PIC16F18345 VFD driver PCB

Once I had assembled our first prototype vacuum fluorescent display (VFD) driver circuit board, it's tempting to connect it right up to our salvaged VFD and bask in its glow. But that would have been premature: there were bugs still to be ironed out with potential for fatal errors to damage or destroy our one and only salvaged VFD.

The first tests were what we used to test our bread board prototype: drive a 4-digit 7-segment LED, a Lite-On LTC4627-JR from my earlier PIC display driver project. From there I could verify 8 of 11 segments on this driver board functioned as expected by a demo program that constantly flips between two patterns, one spells "Hello" and the other "Ahoy".

I then tested the I²C capability with a small update, changing the second pattern from "Anoy" to a very mutilated "MLE". (It's hard to do "M" on 7 segments.)

https://twitter.com/Regorlas/status/1116112472212008960

These experiments exposed a few minor bugs, just as tests were supposed to. After they were fixed I expanded my test with a second LTC4627-JR for eight total segments. I also expanded my use of I²C by continuously updating all digits from Raspberry Pi to create a text marquee. This experiment exposed some timing issues that is visible as a slight lag just as the "u" in "thank you" came up on screen.

https://twitter.com/Regorlas/status/1116149802767532032

That lag was diagnosed to my code inside a timer interrupt service routine (ISR). On a simple chip like this PIC, a hardware interrupt signal could not interrupt another ISR already in progress. So when my code inside a timer ISR grew beyond a certain point, it started interfering with timely response to hardware interrupts necessary for I²C communication. The solution is to put my timer ISR on a severe diet, moving almost all of its bulk elsewhere so that I²C handlers could run with minimal interference.

Once the software problems were sorted out, I started experimenting with the flexibility given by this project's design decision to keep PIC code simple. It meant I could play with patterns that have nothing to do with displaying letters or text. I decided to try a pattern that keeps a single lighted segment running through the display in a figure 8. When cycled through all digits like a text marquee, it gave us a neat looking wave. I look forward to more experiments in driving a multi-segmented display in unusual ways.

https://twitter.com/Regorlas/status/1117588376222224384