LCD display and IR remote control

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LCD d is p lay an d IR re m o te co n tro l

Home > Technical information > LCD display and IR remote control

Brief explanation

The device that this page is devoted to describing is an LCD

display with an infrared detector, connecting to a
com puter. There are pages up all over the internet which
describe how to wire up an IR detector so that your
com puter can be rem ote controlled, and other pages which
describe various LCD displays that people have connected
to computers.

I have com bined the two into a box which sits on m y desk.
It allows m e to control m y com puter in various ways from
alm ost anywhere in m y room . It also displays the current
tim e (although I have a clock on m y com puter screen, a
watch on m y wrist, an alarm clock, and a stereo which also
happens to tell the tim e when not in use, so this isnt
particularly useful), along with various displays such as

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CPU usage, network usage graphs, whether I have new

em ail or not, how m uch RAM is free, whether we are
online, and so on ad nauseum.
The rem ote control allows m e to easily cue up various
pieces of m usic to play, control the volum e, and will
hopefully be extended to do other things eventually.
The software that I am using is a real m ess. It currently
runs under Linux 2.4.x only, and requires various other
tools that Ive written to control the m usic, and is highly
custom ised to m y com puter. The infrared part uses the
LIRC (Linux Infrared Remote Control) drivers.

The LCD connects to the the parallel port, the infrared

device sends data through the serial port, and an AC m ains
adaptor supplies power to the whole works.

Circuit schematics
I have a detailed circuit diagram here for online viewing
and also in PDF format for printing.

Construction details
Part 1
[Wednesday, June 6]

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Recently, I connected an LCD display to m y com puter. It

was a Dick Sm ith Z-4142 Backlit LCD, which is for all
practical purposes identical to the HD44780 displays
which are described all over the internet.
The standard way of connecting these displays is to wire
them up to the parallel port. Unfortunately, you need to
have an external power supply because the parallel port
supplies only a tiny am ount of current. I am using a 12-volt

plug pack and a 78 0 5 voltage regulator to m ake sure that

the voltage across the LCD is 5 volts.
The back light requires a m axim um of four volts. I am
using a 33-ohm resistor connected in series to achieve this.

As you can see, there isnt much external circuitry required.

The large blue thing is a 10 k trim pot for controlling
contrast. It isnt needed, I have it perm anently set to the
highest-contrast setting (pulled to ground). Behind it, you
can alm ost m ake out the 33-ohm resistor in series with the

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back light. To the left of the trim pot, there is the 780 5
voltage regulator and a diode to prevent m e from
accidentally frying everything by connecting the power
supply backwards. Behind it, you can vaguely see a
transistor and a resistor for switching the back light on and
off via the computer.
Part 2
[Thursdayish]

The next stage was to put this beast in a box, so that the
unsightly wires were hidden away, rather than all over m y
desk. Since Im totally inept when it comes to such things, I
ended up with a fairly m essy-looking enclosure. Although
once everything was in place, it was harder to notice things
like the rectangular cut-out for the display which had
wonky lines. The rear connectors turned out even worse,
but these are normally hidden away from sight.
Part 3
[Saturday, June 9]

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The IR detector led was originally m ounted fairly neatly in

a 7m m hole in the front of the box; however, it didnt pick
up the rem ote properly like that, so its now held to the
front of the box with sticky tape. The legs of the IR led now
go through the hole, which is covered up by the
aforem entioned tape. The picture on the right shows this
undesirable set-up.
I found a a description on LIRC.ORG of how to m ake a
serial port IR detector. It works by rapidly toggling the
DCD signal line when a signal is received, which m eans
that it requires m ore CPU power than devices like the
IRman; however, it cost roughly an eighth of the price:
everything I needed, for the IR circuit, including a 1.8m
serial connector, cost me around $10.

Most of the hard work is done by the IR led. I used Dick

Sm ith part Z-1955, which unfortunately seem s to have a
fairly lim ited range. The rest of the circuit is just to supply
power to the LED, a capacitor (which is apparently
necessary, although Im not sure what it does exactly), a
diode to reduce the dam age that m y stupid m istakes cause,
and a pull-up resistor connected to a +ve line on the serial
connector. The resistor is necessary because the IR led is
active-low, and will pull its output to ground when it
detects a pulse, but wont necessarily return it to a positive
level afterwards. I used the value recom m ended by the led
data sheet rather than the LIRC.ORC page, although it
shouldnt really matter either way.
Also unlike the page referenced above, m y IR device is

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powered by the sam e supply as the LCD, rather than the

serial port, for two reasons: (a) its less likely to overload
the serial port hardware; and (b) I didnt need to find a
second 7805 to achieve 5 volts.

Pin numbers for components

Below is a list of pin assignm ents used on the various
com ponents in this box. The 780 5 pins are num bered from
left to right with the writing facing you and the heatsink at
the back. The IR led is num bered from left to right with the
lens facing you.
Pin 7805

Z-1955 IR receiver

Input

Vout (data)

Ground Ground

Output Vcc (+ve supply)

Serial port pin

DB25 DB9

TD/TX (Transmit)

RD/RX (Receive)

RTS (Request to send)

CTS (Clear to send)

DSR (Data set ready)

GND (Ground)

DCD (Data carrier detect) 8

DTR (Data terminal ready) 20

Parallel port pin Function

1

Strobe

D0

D1

D2

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D3

D4

D5

D6

D7

10

Acknowledge

11

Busy

12

Paper out

13

Select

14

Auto linefeed

15

Error

16

Initialise

17

Select

18 25

Ground

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Last updated on Sunday, 29 September 2002.
Written by Cameron Patrick. Email: <cameron@patrick.wattle.id.au>.

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