Arduino lcd hook up

Common display configurations include 16 x 2, 16 x 4 and 20 x 4. All of these displays are used in a virtually identical fashion the only difference being the number of columns and rows they have. We will be using a 16 x 2 display in our experiments but you could substitute another configuration with some minor code changes. It is available in a number of different colors such as blue yellow and green and can easily be connected to an Arduino or Raspberry Pi.

The display consists of two rows of 16 characters each. It interfaces through a parallel data interface and has an LED backlight. In operation data is sent down the parallel data lines for the display. There are two types of data that can be sent to the display. The other type of data are the control characters that are used to activate the various display functions. The LCD display has 16 solder pads that you can use in a number of ways: Because the LCD module uses a parallel data input it requires 8 connections to the host microcontroller for the data alone. Add that to the other control pins and it consumes a lot of connections.

One way of reducing the number of connections required is to use 4-wire mode, and most projects that make use of this display do exactly that. In 4-wire mode the data is sent a half a byte at a time, thus requiring only 4 data connections. The upper half of the data input D4 to D7 is used while the other pins are not connected to anything.

All of the experiments that use direct connection to the LCD module will use 4-wire mode. Another method of reducing the number of connections to the display is to use the I2C adapter.


  • Using LCD Displays with Arduino?
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  • Arduino - LiquidCrystalDisplay!

We will discuss this further later in this article. This will allow you to get familiar with the display without needing to write any code. We need to hookup our LCD display to our Arduino. In addition to the LCD display ands the Arduino Uno you will need a 10K trimpot ot potentiometer, this is used a s a brightness control for the display. You can use these example sketches as a basis for developing your own code for the LCD display module. To access the example sketches perform the following steps: The sketch starts with a number of credits and a description of the required hardware hookup.

In the beginning of the actual code we load the LiquidCrystal library. In the setup routine we initialize the LCD for 16 x 2, if you are using a different LCD module you would change this accordingly. As we did not specify the cursor location this will print at the beginning of the first row. In the beginning of the loop we set our cursor to the first position in the second row.

Note that the row numbers start with zero so the second row is row 1. We then use the millis function to print out every second milliseconds on the display. That ends the loop, so we start back at the top of the loop and repeat. The result will be a counter on the second line that counts seconds from the htime the Arduino was last reset. Load the sketch up to your Arduino and observe your display. The second example we will try is the Scroll sketch.

In the loop the code demonstrates the use of the scrollDisplayLeft and scrollDisplayRight functions.

Arduino LCD: How to Connect a Liquid crystal display up to the Arduino - Pi My Life Up

As their names imply they move the text in a left or right direction. In each case the functions are encased in a for-next counter, for each increment the text is scrolled one position in the appropriate direction. There are three such counters. The first one scrolls the text left by 13 positions, which is enough to move it off the display to the left. The second counter moves the text 29 positions to the right, which will bring it back onto the display and then move it off to the right. Finally the last counter moves the text 16 positions to the left again, which will restore it back to the center of the display.

The loop then repeats itself. One final sketch to look at is the Custom Character sketch, as it illustrates an important concept. Custom characters are useful when you want to display a character that is not part of the standard character ASCII character set. Thi scan be useful for creating custom displays for your project. A character on the display is formed in a 5 x 8 matrix of blocks so you need to define your custom character within that matrix.

You are limited to defining a maximum of eight characters.

Connecting lcd to arduino uno without using potentiometer

To use createChar you first set up an array of bytes with 8 elements. Each element in the array defines one row of the character in the 5 x 8 matrix. You then us e createChar to assign a number from 0 to 7 to that array. The Custom Character demonstration requires one additional component to be wired to the Arduino, a potentiometer 10K or greater wired up to deliver a variable voltage to analog input pin A0.

Once you have that wired up you can proceed to load the sketch, examine it and then try it out.

Circuit Schematic

As with the previous sketches we examined this one starts by loading the LiquidCrystal library and defining an object called lcd with the connection information for the display. It then moves on to define the custom characters. Each character is defined as an array with 8 elements, the zeros and ones in the array indicate which elements in the character should be on and which ones should be off.

Five arrays are defined, although the sketch actually only used four of them. This is done to show how we can animate a character on the display. The setup begins by defining the size of the LCD display, just as the previous sketches did. Then the five custom characters are assigned a unique integer using the createChar function. Remember, you can define a maximum of eight custom characters in a sketch. Finally the setup routine ends by printing a line to the first row of the LCD display. This is optional for the other custom characters. We begin by reading the value of the voltage on pin A0 using the Arduino analogRead function.

As the Arduino has a bit analog to digital converter this will result in a reading ranging from 0 to We then use an Arduino map function to convert this reading into a range from to This value is then assigned to an integer called delayTime , which as its name implies represents a time delay period. First we set the cursor to the fifth position on the second row. We then draw our character with his or her? Next we delay by the amount of time specified by the delayTime variable.

Remember this value is determined by the position of the potentiometer. We then draw the character with arms up. And we repeat the same delay. This is the end of the loop so we go back to the top and do it all again. The end result is that our character wil wave his arms up and down at a speed determined by the position of the potentiometer.

Load the sketch and give it a run. Experiment with turning the controls and watch the little stick person in action! One thing you may have noticed about using the LCD display module with the Arduino is that it consumes a lot of connections. But there is another solution. It was developed by Philips Semiconductors in for use in the television industry. The bus has evolved to be used as an ideal method of communicating between microcontrollers, integrated circuits, sensors and micro computers.

You can use it to allow multiple Arduinos to talk to each other, to interface numerous sensors and output devices or to facilitate communications between a Raspberry Pi and one or more Arduinos. The bus only uses four connections, two of them are for power: In I2C communications there is the concept of Master and Slave devices. There can be multiples of each but there can only be one Master at any given moment.

In most Arduino applications one Arduino is designated Master permanently while the other Arduinos and peripherals are the Slaves. The Master transmits the clock signal which determines how fast the data on the bus is transferred. There are several clock speeds used with the I2C bus.

Arduino LCD Set Up and Programming Guide

The original design used KHz and KHz clocks. Faster rates of 3. For most Arduino designs a KHz clock frequency is used. Every device on the I2C bus has a unique address. When the Master wants to communicate with a Slave device it calls the Slaves address to initiate communications. These pins are meant to be connected directly to the pin connection on the LCD display or onto other displays that use the same connection scheme. The device also has a 4-pin connector for connection to the I2C bus.

In addition there is a small trimpot on the board, this is the LCD display brightness control. Most of these devices have three jumpers or solder pads to set the I2C address. This may need to be changed if you are using multiple devices on the same I2C bus or if the device conflicts with another I2C device.

The Arduino Uno uses two of the analog input pins as its I2C connection. Some models of the Uno have additional I2C connectors as well.

You can change the address of your adapter by shorting some of the solder pads on the board. Fortunately there is a simple way of doing this, thanks to the great work of Nick Gammon. It scans your I2C bus and gives you back the address of every I2C device it finds. Load this sketch into your Arduino then open your serial monitor.

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