16x2 lcd display pinout quotation

16×2 LCD is named so because; it has 16 Columns and 2 Rows. There are a lot of combinations available like, 8×1, 8×2, 10×2, 16×1, etc. But the most used one is the 16*2 LCD, hence we are using it here.

All the above mentioned LCD display will have 16 Pins and the programming approach is also the same and hence the choice is left to you. Below is the Pinout and Pin Description of 16x2 LCD Module:

These black circles consist of an interface IC and its associated components to help us use this LCD with the MCU. Because our LCD is a 16*2 Dot matrix LCD and so it will have (16*2=32) 32 characters in total and each character will be made of 5*8 Pixel Dots.  A Single character with all its Pixels enabled is shown in the below picture.

So Now, we know that each character has (5*8=40) 40 Pixels and for 32 Characters we will have (32*40) 1280 Pixels. Further, the LCD should also be instructed about the Position of the Pixels.

It will be a hectic task to handle everything with the help of MCU, hence an Interface IC like HD44780 is used, which is mounted on LCD Module itself. The function of this IC is to get the Commands and Data from the MCU and process them to display meaningful information onto our LCD Screen.

The LCD can work in two different modes, namely the 4-bit mode and the 8-bit mode. In 4 bit mode we send the data nibble by nibble, first upper nibble and then lower nibble. For those of you who don’t know what a nibble is: a nibble is a group of four bits, so the lower four bits (D0-D3) of a byte form the lower nibble while the upper four bits (D4-D7) of a byte form the higher nibble. This enables us to send 8 bit data.

As said, the LCD itself consists of an Interface IC. The MCU can either read or write to this interface IC. Most of the times we will be just writing to the IC, since reading will make it more complex and such scenarios are very rare. Information like position of cursor, status completion interrupts etc. can be read if required, but it is out of the scope of this tutorial.

The Interface IC present in most of the LCD is HD44780U,in order to program our LCD we should learn the complete datasheet of the IC. The datasheet is given here.

There are some preset commands instructions in LCD, which we need to send to LCD through some microcontroller. Some important command instructions are given below:

The Displaytech 162GCOG series is a lineup of 16x2 character chip-on-glass LCD modules. These modules have an 65x27.7 mm outer dimension with 61x15.7 mm viewing area on the display. The 162GCOG 16x2 LCD display series has the controller mounted directly onto the LCD glass. The chip-on-glass (COG) technology allows for a cost-effective system build since the display does not require a PCB. Get a quote directly from Displaytech for the 16x2 COG character LCD display from the 162GCOG series.

The Displaytech 162G series is a lineup of 16x2 character LCD modules. These modules have an 80x36 mm outer dimension with 66x16 mm viewing area on the display. The 162G 16x2 LCD displays are available in STN or FSTN LCD modes with or without an LED backlight. The backlight color options include yellow green, white, blue, pure green, or amber color. Get a free quote direct from Displaytech for a 16x2 character LCD display from the 162G series.

We come across Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) displays everywhere around us. Computers, calculators, television sets, mobile phones, and digital watches use some kind of display to display the time.

An LCD screen is an electronic display module that uses liquid crystal to produce a visible image. The 16×2 LCD display is a very basic module commonly used in DIYs and circuits. The 16×2 translates a display of 16 characters per line in 2 such lines. In this LCD, each character is displayed in a 5×7 pixel matrix.

Contrast adjustment; the best way is to use a variable resistor such as a potentiometer. The output of the potentiometer is connected to this pin. Rotate the potentiometer knob forward and backward to adjust the LCD contrast.

A 16X2 LCD has two registers, namely, command and data. The register select is used to switch from one register to other. RS=0 for the command register, whereas RS=1 for the data register.

Command Register: The command register stores the command instructions given to the LCD. A command is an instruction given to an LCD to do a predefined task. Examples like:

Data Register: The data register stores the data to be displayed on the LCD. The data is the ASCII value of the character to be displayed on the LCD. When we send data to LCD, it goes to the data register and is processed there. When RS=1, the data register is selected.

Generating custom characters on LCD is not very hard. It requires knowledge about the custom-generated random access memory (CG-RAM) of the LCD and the LCD chip controller. Most LCDs contain a Hitachi HD4478 controller.

CG-RAM address starts from 0x40 (Hexadecimal) or 64 in decimal. We can generate custom characters at these addresses. Once we generate our characters at these addresses, we can print them by just sending commands to the LCD. Character addresses and printing commands are below.

LCD modules are very important in many Arduino-based embedded system designs to improve the user interface of the system. Interfacing with Arduino gives the programmer more freedom to customize the code easily. Any cost-effective Arduino board, a 16X2 character LCD display, jumper wires, and a breadboard are sufficient enough to build the circuit. The interfacing of Arduino to LCD display is below.

The combination of an LCD and Arduino yields several projects, the most simple one being LCD to display the LED brightness. All we need for this circuit is an LCD, Arduino, breadboard, a resistor, potentiometer, LED, and some jumper cables. The circuit connections are below.

Dark on light gray sunlight readable 16x2 character LCD with single LED backlight included. All pins and functionality is documented in the datasheet. Contrast can be easily adjusted with a potentiometer or PWM. Each row holds 16 characters there are 2 rows per module.

Bought this from Robotshop retailer. Worked right away like a charm. I even changed splash screen to display my software version. However at some point it stopped displaying text, then backlight started spontaneously switching off several seconds after powering on. I connected LCD to different device and started experimenting just sending one command at a time.

ALL 0xFE commands work just fine. I am able to switch display on/off, change between underline and blinking cursor, directly position cursor on screen and scroll screen around. 0x7C commands work too, I can control backlight and turn splash screen on/off. Reset 0x12 also works.

The only thing that does not work is actual text display. I tried all acsii characters at different cursor locations. It seems that something is going on, at least cursor jumps to 2nd line after printing 16 characters (does not move otherwise), except characters are invisible. Note that splash screen still works, with exact text I put there!

My only complaint with this product is the difficulty in mounting. Finally had to drill out the holes to accept 4-40 standoffs. The Eagle files don"t include the complete board so making a screw hole template from the PCB is impossible. Otherwise works fine with my stand alone Atmega 328P using the SerLCD.h and SoftwareSerial.h libraries.

Does anybody know how to do a hard reset on this LCD? While I was uploading my code, I left it plugged into TX, and it doesn"t work anymore. I"m realizing that it probably got spammed with commands and the configuration got messed up. Does anybody know how to reset to factory defaults?

I have the same question. I now have the 3.3v serial enabled LCD (with backpack) and want to use this one for future usage. VDD of 5V can be supplied, but will the TTL work when its getting 3.3V signals from the TX from Netduino?

I"ve put together some python code for sending serial data to these LCD screens. In particular, the code pulls my twitter status and writes it to the LCD. To work with the extra characters, I wrote functions to page the text (vertical scroll) or scroll the text (horizontal scroll). Details are available here: http://dawes.wordpress.com/2009/12/23/twitter-to-lcd/

Is it possible to wire this up in parrellel rather than use the serial function? I ran into a snag and am unable to use the serial function of this lcd? I see the pinouts on the schematic but when wired it doesn"t seem to work.

I"ve created a new splash screen for the Serial LCD, now I want to save it to the Serial LCD memory. So, exactly how do I write a "control-j" to the Serial LCD. I"ve put in the required line to transmit special character 124, but I can figure out how to format the "control-j" line of code. I"ve Googled this for about an hour and can"t find an explanation or sample code anywhere. Here"s my code...void setup() {

I"m not sure if you"re referring to comments on the website, or on your LCD screen. You can contact techsupport@ and they"ll be able to assist you further.

I have used a Labview program for this LCD. When i send character "a", the display is "0". Does anyone having a same problem. How should I troubleshoot this problem.Tq

Has anyone managed to get the PWM backlighting working with an Arduino? I"m trying variations of this and nothing works except the standard On/Off commands using 0xFE as the escape. All my attempts turn the display off but the backlight LED is on full.

Why do I get power out of the VDD port with only RX and GND hooked up? I have a 5V rail that I use to power everything on my board - and when I added this SerLCD I now have a bridge between the arduino power and my 5v line ... which I dont want. Can I add a diode to the VDD to stop reverse voltage from powering my board?

It seems like the MCLR function has been disabled through the config bits. No pullup to Vdd is installed. This makes it really irritating to work with this display. Programming an arduino with this hooked the HW serial port will screw up the display, and without the reset line you have to pull power. A simple solution would just be to wire the PICs MCLR pin to the Arduinos reset line, but this isn"t possible without the MCLR function obviously.

Quick suggestion... It"d be very helpful for some people if you guys added a note in the description pointing people to the correct 3-pin JST jumper wire to be used with these serial LCDs. Two reasons... it"s not clear that the jumper is not included, and you have 3-pin jumpers in your catalog which don"t work with this serial LCD.

I have ported LiquidCrystal library for use with the serial LCD you can look at my code here. Still working on finishing all the documentation. But putting up for now hopefully someone will find it usefull.

I"m also having the same problem after accidentally sending the control character "|" followed by "\", "-", "/" to the LCD as I was trying to animate a rotating bar to indicate a busy status.

The baud rate problem can be solved by writing at 9600, at startup, a "change baud rate" command to the target rate. At worst, the display is already at the target rate and will misinterpret the command and display garbage, at best, it will be set to the right baud rate.

Does the serial version of the display still have the parallel pins available on it? I would like to use the serial access for the most part, but I might need regular old parallel for one project.

Yes you can, but you are limited to only 8 custom characters. First define 8 bytes that will hold your custom character, one byte per line (obviously only the lower 5 bits can be used since this is a 5x8 display). Then decide which character (from 0-7) you want to set. Call this "x". Then do this pseudocode:

I"m surprised that a mechanical drawing is not included in the data sheet. It"s not too hard to measure but seems like a documentation oversight for anyone who wants to integrate the display into a case.

Having ordered this exact LCD myself, I can say that aside from the issue mentioned in my other comment, it looks exactly like the picture. No bulky backpack module, everything is on a single board. Pretty sleek, really.

Hi...noob question. how do i send data on the fly via arduino? it only has 1 connection to tx. i tried using the serial monitor to send something, but it doesnt work...im looking for something which i guess is similar to liquidCrystal->SerialDisplay example.

Nevermind, my own fault. I calculated the wrong offset to the start of the second line when I repositioned the cursor. Although the second line was displayed correctly, the offset was wrong by -32.

The data stream I tapped into once inadvertently changed the backlight level to something less than 100%, and I noticed that the dimmed display had a noticeable flicker.

I have a couple of suggestions for a future version: On the PCB layout, please add a thermal to the ground pin for the user connectors to make it easier to hand solder. Please change the firmware to make it more difficult for a random serial stream to stumble upon a configuration sequence. Maybe pick a non-printable prefix character like ESC instead of the vertical bar. Please make the brightness values more user friendly, like 1, 2, 3, etc. Maybe have an option to make the display scroll when it gets full, instead of resetting the cursor to home and overwriting. All-in-all, a fun little platform. Thanks for using a PIC on this one! I think I may try my hand at writing some new firmware for it. Cheers!

Edit: Got mine fixed. If you checked the soldering on all the terminals, check them again. I also sometimes was getting strings of garbage if I wriggled the terminals on the LCD (I suspect because I was getting a partial connection on the bad terminal). Resoldered and it is working fine now.

Wait, so I get the 3 pins for power and control, but whats with all the other pins on the sides? Can it be used to control another LCD besides the one built in?

The other pins are used if you want to control the LCD without using the serial standard. There"s some tutorials on how to do that with the arduino below. You have more control over what you can do with it, but it takes up more pins on the arduino. If you want to wire it up this way, don"t spend the money on the serial interface, they have cheaper LCD"s that allow you to do it this way, without the serial.

This tutorial includes everything you need to know about controlling a character LCD with Arduino. I have included a wiring diagram and many example codes. These displays are great for displaying sensor data or text and they are also fairly cheap.

The first part of this article covers the basics of displaying text and numbers. In the second half, I will go into more detail on how to display custom characters and how you can use the other functions of the LiquidCrystal Arduino library.

As you will see, you need quite a lot of connections to control these displays. I therefore like to use them with an I2C interface module mounted on the back. With this I2C module, you only need two connections to control the LCD. Check out the tutorial below if you want to use an I2C module as well:

These LCDs are available in many different sizes (16×2 1602, 20×4 2004, 16×1 etc.), but they all use the same HD44780 parallel interface LCD controller chip from Hitachi. This means you can easily swap them. You will only need to change the size specifications in your Arduino code.

For more information, you can check out the datasheets below. The 16×2 and 20×4 datasheets include the dimensions of the LCD and in the HD44780 datasheet you can find more information about the Hitachi LCD driver.

Most LCDs have a built-in series resistor for the LED backlight. You should find it on the back of the LCD connected to pin 15 (Anode). If your display doesn’t include a resistor, you will need to add one between 5 V and pin 15. It should be safe to use a 220Ω resistor, but this value might make your display a bit dim. You can check the datasheet for the maximum current rating of the backlight and use this to select an appropriate resistor value.

After you have wired up the LCD, you will need to adjust the contrast of the display. This is done by turning the 10 kΩ potentiometer clockwise or counterclockwise.

Plug in the USB connector of the Arduino to power the LCD. You should see the backlight light up. Now rotate the potentiometer until one (16×2 LCD) or 2 rows (20×4 LCD) of rectangles appear.

In order to control the LCD and display characters, you will need to add a few extra connections. Check the wiring diagram below and the pinout table from the introduction of this article.

We will be using the LCD in 4-bit mode, this means you don’t need to connect anything to D0-D3. The R/W pin is connected to ground, this will pull the pin LOW and set the LCD to WRITE mode.

To control the LCD we will be using the LiquidCrystal library. This library should come pre-installed with the Arduino IDE. You can find it by going to Sketch > Include Library > LiquidCrystal.

The example code below shows you how to display a message on the LCD. Next, I will show you how the code works and how you can use the other functions of the LiquidCrystal library.

After including the library, the next step is to create a new instance of the LiquidCrystal class. The is done with the function LiquidCrystal(rs, enable, d4, d5, d6, d7). As parameters we use the Arduino pins to which we connected the display. Note that we have called the display ‘lcd’. You can give it a different name if you want like ‘menu_display’. You will need to change ‘lcd’ to the new name in the rest of the sketch.

In the loop() the cursor is set to the third column and first row of the LCD with lcd.setCursor(2,0). Note that counting starts at 0, and the first argument specifies the column. If you do not specify the cursor position, the text will be printed at the default home position (0,0) if the display is empty, or behind the last printed character.

Next, the string ‘Hello World!’ is printed with lcd.print("Hello World!"). Note that you need to place quotation marks (” “) around the text. When you want to print numbers or variables, no quotation marks are necessary.

Clears the LCD screen and positions the cursor in the upper-left corner (first row and first column) of the display. You can use this function to display different words in a loop.

This function turns off any text or cursors printed to the LCD. The text/data is not cleared from the LCD memory. This means it will be shown again when the function display() is called.

Scrolls the contents of the display (text and cursor) one space to the left. You can use this function in the loop section of the code in combination with delay(500), to create a scrolling text animation.

This function turns on automatic scrolling of the LCD. This causes each character output to the display to push previous characters over by one space. If the current text direction is left-to-right (the default), the display scrolls to the left; if the current direction is right-to-left, the display scrolls to the right. This has the effect of outputting each new character to the same location on the LCD.

The following example sketch enables automatic scrolling and prints the character 0 to 9 at the position (16,0) of the LCD. Change this to (20,0) for a 20×4 LCD.

With the function createChar() it is possible to create and display custom characters on the LCD. This is especially useful if you want to display a character that is not part of the standard ASCII character set.

Technical info: LCDs that are based on the Hitachi HD44780 LCD controller have two types of memories: CGROM and CGRAM (Character Generator ROM and RAM). CGROM generates all the 5 x 8 dot character patterns from the standard 8-bit character codes. CGRAM can generate user-defined character patterns.

/* Example sketch to create and display custom characters on character LCD with Arduino and LiquidCrystal library. For more info see www.www.makerguides.com */

After including the library and creating the LCD object, the custom character arrays are defined. Each array consists of 8 bytes, 1 byte for each row. In this example 8 custom characters are created.

In this article I have shown you how to use an alphanumeric LCD with Arduino. I hope you found it useful and informative. If you did, please share it with a friend that also likes electronics and making things!

I would love to know what projects you plan on building (or have already built) with these LCDs. If you have any questions, suggestions, or if you think that things are missing in this tutorial, please leave a comment down below.

FSTN Gray background, SPI Interface, RGB Edge-lit LED backlight, bottom (or 6:00) viewing angle, Transflective polarizer, 5-Volt LCD, 5-Volt LED, RoHS Compliant. This display has a wide temperature range: -20° Celcius to +70° Celcius which equates to (-4° Fahrenheit to +158° Fahrenheit).

FSTN (Film-compensated Super-twisted Nematic) provides a sharper contrast than STN by adding a film. The cost is approximately 5% higher than STN. FSTN works great for indoor and outdoor applications and is mainly used in graphic displays and higher end products. The Transflective polarizer is a mixture of Reflective and Transmissive. It provides the ability to read the LCD with or without the backlight on. It will work for all lighting conditions from dark with backlight to direct sunlight which makes it the most common choice. There is no cost difference between Transflective, Transmissive and Reflective.

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Focus Display Solutions (aka: Focus LCDs) offers the original purchaser who has purchased a product from the FocusLCDs.com a limited warranty that the product (including accessories in the product"s package) will be free from defects in material or workmanship.

Newhaven 16x2 character Liquid Crystal Display shows characters with dark pixels on a bright yellow/green background when powered on. This transflective LCD Display is visible with ambient light or a backlight while offering a wide operating temperature range from -20 to 70 degrees Celsius. This NHD-0216K3Z-FL-GBW-V3 display has an optimal view of 6:00. This display operates at 5V supply voltage and is RoHS compliant.

Adjust the length, position, and pinout of your cables or add additional connectors. Get a cable solution that’s precisely designed to make your connections streamlined and secure.

Easily modify any connectors on your display to meet your application’s requirements. Our engineers are able to perform soldering for pin headers, boxed headers, right angle headers, and any other connectors your display may require.

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Choose from a wide selection of changes including shape, size, pinout, and component layout of your PCB to make it a perfect fit for your application.