Noritake VFD specs

Anyone have any Noritake VFD specs? I've downloaded their "limited" specifications, which amount to about a page ... not much help. Their full specs take days for them to get around to sending to you.

Anyone already have these specs? (does the Empeg use Noritake VFDs?)

Greg

Yes, we use noritake VFDs. However, we've never had a full spec as .pdf, only ever on paper - but we do have some one-page ones as pdfs.

Very strange, if you ask me...

Hugo

Hugo, would you happen to know if there's a way to put the display in some self-test mode, like by shorting a jumper or something like that?

Greg

The display used in the empeg design has no onboard intelligence. It requires an external processor to do anything at all, I'm afraid.

Patrick

Like patrick said, it's a dumb piece of glass. None of the noritake units, even the intelligent modules, have anything but shift registers and pixel drivers in the glass - all the smarts are on the accompanying PCB along with the power supply.

Hugo

Ahh okay. I guess I was hoping there was something I could do to test it and see if it more or less works by applying power to a couple of pins.

I now have three of these devices (4x20 alphanumeric vfd's) ... only one is fully functioning with the serial controller. One of the other serial controllers is permanently fried. But the last one, the controller works, but the VFD doesn't light up. It's like the contrast is down, but these guys don't have a contrast setting, right?

I've tried swapping the good controller onto another VFD, but no different results. While fiddling with a multimeter I managed to somehow get this half-broken display working again, I have no idea how. But when I unplugged it to move it to another location, it reverted to it's original non-display state.

Greg