CWLinux CW12832

[Captain Ron]

I am considering getting one of the CWLinux CW12832 displays for my NAS. It is primarily to replace a 3 1/2 bay that I cut to allow for my old CF install. But I also want to see some data from the system, if I could.

I also want to know if the panel buttons of this LCD are supported in any way by N4F - IE, can I use them to interact with the OS? Any thoughts on this?

[Captain Ron]

Been a while since I mentioned this, and just as long to order the actual device. Now that I have it, I figured I would share my findings on this guy. It's a pretty nice display, if small. But covers the spot where I had my old CF card inserted. So I think it works well. Here is a stock picture:



So about my install. Hook up was a little tricky because they don't believe in color coding or numbering. The user manual doesn't give much information, not even describing the USB connector, which is the same as the serial port.



Fortunately, if you pull the datasheet, they do give a little more information



It doesn't make up for the stupid cable that just seems to have 4 random wires. It didn't follow the standard Red-White-Green-Black USB color scheme, nor were red-black the power/ground wires, so paying close attention was important. Outside of that, not a huge deal, installation was pretty standard.

A little tricker was the LCDproc setup. LCDproc does support the device, so the driver was the Stock CwLnx driver. Port,Wait & Title speed were left alone. Drive parameters were not



Deciphering the dmesg output was a bit of a challenge, to figoure out that this

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ugen1.3: <Prolific Technology Inc.> at usbus1
uplcom0: <Prolific Technology Inc. USB-Serial Controller, class 0/0, rev 1.10/3.00, addr 3> on usbus1

And really just figuring out that in this case, it appears at /dev/ttyU0 (not /dev/ttyUSB0). Once that was done, the setup was just plug in the values and go

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# USB connected CwLinux CW12832
Model = 12832
# Select the LCD model [default: 12232; legal: 12232, 12832, 1602]
Device = /dev/ttyU0
# Select the output device to use [default: /dev/lcd] May be serial device or USB device in serial emulation mode.
Size = 21x4
# Select the LCD size [default: depending on model: 12232: 20x4, 12832: 21x4] 1602: 16x2]
# Speed = { 9600 | 19200 }
# Set the the baud rate for communication with the LCD. If not given, the default is 19200.
# Reboot = { yes | no }
# Reinitialize the LCD's BIOS [default: no; legal: yes, no] normally you shouldn't need this
Keypad = yes
# Tells if you have a keypad connected. Keypad layout is currently not configurable from the config file.
# KeyMap_A = KEY , KeyMap_B = KEY , KeyMap_C = KEY , KeyMap_D = KEY , KeyMap_E = KEY , KeyMap_F = KEY
# If you have a non standard keypad you can associate any keystrings to keys. There are 6 input key in the CwLnx hardware that generate characters from 'A' to 'F'. Legal values for KEY are Up, Down, Left, Right, Enter and Escape.
Backlight=yes

or sans the comments

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Device = /dev/ttyU0
Model = 12832
Size = 21x4
Keypad = yes
Backlight=yes

I don't know if the Backlight command makes a difference.

Beyond that, I didn't make many changes ... YET. Soon maybe.

The results, not too bad





It is a little on the small side. But it does what I want for now. I hope this helps someone who might check out this CW Linux product as an option.

[zoon01]

I have one test unit received and can confirm its working perfectly!
It's added to our wiki

Here you find the product details and shop:
http://www.cwlinux.com/products/cw12832