Nokia 5110 Black Screen

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LordNeil
 
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Joined: Sun Apr 27, 2014 3:41 pm

Nokia 5110 Black Screen

Post by LordNeil »

Hi all.
I'm trying to get an Arduino nano & a Nokia 5110 screen working together. I have gone though the adafruit tutorial and for a time had it working. I had it working with & without the logic level shifter. When I mounted the setup into an enclosure, all I got was a black screen (every pixel on). I did notice that if I held the screen at a sharp angle, I could see the image on the screen , through the black.

I replaced the Arduino & screen for new, but it's still the same. I took it all back to bread board level but still no change.
I got another couple of screens & Arduinos, just to make sure the hardware is okay. But again still no good.

I have not altered the code after I had it working the first time, but I did also test with the adafruit pcd test code.

I'm at a loss. Please help.

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adafruit_support_mike
 
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Joined: Thu Feb 11, 2010 2:51 pm

Re: Nokia 5110 Black Screen

Post by adafruit_support_mike »

It sounds like running the display without a level shifter killed the LCD driver.

The driver runs at 3v, and sending 5v signals to it can (and eventually will) destroy the input circuits. We include an HEF4050 level shifter (which is specifically designed to survive input signals higher than its supply voltage) for exactly that reason.

LordNeil
 
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Apr 27, 2014 3:41 pm

Re: Nokia 5110 Black Screen

Post by LordNeil »

GeoSnake Cct Drawing.jpg
GeoSnake Cct Drawing.jpg (114.41 KiB) Viewed 314 times
That's sort of what I thought. When I re-read the wiring instructions, I noticed that I could use the 3v3 output from the arduino. Thats why I took out the shifter.

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adafruit_support_mike
 
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Re: Nokia 5110 Black Screen

Post by adafruit_support_mike »

An Arduino running at 5v has an output pin connected to a 3.3v regulator, but its digital pins will flip between 0v and 5v.

There are a few Arduinos that run from a 3.3v supply (the LilyPad, Pro Mini, and Fio), and those don't need a level shifter when talking to the 5110's controller. The Nano is a 5v device though.

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