Adding yet More display options

Good day all!
I have a ton of old 4X20 VFD modules with the ability of either serial or parellel port comms. Now I've already added the RepRap discount LCD controller, and it works great (After I had to figure out where the code was). But, I also want to add the VFD display. Specificly to display the X,Y,Z data.

I kinda wanted to use 4X7 segment displays for each axis (Like the big CNC machines do), but I would have to design the 7 Seg hardware, mux/de-mux and serial interface first. Where-as the nice big VFD display would look cool and less design first.

In order to do this, I want to add another serial port on the arduino (Or more appropriately, the atmega2560). I've downloaded and installed Marlin 1.1 and with a bit of tweaking, the printer seems to be running fine.

Now looking at the code, I see the ability to add another serial for wifi, bluetooth ???. But, I need to specify which pins I will be using for simple serial communication for the VFD.

Arduino has a library called "SoftwareSerial" which will allow me to use ...... Pretty much any pins I want. (There are a few I can use on the atmega2560). But, I could have some issues.

1) SoftwareSerial looks like it uses an interrupt. Not sure if that would make a difference in the PD sampling of Marlin.
2) Could I use MarlinSerial.h (Etc) and just have another instance of that to use as a serial port. And if so, where can I define the pins to use.
3) Could I put it (The subroutines) in the LCD update call ???
4) or should I just mod Repieter host software ???

Any thoughts, Ideas, Comments, suggestions would be appreciated.

Cheers!

 

If you find a way to add a wifi module please tell me hoy you did it plz

 

I actualy haven't added a wifi module. Just saw the ability to do it in the Marlin 1.1 firmware. Looks pretty easy though. In Config.....h just enable the BT/Wifi entry. But, you will have to look a little deeper to find the pins associated with these modules. I would think it would be simple serial comms (Usually 4 pins associated. Gnd,Power, RxIn, TxOut) Both for bluetooth and wifi.

I scrounged both bluetooth and wifi modules from laptops, wireless cameras,etc. These are usually best if you yank them out of older laptops, as they are usally serial, rather than USB. You can do the same with USB, but the protocol is a little harder to figure out. Whereas serial, pretty simple.

Hope that helps.

Cheers!

 

Thanks for the reply. Yea, tried that already, but its a little difficult to "get" thru to some of those users. Typical (Why do that when you allready got it on the LCD). - grin

Development for fun is the best kind, and it's somewhat a downer when you have to ask the question 400 times before you get some sort of satisfactory answer. -

THanks!

Cheers!