In the process of prototyping and developing a product, at some point you move from your developer tools to the components that you’ll actually be using for the product. This is always a frantic thing for me because it tests my understanding of what I’m working with, and if I got things right.
With my development tools like the plug-and-play display module I’ve been using, I know that if there are problems it’s very likely that I made the mistake. The module is pretty reliable, and the manufacturer that sells it has probably made a few hundred thousand of these and sold them to a lot of people.
Today I finally managed to plug in one of my bare displays. I ordered about 60 of these a month or two ago and they’ve been sitting on my shelf. I had thought that I’d be able to directly solder the ribbon cable to the board. A few experiments proved that that wasn’t going to work out. On the back of the ribbon cable of the display is a piece of plastic for reinforcing the contacts. It made too big of a gap. Removing it was tough and even after I got it off the contacts were in bad shape. I tried to solder them without success.
So in my design I put in a connector for the cable. I’m still waiting for parts and the boards, but in the meantime I got an adapter and hooked everything up to a prototyping board. One step closer to the bare components. I’m absolutely delighted that plugging in one of these displays with my circuit layout resulted in a working display. One step closer!
