Nokia 6610, 3530(3510i) Color LCDs and the AVR

After successfully testing out the monochromatic 3310 LCD with the AVR, it was time to test  out the color LCDs that I had purchased. Scouring the Internet I figured out that the easiest ones to interface would be the ones from the Nokia 6610 and the 3530. The 3530 and 3510i are supposed to be the same LCDs.

The 6610 LCD comes with 2 different controllers. The Epson S1D15G10 and the Philips PCF8833. You can find some images here. If you got one with an Philips controller, you are lucky. The Philips controller is supposed to be pretty robust, while the Epson is supposed to be very tricky to get right due to its over sensitive nature to voltages and settings. I was not lucky enough to get a display with a Philips controller. Damn it. Nevertheless, I tried to get the display right. After working on it for days, all I got was an orangish display. No true colors. I was able to display whatever I wanted, but in just one color, Orange. This problem was widely reported on the Net.

The good thing about the 6610 LCD is that it has backlight LEDs already mounted. The 3530 LCD does not have backlight and this can be tricky to set up and color LCDs. You need really powerful, tiny white LEDs to evenly light the LCD from the back. Unless you have a support board, this can be tricky to get right.

After having spent at least 16-20 hours trying to get the 6610 display right, I moved on to the 3530 display that has a lesser resolution of about 97×66, but is good enough for most tasks. I got a display within few hours of work. But when I try to execute the PASET command, the one that sets the cursor on a row you specify, it skips a row! For example, if you are trying to draw a rectangle using a line fill algorithm, the alternate rows would be skipped.  I tried various workarounds, but to no relief. So, I have to sadly let go of my experiments with color. I am wasting too much time and soldering lead on this.