Where to buy 'custom' LCD's?

Hi,

just thought I'd ask people, where can I get hold of some 'custom' LCD displays?
I'm not talking about desinging the signs/characters/shapes myself, and I'm not talking about intelligent LCD's (like HD44780 and a-like).

I always se HD44780, or graphic LCD's with on-board controllers, but Some of my little projects aren't worth using them. To give you an idea of the sort of thing I want, heres a link to a pic:

https://www.olimex.com/dev/msp-413stk2.html

Its from a MSP dev board, I would buy the board, but I only really want the LCD, with little counters/symbols. Considering how many products these days have custom LCD's there must be some surplus out there.........and many are used in microcontroller/FPGA dev boards.

I realise that the symbols on the custom LCD would depend entirely on the app (obviously, the reason for using custom displays as opposed to generic LCD's) but a few little special symbols would be handy.

Awaiting any advice.

BuriedCode.

Hello,
You can checkout the local spares market for VCD or DVD players (the cheap chinese variety) LCD display. They come for pretty cheap pricing (below $1) and have backlighting and uses a three wire serial interface. The LCDs are designed in such a way that they look like VFD displays. Just dig the local scrap market or spares market and you will find what you are looking for(depends on your imagination on how to adapt your circuit to them)

hey, thanks for the response

Thats a pretty damn good suggestion. I mean, I immediately thought of 'ripping' them out of broken electronics products, but for some reason, completely forgot about vcrs!! They usually have led display (or backlit LCDs with special filters as you rightly pointed out) and some show the animation of the tape rolling, rewinding etc..

uses a three wire serial interface.

Click to expand...

Sounds sweet! Although I said 'not intelligent' what I actually meant was, that, intelligent LCD's are nearly always a pixel/character matrix...no special symbols. But, if they are simple to interface (and only need a few connections) AND have special symbols, then thats just a bonus.

The pause/rec/play/stop would be fantasic for a homemade mp3 player!!

Right, off to search the web...and the streets.

Thanks again.

BuriedCode.