2

I got this old junk LCD from my car. The DVD function stopped and the LCD holder on the top of the car broke, so I took it.

Is there any documentation or advice I could use to get this working with an Arduino mega or clone of similar power? I couldn't find anything after looking through Google.

I.e. I'm looking for a way to get a pinout or idea of what those wires on the jack are so that I might be able to get text and/or basic graphics on the screen. Maybe to make an Arduino PC or something idk.

Any advice on either figuring out the connections by hand and how to get a simple connection to the Arduino to get bsic stuff working or a place I can find pinout and such or where someone else has done something similar would be helpful.

enter image description here

Update 2 A quick Google search reveals that it's made by sharp I believe. I'm looking into it.

Update Here's is the back. It's got quite a few numbers on it. Maybe one of those can help?

Top Numbers: D 09399847 LQ070T5CRQ2 46009355

And the one on the bottom: K4013TP

enter image description here

Improve this question
3
  • 1
    Most bare monitors use an LVDS interface (some use a TTL like digital interface). Such an interface requires very high data rates. An Arduino is usually based on a low power Atmel processor. There is no way an Arduino Uno, for example, can support the necessary data rates. LCDs designed for under powered processors such as an Arduino Uno actually contain a much more powerful processor to go between the slow Arduino Uno and the LCD screen.
    – st2000
    Feb 22, 2017 at 5:28
  • 2
    @st2000 What about a teensy 3.6? It has a 32 bit CPU running at 180MHz, 1M Flash Memory, 256K RAM, 4K EEPROM, and can be programmed in "real" C or Arduino. It's also very small in case you didn't get that from its name :)
    – Blue Okiris
    Feb 22, 2017 at 16:16
  • 1
    These are opinions. So I'll keep them in the comments. The only recent "bare bones" attempt widely done was to interface a RaspberryPi GPIO port to a TTL level bare color LCD screen. Even then, the color depth suffered. LVDS would add the complexity of balanced pair HW. Maybe, if you worked hard at it, you could get an ARM core Arduino to work. But it may be much easier to take @Tri 's advice and find the OEM of the LCD and work backwards from there.
    – st2000
    Feb 22, 2017 at 16:58

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
4

I realize this is an ancient question, but just in case someone else has one of these things, I'll share what I know. I have one of these Sharp LCDs that I typically use as a monitor for a Commodore 64. I believe mine was originally from a rear seat DVD player in a Ford Explorer.

Looking at the rear of the unit, with the two connectors on the bottom, the leftmost connector is CN2 and the rightmost is CN1. I know nothing of CN2, but here's what I know about CN1:

Pins 1 through 15, from left to right:

  1. NTSC composite video in
  2. ground
  3. ground
  4. ?
  5. +12VDC in
  6. ?
  7. ?
  8. ?
  9. ?
  10. ?
  11. ?
  12. +12VDC in
  13. +12VDC in
  14. ground
  15. ground

I'm sure the other pins have additional functionality, but I'm not aware of it. Hopefully this helps someone.

EDIT: I found the datasheet in my files: https://byteshiftmusic.com/media/Sharp_LQ070T5CRQ2.pdf

Improve this answer
1
  • I don't even remember asking this question haha. Might still have it somewhere though, so thanks!
    – Blue Okiris
    Sep 13, 2021 at 22:04
3

Your best bet is to try to take the casing off until you find a company name so that you can get a lead on where to look for documentation. Because until you find out more about how that screen works, it's a black box to you and you don't know what to put in it. No one else will be able to help you until you provide more information to this extent because no one else can hold it in their hands, and the photo of the socket that you showed us doesn't look like a common display format either.

Also, you're very unlikely to make a PC-type thing out of this. That depends on the power of the computer behind the display and an arduino isn't that powerful. You want a Pi. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding what you want. You could easily get a scrolling text type thing going or maybe even a game (if you figure out how to make it work).

Edit: I just looked up a sample LCD screen and it has 6 signal pins and power and ground. Yours looks like it has a lot more. So you definitely have some digging to do.

Improve this answer

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.