work just fine (you have to tell CMG which one you want to use).

How to get CMG

The svn access didn't work for me, so I contacted Mr. Hoegl (Christian Merkles supervisor) and he send me the latest SVN version via mail, and promised to fix the SVN problem soon (something to do with user rights).

CMG currently supports the X86, AVR and on the ARM7 platform only the LPC22xx controller. I needed support for the AT91SAM7X which is used by the makingthings.com MAKE Controller board/ OS, so I created a makingthings version of LILO (Low Level IO) for AT91SAM7X which consists of two files:

CMG_LLIO_ARM_SAM7X_8D4CTL_8080.c
CMG_LLIO_ARM_SAM7X_8D4CTL_8080.config

you can download the makingthings version of CMG here (260kb)

On OS X copy this file in /Applications/mcbuilder/cores/makecontroller/libraries/ and unpack it. Since this library is currently not part of the official makingthings OS/ framework and wouldn't compile via the makingthings mcbuilder GUI because the makefile generated by mcbuilder doesn't contain the paths to CMG, so we have to do compilation with my modified makefile via terminal.

Here is the makingthings CMG project I created out of the demo code supplied with CMG. I changed a few things on the makingthings IO.c library, take a look at this article (coming soon) to see what needs to be changed, otherwise it won't compile. Or you can download my modified version here and replace your cores folder of the makingthings system.

In order to compile and upload the CMG_LCD_BF160160D project:

• unpack the file
• open a terminal
• cd to your unpacked project build folder
• type make clean
• type make
• erase your board (close ERASE jumper AND unplug/ plug power)
• upload the file to your board with "/Applications/mcbuilder/resources/tools/sam7 -e set_clock -e unlock_regions -e "flash cmg_lcd_bp160160d.bin" -e boot_from_flash -e reset"

If everything works out you should see something like this:

Here another image taken from the back (the upper board is the SPI-SD card adapter board designed for using EFSL with the makingthings controller board).