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Originally Posted by jackbauer
Just purchased the display from 4d systems so will hopefully be able to help out with this project. Have you any pics of the display and information on connecting the hardare?
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I have attached some pics of where I am at the moment, quality not great, sorry about that. The first one shows a screen shot of the 4d display. Top 2 rows is the raw ascii string from the, well in this case my Arduino. Then you have the actual values converted from the ascii string, stored in variables and displayed on screen with some other diagnostic info to help in program debuging.
The second picture shows the display, arduino and laptop with the Arduino serial monitor running. This allows me to see what the arduino is sending, again useful for debuging. So far I have not actually connected the 4d display to the actual cougar controller, been working in the warmth of my house instead of in the garage with the car, where the controller is, but the arduino provides a useful data stream to test the software against.
Actual connection to the controller will be up to individual requirements. In my case I also plan on using the displays 2nd serial uart to connect to my bms. The bms will also supply 5v and earth for the display. Just have to make sure the earths are common between the controller and bms. I will use the spark fun rs232 level shifter I mentioned in the first post of this thread to connect the controllers serial port to the display. The same warnings I posted about not connecting the serial port directly to the arduino also apply here. The 4d displays are 3.3 volt ttl serial, but are 5 volt tolerant. On the 4d site they recommend using a resistor on the 4d rx pin when connecting it to a 5v ttl signal, I am using a 330 ohm for this.
Another option would be to power the display from the control board. It should be a fairly simple matter to bring out a 4 conductor cable with 5 volt, earth, rx and tx at ttl levels for connection to the display. It is up to individual users to check and double check their connections as I imagine it wouldn't be difficult to let out the magic smoke on one of these displays if you get the connections wrong.