Nothing better than getting a notification, looking at my phone and seeing Dave uploaded a new video.

@RichardNobel

4 ай бұрын

One thing might be better? 👉 Receiving said notification on such a VFDisplay that Dave talks about in this video. 😉

@nandesu

4 ай бұрын

I can think of a few things… But not my place to pick for you. 😂

I'm an industrial electrician, so when I saw the video title was confused and intrigued. I deal with VFDs on a regular basis: variable frequency drives. Edit: Very cool little project, even if it doesn't control the speed of a large 3 phase motor ;-)

@codyoftheinternet

4 ай бұрын

I was looking for this comment! I’m a controls engineer and was equally intrigued to hear Dave’s take. Oh well! Still awesome!

@locksneedshartin

4 ай бұрын

Same profession here, my brain went to exactly the same place lol

@zaccheusleem2089

3 ай бұрын

Hvac tech thinking the same thing haha.

You sir are a legend I never get tired of!! I also love the VFD with a passion :-)

@float32

4 ай бұрын

I get tired of having to wait for more videos!

Excited to see Dave's Garage on my front page tonight! As an industrial electrician and controls engineer I was initially confused why Dave would be talking about Variable Frequency Drives... A few seconds in and my excitement shifted to hearing Dave's story focus on my slowly growing electronics interests. My kids and I got into Arduino projects a few years ago partly inspired by your esp32 projects.. and I get a kick out of these videos reminding me of my first cobbled-together home PCs with components ribbon-cabled together on my desk.. I've been a Linux user since 2007 but being "stuck" with Enterprise Windows at work you've even influenced by scada development on wsl. Keep it up, Dave!

@JediSentinal

4 ай бұрын

Glad to hear I wasnt the only confused person who was wondering what Variable Frequency Drives were doing on this channel!

I love TB shirts, shorts, and jeans. Living in TX all my TB stuff is for much warmer weather, other than the jeans. For me this is the best channel on KZread! Keep being you.

Fun project! It's not too complicated once you get the correct specs. I'm so glad to see you using C for this instead of Python the way everyone else seems to.

@AnglandAlamehnaSwedish

4 ай бұрын

C forever!!! After ForTran!!!! Ya I'm old ,C++ just came out my freshman yr in university

Love the mention of the shirt because the material actually looks quite comfy, and I was curious as to where I could pick one up myself.

VFDs are still a staple in POS systems. I worked with them a lot with my former company due to the fact that they are still very common in small businesses. Some work over USB, some over traditional serial. It’s really neat to see you make something like this. Logic Controls LDX9000 were my bread-and-butter back in the day lol.

@ryan0io

4 ай бұрын

I worked in POS in the very early 2000's, and still have a (probably 90's) VFD pole display RS232 based, somewhere around here.

Fun. A while back i just coded my own libraries for text out to Noritake VFDs. Had to put a logic-level shifter between the ESP32 and the display because it was having trouble with 3.3v data. You can upload your own character libraries to make your own alphabet on those things.

@DavesGarage

4 ай бұрын

I did the same, you can see it pictured briefly in this episode!

why didn't I have a teacher like you!? passionate and enthusiastic, but above all knowledgeable

Dave, I purchased your book, and I’m really enjoying it. Lots of lights being set off in my brain. Great work, thank you.

As a kid who has never owned Vacuum Florescent Displays I immediately thought Variable Frequency Drive 😅

great job Dave! my first smart LCD two-line project was in school, and we made a 2k counter from a CPLD, and clocked the data out of an EPROM, directly into the display! The entire project was wire-wrapped and was a lot of fun to build. Later I made the exact same display you have, but with the Hitachi HD44780 LCD controller smart display, and clocked the data from the computer application into the display via the serial port, in much the same way you did it.

This is the project I needed for my car AND my PC. Thank you for the constant inspiration, Dave! Might even do something with POCSAG 🤔

The VFD in my 1995 Grand Cherokee is the bomb. It shows me everything going on with the vehicle and it looks good doing it. It's aged much better then early LCD screens.

@DavesGarage

4 ай бұрын

Good point, they don't seem to age at all, but you'd imagine the phosphor would "wear out" over time... so why don't they age much?

@DripDripDrip69

4 ай бұрын

The phosphors can get burnt-in if left displaying the same thing for extended period of time just like CRTs but most cars aren't driven 24/7

@toasTr0n

4 ай бұрын

The seal can also fail over time, which causes the entire display to stop working. No vacuum, no display.

@foch3

4 ай бұрын

@@DavesGarage Mine haven't seemed to age at all. They also function perfectly in the cold where LCD's struggle.

@foch3

4 ай бұрын

​@@toasTr0n I think you'd have to crack it for that to happen.

Learn something new every time I watch. You never disappoint.

@DavesGarage

4 ай бұрын

Thanks, always looking to make it interesting! If you (or anyone) has suggestions, fire away!

When I was at university I was fascinated by 7 segments displays, so I totally understand why you wanted that in the case. And yes, it looks great! :D

VFD and hardware monitor in one, this video is heaven sent

Thumbs up for linking the VFD video by Posy, I love that one. And he makes his own background music for his videos!

Cool project! Recently started exploring the world of ESP8266 and ESP32 following on from Arduino boards and I am stunned at just how much power and functionality these little boards have. It's staggering.

I love it! Grat stuff as always Dave!

It’s amazing how versatile vacuum tubes can be. Years ago I put together a guitar overdrive pedal using a salvaged VFD instead of a 12AX7 tube, and it actually (sort of) worked!

One of the questions I have, why did regedit32 consume all the system memory and cpu resources back in the early 2000. There must be a story about it.

There are some very similar-looking VFD modules available with a 2x7 pin header (14-pin) - these are compatible with the HD44780 LCD protocol. I initially encountered them in the "Ticket Station" by Benchmark (machine used in arcades to count and shred tickets)

I was wondering why I'd want to monitor a Variable Frequency Drive controller from my computer... Thanks for clearing that up!

Love these displays! I purchased one for making the usual clock but sat in a drawer for a year because it wasn't the serial model and I didn't know how to drive it, turns out a year later i can do both using a converter or using the HD44780 libraries which I did not know back then, it made for a really fun project.

Hearing the Lite Brite name brought back some memories. Loved mine

VDFs are cool. I found one at a Hamfest which is 40 characters by 12 lines apparently made by NEC back in the 1980s. My guess is it came out of a CNC machine. Playing around, I eventually found the serial input which is 8N1, 9600 bps, positive TTL. Just guessing, I figured followed by an ASCII character might be cursor control. It was A, B, C and D. I wired it up to a Particle Photon (similar to an Arduino Uno with Wi-Fi). I haven’t been able to find an NEC data sheet, but at this point it seems I don’t need one. I made a cool clock / calendar and moon phase display. The downside is the 12 Volt supply draws 2 Amps. It sure isn’t very power efficient. VFDs are subject to burn-in if you leave the same thing displayed for a long time. I wrote a small sketch which displays a solid block character with every pixel lit in every character position to help equalize the wear on the phosphor. It turned out I didn’t need to do that on the display I found.

Beautiful vintage PLCC part

Thanks for the info. Keep up the good, fun episodes.

That's pretty sweet. I've always liked the VFDs. Never really thought about buying a different size other than what was made for Arduinos and RasPis specifically.

Ah yes, the Light-Brite, with beautiful Kool-Aid colors. Here I am playing with a 555 timer, CD4017 decade counters, some AND logic, and big juicy 10mm LEDs. You're never too old for this stuff. VFD's are pretty sweet too.

This brings back memories! I used to have a VFD (salvaged from a cash register at my job) connected to my pc back in the late nineties. It displayed things like temperature, but also if I had any new mail, or what was currently playing on winamp :) I still have that display in a box somewhere, this video inspired me to go find it again :D

Those vfd displays are really popular in 90's/00's GM vehicles and was usually the milage or hello display. My C6 had one that was more interactive that you can program your name. However most GM/gmc trucks, it was the OD display

@BlackEpyon

4 ай бұрын

As somebody who has two OSB GM trucks, I would have loved if they'd display the engine fault code, so you don't need a code reader!

Always something creative and informative.!

Coolest video I've seen you do in a while.

this really reminds me of one of my projects i made back in school. I made a hardware monitor with 128x64 LCD and analog needle gauges to show CPU/RAM usage, clock freq and core temp. both LCD module and needle gauges were driven with microcontroller which talks to the host pc over usb/uart.

Still using the VFD in my Silverstone HTPC case from 20 yrs ago.

1:16 I have a case with 5.25" drive bays and I've mounted a Raspberry Pi with 7" touchscreen for showing system information and more! Never getting rid of this case :D

Brilliant work sir!! Would be handy to scroll through a sequence from time to time just to prevent burn in and even out the usage.

Days of the video recorder as a younger man in the 80's! That green VFD display brings back memories!

I love drivers, i started with a 7 segment display off a PLC 🙂

“…it won’t work until we make it work”. 👏

You make retirement look fun. Thanks for posting!

I hacked together something very similar last year, but took a slightly different approach- VFD connected to an Arduino, then feeding the data via a small C# program. Your solution is much more comprehensive!

Cool beans. I bought an older Silverstone Lascada HDPC with remote and VFD by SoundGraph iMon. The old iMon software leaves a little to be desired. Thanks to you I now know of commercial software to replace it. As much as I love to fiddle with soldering projects I have less time having a pesky family.

That’s a very cool hack! Thanks for the video! I was wanting to add an LCD screen with readouts and an Apple style power button. After seeing this though now I’m thinking of building one of those slanted glass displays that make a 3D image from the screen it’s sitting on so it looks like the read outs are floating.

Sweet display, nice shirt, fun tech mashup.

great video Dave I like stuff like on your videos.

I can't get enough of VFDs. I remember losing my mind when I first saw the dash of the upcoming (back then) 1984 corvette. Home stereos were another exciting experience back then. We were like twins back then, except you were a lot smarter.

Lite-Brights rocked!!!

Best Channel Ever!

Posy makes excellent videos. Nice shoutout

Looks great!

Got your book on Kindle 🤝🏼

Oh this is So going on my project list

I was hoping you would be driving the display circuitry yourself with an ESP32, but this is good enough 🙂. It gives me the idea to make something with an old display I have lying around. Thanks!

Dang, writing a modbus to scada ap in py and I thought you meant variable freq drives in the title.... oh well. Keep'em coming dave.

Cool! I used an old vcr vfd's for a htpc case. Generating the right voltages was a challenge. The filament wire had to be fed 6v ac superimposed on 10v dc, and the grid was 3v i think. Getting it wrong made the filament light up like a lightbulb, and using dc only gave uneven glow. When i got it all right, and was able to bit-bang it using my parallel port, and it lighted up i was over the moon 😂

Thanks Dave.

I do admit, I kind of want to put a VFD on the side of my PC behind the window, which is tinted. I have always loved VFDs myself since I was a kid, and as I learned how the tech works, it made me want more in my life. They are truly beautiful.

I saw VFD and couldn't not think on the TechnologyConnections video about the topic.

The VFDs I have to add are to a PLC. I admit you did get me on this video but I like it and may give it a try.

Dave Jones from the EEVblog also has done a video on these displays decoding the communication protocol and making it to work correctly with I think it was an arduino as well. I like these displays, but like you said, it's old technology and sips a lot of power.

You’re the only person on the planet that would make me consider buying Tommy Bahama stuff.

So that’s what these are called! I miss these!

LOL!-- I thought you meant VFD as in Variable Frequency Drive and was utterly confused. Yeah, the displays are good too!

Nice shirt. (no sarcasm) I remember >20 years ago, I put an LCD in a 5-1/4" drive bay in my PC. Connected via rs-232. I programmed it to read a text file from the internet. That file, I allowed users on my blog to modify the contents via PHP, so they could go to my blog and leave me a short message that would show up on the LCD on the front bezel of my PC!

Also look for the 2 line matrix VFDs that were used to upgrade the original Slimp3 display to look like the one on its successor the Squeezebox.

As a kind of hobby I look for electronics in dumpsters and curbside stuff. I will have to keep an eye out for these VFD components! Thank you 🤓 plus I subbed!

@youmukonpaku3168

4 ай бұрын

living out in the middle of nowhere, we have a local waste collection site with a TEU container for e-waste. It's always fun to poke my head in there on garbage day and see if anyone's abandoned anything good, and now I too have something else to keep an eye open for!

@j.lietka9406

4 ай бұрын

@@youmukonpaku3168 I check mostly business dumpsters & check neighborhoods for curbside stuff. It's hot or miss! I haven't tried an E-waste collection place yet. Not sure if where I live (NC) has one that allows folks to come by and look.

I love them too and added one to my Linux media box

Love it great idea

I literally just bought some vfds this week and was doing research on them! Perfect timing ❤

I used to run them from a parallel port on my computer, I wrote a basic program to run them. I used to get free samples from Noritake at EE trade shows, and just had to use them for something:)

Huge fan of VFDs. In fact, I sought out a bench meter that had a VFD instead of an LCD cause VFDs are easier to read for me.

VFD goodness. Subscribed, not sure why I didn't subscribe before.

Oh, I must do this.

I found two Logic Controls in the dumpster a year ago. Compiled the usb driver and used the calls for an easy self made writer. Fun to play with.

@michaelharbuck3314

4 ай бұрын

I saw your reply, Sir. How may I be of help. I did find another one I have for a total of three of the logic control units

Ooft, you've made me want to bust out my old Matrix Orbital display, it's in my garage somewhere....................................

@DavesGarage

4 ай бұрын

I've got one of those too! I think mine still has 9-pin serial interface...

You can still get motherboards with PS/2, serial and parallel ports, but those boards are usually geared towards workstations and servers, so they're a little off the beaten path for the consumer market. They're a little bit more pricey (my MSI Pro B660-A ran me about CDN $300), depending on what options you're going for, but they're not too hard to get if you know what you're looking for.

I love VFDs too. I have some really odd ones including some bi-color pixel ones that can do orange, blue, or orange+blue to make white.

peak nostalgia for me, VFD Displays

I've recently also grabbed one of these cash register displays (weirdly enough, the German ebay seems to be flooded with them, mostly Epson or Samsung branded, down to 5$ a piece at times). Currently it's directly attached via an RS232 adapter, but long term plan is to add an ESP8266 and give it a simple HTTP API over WiFi. I always feel kinda bad using an ESP for a project and then not utilizing its wifi capability..

@DavesGarage

4 ай бұрын

I feel bad using the ESP32 for anything simple, but they're so cheap it's hard not to!

@WooShell

4 ай бұрын

@@DavesGarage They're the perfect tinkering tool for anything that doesn't need a lot of pins. More than enough speed so one doesn't have to spend much time optimizing code, and cheaper than the old ATmegas..

Great video! What serial port sniffer did you use?

Ohhh Vacuum Florescent Display! When I hear VFD I hear Variable Frequency Drive, something designed to run a motor in an industrial setting. Was wondering what VFDs were doing in this channel! 😂

My Son's current gaming PC lives in my old gaming PC case (circa 2004). It has a red on black Matrix Orbital LCD display that works with LCDC. I still use optical drives on all of my PCs and will need to hang onto my current cases because finding a case with external 5.25" slots is almost impossible.

Aloha Dave! How sad are you that surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED)'s will most likely never be a thing now?

Hi Dave, did you find much load on the system (or any odd behavior with sleep/low power states) when using AIDA64? I played around with it a while ago and tried making a sensor panel/page and it seemed to stop my 7950x from going into a low power type mode (no idea on the correct name). Basically the CPU was always consuming about 40w and sitting on 60dC in winter owing to turning down the fan speed.. and noted it also flipping between 2 cores very briefly using 100% of the core and sitting on 5.8ghz if the LCD option is easier on the system, might have to blow the dust off the old matrix orbital i have haha

I think I have that exact vfd in a box. Now I know what to do with it.

5:18 Check the motherboard manual, im pretty certain there is a header somewhere labeled as COMx.......

While I have no VFD's I'll have to do this to a 128x64 LED I have lying about! Never played with USB serial from the computer, that's so good!

Just be careful handling the display! There is also around 300 volts present on the VFD display. It's not deadly but will bite of you get across it. Also note a raw VFD module typically follow the same protocol as any LCD display.

@Shocker99

4 ай бұрын

Only a small tingle

@maxgood42

4 ай бұрын

Reading this my brain pictured Dave swearing and looking into the camera in an ElectroBOOM moment💥 ... next video "How not to wire high voltage devices to your pc" 🤣

@ThisRandomUsername

4 ай бұрын

That's really weird. You can get them going at about 30V, so it's weird why a commercial one would have 300V on it.

@maxgood42

4 ай бұрын

@@ThisRandomUsername The voltage is boosted up but not the amps so the neon will activate. Its like the old camping fluro tubes they plug into 12v but the tube it's self needs a high voltage to activate.

@ThisRandomUsername

4 ай бұрын

@@maxgood42 Yes, it's current limited, but the thing is the voltage is much lower than neon or regular fluorescent displays. They operate like a vacuum tube with a heating element, a grid and the phosphor coated anode. Neons use an inert gas to fluoresce, while VFDs contain a vacuum.

Dave, judging by your explanation, you totally turned into a hardware guy ! 🙂

The VFD's i have, salvaged from where i work, are a bit power hungry, but they do look nice.

i recommend putting a color filter over the VFD, it will give it much higher contrast. Obviously dark green filter gel will make it more green, but many devices with VFD:s actually use violet/purple filter, giving it much brighter and almost white color. Companies selling color gel/films for stage lighting have nice sample sets, some filters will give surprising results when put over VFD due unique spectrum of phosphor they use. I have VFD addiction myself, I have been collecting display modules and just glass displays since I was a kid, and have reverse engineered several of them to show text from microcontroller, act as a VU meter or display time. Still when I see old device with VFD, I must resist urge to pick that up.

@eDoc2020

4 ай бұрын

Dave's PC case appears to have tinted glass so it acts as a filter.

Hi Dave, have you ever worked or heard of windows CE back in the day?

Cool!

In my world, VFD means a _variable frequency drive,_ allowing me to run 3-phase equipment on my 240 VAC single-phase, with variable speed. We used to call those displays "plasma" or "cold-cathode".

@eDoc2020

4 ай бұрын

Those are different display types. Vacuum fluorescent displays are hot-cathode. Cold-cathode plasma displays contain a gas (usually neon).

84 C that's a hot running PC

Hey Dave, could you make a video about the original xbox? Anything interesting that you know about it? i think it would make for an interesting video!