Why you don't sell just the LCD adapter boards.

[vik]

You have several products which consist of an LCD screen and an 40 pin adapter board glued with dual sided tape on the back. Examples are A13-LCD43TS and A13-LCD7-TS. The boards on the back are quite universal (I have managed to successfully connect different LCDs after carefully ungluing them from the original one).

It would be nice if we could purchase just the board, without the attached LCD. Sometimes we need brighter displays and we could special order these, but the adapter is nice, because it fits well in the 40 pin cable.

You could also consider developing more adapter boards for other LCD displays with different pinouts. I think these would be popular.

Since you have to order the LCDs from China anyway, it would be cheaper for us to order them from there and ship only the boards from Bulgaria. It will make the shipment lighter too, so it would be cheaper.

[knarfootje]

+1

[olimex]

because the different LCDs do not have same voltages, neither same timing specs, neither same pinouts
this means everyone who get this board will have to experementally fix the voltges by replacing resisotrs and updating fex values to match LCDs

[vik]

Well, we are professionals. The LCD's have datasheets and if you provide the datasheet of the controller it is not that difficult to find a matching LCD. As a matter of fact, we can buy the same LCD, just ship it directly from China. This will be cheaper in 2 ways - we need to ship less weight from BG, and we can buy the LCD directly from the manufacturer. For you it shouldn't matter, as you only manufacture the controller and you can still sell it at profit.
As a note - I have tested the controller that came with the 4.3" LCD with a compatible 7" and it works fine.

[knarfootje]

I have tested the controller that came with the 4.3" LCD with a compatible 7" and it works fine. ?
Which compatible 7" did you find ?

[vik]

Hi knarfootje,

This one here:

7" inch 800x480 TFT LCD Display + Touch Panel, Standard 40 PIN RGB Interface
US $38.00 + Free shipping
http://www.ebay.com/itm/7-inch-800x480-TFT-LCD-Display-Touch-Panel-Standard-40-PIN-RGB-Interface-/170969957403?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27ce9a841b

There is a link to a PDF with the datasheet on the bottom of the above link.

FYI - I don't know who the manufacturer is, but it is probably easy to contact the Chinese seller. I didn't look for these specifically, I had a couple left from a different project.

I hope Olimex doesn't mind me posting the link above.

Regards,

Vik

[dave-at-axon]

Well, we are professionals. The LCD's have datasheets and if you provide the datasheet of the controller it is not that difficult to find a matching LCD.

For you and many others but have you seen the postings in the forum with questions on how to interface this to that and that to this. I can understand Olimex's unwillingness to do this as the customer support would be a nightmare considering how many questions they get on the current boards they sell. If your need is real, why not contact their commercial department direct and make an offer? I am pretty sure if you gave them a volume order they would work with you. If you needs are smaller, see below for an idea.

If you are a hardware engineer or have enough experience then you can grab a copy of the existing Eagle design and make your own boards to suit whatever LCD you want. I did this with a Touch Revolution Fusion display. It uses the same 40 pin connector to connect to the A20 but all of the parts are different to suit the different connectors for the LCD etc. I used DFRobot to get the PCB's made and you get 10 boards for the price. Very affordable.

If your need is commercial with lots of boards, do a prototype as above and then use someone like Myro PCB to get your boards made. They are mote than willing to do small runs and their service and pricing is good. They can even purchase all the parts for your boards. They use Digikey as the primary source so you know the parts are good.

[vik]

To be honest, I have just been looking for the easy way. Of course I could do any of the things that you propose. But if I could just order a few boards and pay with PayPal - done!
Unfortunately we, the professionals, are overwhelmed with many projects and often do not have the time to go the long way. Besides, I am still building a test case for feasibility study. I have to show that the thing works and present some cost estimates. Only then I might be given the budget to call Olimex and make them an offer (hopefully such that they cannot refuse) 
Anyway, thank you for the insightful comments. I guess that I might end-up following your advice, eventually.