sparkfun lcd module quotation

Assuming you"re powering the LCD with 5V, the HIGH logic voltage will be 5V. You can probably get by with slightly lower voltages if you need -- check out our logic levels tutorial for more on that.

Do you offer this board on its own, or the kit without the LCD? It looks like a great kit, especially with the microprocessor "integrated", but some prefer red LCDs.......

Thanks Toni, that article looks like it could be useful at some stage :) As you guessed, I was more making the point about the other (PIC) backpack being different in that you can"t program it in the same way as you can an Arduino (even though I don"t have an Arduino). Like some of the other people I do have a number of suitable LCD"s around and a project I had in mind before seeing this would likely suit this AVR backpack really well, without any other micros, even though I mostly have PIC stuff e.g. ChipKit, Pinguino. Hopefully we"ll see just this backpack at some stage, as it"s a pretty versatile little board :) Cheers

Is there a possibility in getting the board only or just without the LCD? Have couple of those waiting for to be used, no need for any more, yet :) Or is this the wrong place to ask this kind of question?

Can we possibly get this board by itself or at least with a 20x4 LCD? I know I can purchase the LCD-00258 but that is not the same board. It has a PIC instead of the ATmega328.

1) When you program your microcontroller and the serial enabled display (SED) is attached it is possible that garbage commands are sent to the SED. In this case the baud may be changed, brightness etc. Do not program your MCU while the SED is attached. In the case of the Ardunio it is possible to overcome this problem by using software serial instead of the hardware serial. (see: http://playground.arduino.cc/Learning/SparkFunSerLCD).

2) It appears that more often than not the setting that is changed is the baud rate. However this is not the only setting that can be changed. In my case I discovered that the LCD display type had been changed and caused the characters that were sent to the SED to be displayed from bottom up. IE trying to display the word "Hello" resulted in the "o" being displayed in the first line and first character position while "l" was displayed in the second line first character position. It is possible that the same issue could cause the text to be sent to an out of bounds position and result in nothing being displayed.

Is that unpopulated header just above the Sparkfun logo for ICSP? Could I use the AVR Pocket Programmer to program this (after taking the "Red Pill," of course...)? Many thanks!

Hi! This is my problem, when I connect the lcd on arduino, the screen of the lcd turn on, but dont show no one message. I tried the example code hellow world but dont show the message on the lcd! The lcd light just only stays on... Please help me!

Was looking for an enclosure to fit these 2x16 LCD"s and found an "MDT-65" ABS plastic box on eBay that fits perfectly. Seller has them available in both black and white and the mounting holes line up perfectly for this display with enough room to mount the entire assembly. Use M2.5 self-tapping screws to attach the LCD PCB to the enclosure.

I have a serial LCD-10097 interfaces with Arduino Mega 2560. When I run a sample code to test the LCD, it does not seem to line up as the position 1, line 1, or the position 1, line 2.

For this serial LCD to work correctly with my Arduino Mega, would my Arduino software version 1.0.5 work correctly between the Mega and this serial LCD?

Youv could get rid (optionally atleast) of the potentiometer and offer digital contrast by plugging OC1B PWM output to RC filter (220ohm + 4.7u? or something) and that to contrast pin. Works in my ATmega328 + LCD-based device but I have OC0B and OC0A doing BL LED PWM and contrast and Port B as 8-bit LCD interface and no xtal (which I see you want for serial)...

My desoldering skills need work though, I forgot to mount the 10k resistor until after I soldered the headers to hold the LCD to the control board. It seems in trying to get them apart I"ve destroyed both boards :( Glad I picked up an IC socket so I can at least salvage the ATmega 328 by just pulling it out. Practice my obviously lacking desolder skills on the rest of the components and eventually order another of these to play with.

Has anyone directly powered this kit using a 5V wall adapter (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8269)? Is it as simple as connecting the ground and VCC leads from the JST connector, perhaps using a barrel jack adapter (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10288)?

The only complaint I have is that both interrupts are taken by the LCD(D2 and D3 on the ATMega). Not a problem unless you are using the kit as a stand alone unit to read and display RPM.

I love this thing. You can use it for rapid prototyping and then switch to a native interface for the LCD later on... and you still have a use for the serial module as all the pins (or at least most of them) are broken out on the headers. Having a header for the FTDI breakout board is great as well for quick testing... you should like to it at the bottom.

Hi. I"m having trouble with this device. I am sending serial.print text to the LCD, but it seems pretty erratic. I wonder if it was damaged when I soldered it to the board. There is not chip holder in the kit. Sometimes it does not power up:( I"ll have to check it out for bad connections. Should the device should respond to serial.print similar to the way serial monitor works?

i like this kit allot but it has its challenges, i am trying to figure out how to get the back light back on, it seems to have gotten a command to turn it off. and not much seems to want to turn it back on. the other thing i would like to know is that, can i reflash it with a different firmware using a ftdi without taking the lcd off.

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.

This this is pretty awesome, but would be even more awesome (awesomer?) if you could upload custom characters over serial. The LCD itself seems to support this, but the Serial LCD firmware does not.

Not to reply to myself again, but I updated the firmware and it now can upload custom characters to the LCD"s CGRAM. I made a post about it with some example code and the code for the updated firmware on the forums

My display unit LCD-10097, has accidentally become corrupted. In particular the back light has turned off and since I have not yet been able to communicate with the unit I am unable to debug my code. Is there a way to reset the unit to defaults as shipped?

Hum, you might want to talk to tech support. I don"t think there"s a reset, but you can surely reprogram it. See what they have to say, techsupport@sparkfun.com

Had to really dig hard to find out how to use this and the sketch I did find had many errors where special commands were sent which required it to me mostly re-written. Learned a lot however. The documentation is really lacking. For instance, no mention of how to send and display special characters. I would also like to see this kit without the LCD for those of us that would like to use a different color or have and LCD already or have messed up the PCB. Lastly, there is no assembly instructions and the photos don"t show many details that you need to see.

Does anyone have some sample Arduino code that make use of the LCD backpack? I can"t figure out how do things like set the the cursor to a location or how to set the display to 4 X 20.

An ATmega328 seems like massive overkill for a serial-LCD converter, but it"s nice to have all that extra storage for customization, and it"s probably easier than stocking mega8s just for this (and probably not a big price difference).

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.

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?

Is it just me, or are the solder holes for VDD, GND, and TX near the JST connector too small to accept standard pin headers? Perhaps I just need to use a little more force? I see that one of the pictures of this module shows what appear to be standard headers installed in that location, so I am confused..

Does anybody know if the Infrared Sensor Jumper Wire (http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8733) works with this board? Barring that, anybody know where to find a 3-pin JST connector?

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

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?

I think SparkFun needs to add a pull-up resistor on pin 4 (Vpp). This pin is an input (not input/output) and should not be left floating. Another pull-up on the RX pin would also be advisable.

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.

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.

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.

I am using the exact components and have followed the exact pin configurations for the past 2 weeks, connecting then reconnecting, I have also tried different FTDI cables for uploading onto the Arduino pro mini. BUT have had no success, PLEASE help me as it is a basic issue I am sure but cannot find the solution, My 16*2 LCD lights up and also when I upload a program the arduino page reads that it has successfully uploaded (Done Uploading).

We"ve had customers order face plates through Ponoko for these LCDs and be pretty happy with it. Check around on the comments on other products and on the forum. You"ll probably find a lot of different examples of mounting solutions.

can this run in 8bit mode? I"m trying so hard to just wire up the 8 data lines and manually send the bits required for certain symbols. But it"s either stuck in 4bit mode, or I"m completely lost. My program is simple and I KNOW that it is sending the 1"s and 0"s down the appropriate lines but I can"t get a response at all. And I can succesfully apply the example code for liquid crystal. In class we just banged some bits into those old lcd"s and got the expected response... Is this one more advanced or something? Thanks, I really appreciate any help.

No matter what line I set the cursor at using lcd.setCursor(0,0), or lcd.setCursor(0,1), it will print everything on line 0. I"ve used the same LCD, different size before and never had this issue.

You should make the LCD"s connection pins on the bottom, like on the RGB backlit LCD"s (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10862). I like standing them straight up and down on breadboards. If I tried that with this one, it would be upside down.

I"m having a problem with this lcd, I can"d print custom caracters, I tried the code that this site http://icontexto.com/charactercreator/ gives you when you create a custom char, tried some other examples, but nothing, I always get just two vertical bars on the second and fourth columns.

I love this little LCD! It works great. However, I"m having a wicked hard time finding hardware (i.e. self-clinching PEM stud) that I can use to mount this. The 2.5mm mounting holes are pretty small. I"m trying hard not to use glues.

I"m also having trouble with LCD. I hooked up at 10kOhm pot, but when I upload the code it just gives me random pixels and characters. Is my Atmega on my Arduino Uno shot?

Also no external resistor is needed for the backlight; just like almost all other 5v character LCDs this one has a series resistor right on the board. Mine is 130 ohms.

I was able to achieve much better contrast by applying a slightly negative voltage on the Vo pin (3). Minus 200 mV did the trick. I seem to remember that LCD"s used to have a negative output for just this reason. I don"t know what the rating of this pin is, so proceed with caution.

I made it work by using the same schematic featured in the LiquidCrystal Arduino library page, except LCD pin 6 is hooked to a digital PWM instead of a potentiometer for controlling contrast.

Pretty cool little LCD. I had some problems initially with the 4bit LCD library, but after finding that the standard LiquidCrystal library supports 4-bit data lines it worked great.

Have you wired in the backlight? That tutorial doesn"t include wiring pins 15 and 16 on the lcd. I have hooked the backlight up to a pwm output so that I can turn it on and off via sketch.

I am also ahving this same problem. The LCD was great and easy to set up, but the brightness is really really poor. I installed a pot and all, but no dice.

Has anyone got this working with the LiquidCrystal or LCD4bit library? I am having quite a bit of trouble getting it to work reliably and am at the point where I am going to try and code my own library for it.

I"m also having heaps of trouble. I can sometimes get it to display text, maybe once out of every 30 attempts. And IF it decides to display anything it ends up garbling the message and locking up, not displaying the other strings in the sequence. Is this the LCD, my Arduino or the library? I tried using LCD4bit and a modified LiquidCrystal and they all yield the same, frustrating results.

Great little lcd, for basic output, debugging etc. Very easy to interface, and looks very slick! If you need a basic no frills LCD, this is a good buy.

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() {

Hi there! We wanted to let you know that SparkFun will be closed on Monday, January 2nd in observance of the New Year holiday. Any orders qualifying for same day shipping placed after 2pm (MT) on Friday, December 30th will be processed on Tuesday, January 3rd when we return to normal business hours. Happy New Year from all of us at SparkFun!

This is a basic 16 character by two line display with a snazzy black background with white characters. This LCD utilizes the extremely common HD44780 parallel interface chipset. Interface code is freely available. This is the same LCD that is included with the SparkFun Inventor"s Kit and comes with all the GPIO pins pre-soldered on for quick and easy interfacing. Includes white LED backlight.

Liquid crystal displays (LCDs) are a great way to output a string of words or sensor data to a display for visual feedback. In this tutorial, we"ll learn about LCDs, how to print a string of words to a 16x2 basic character LCD and create custom characters.

The SparkFun Inventor"s Kit (SIK) Experiment Guide contains all of the information needed to build all five projects, encompassing 16 circuits, in the latest version of the kit, v4.1.

The LCDduino board enables users to create many applications/projects that require a 16×2 LCD display and Arduino. The board has the exact size of 16×2 LCD and can be installed on the backside of the LCD. This is a low-cost solution that has onboard Arduino + LCD so no extra Arduino Nano or Arduino board is required. The Arduino compatible hardware includes onboard programming and boot-loader connectors, Atmega328 microcontroller, and 16×2 LCD interface. Each Arduino I/O Pin including the VCC and GND is exposed to the connectors for easy connection with sensors and other devices. The board enables the easy interface of many devices and sensors. The operating power supply is 7 to 15V DC.

The �LCD-144-G2(GFX) is a compact and cost effective display module using the latest state of the art LCD (TFT) technology with an embedded GOLDELOX-GFX2 graphics processor that delivers ?stand-alone? functionality to any project. Powerful graphics, text, image, animation and countless more features are built inside the GOLDELOX-GFX2 chip.

The module is designed to work out of the box and you are now ready to write your code in 4DGL (a high level 4D Graphics Language) using the 4DGL-Workshop3 IDE (editor, compiler, linker and downloader). This will save weeks even months of development time on your next embedded graphics project.

4DGL is a graphics oriented language allowing the developer to write applications in a high level language, syntax similar to popular languages such as BASIC, C and Pascal. The module offers modest but comprehensive I/O features that can interface to serial, analogue, digital, buttons, joystick, sound generation and Dallas 1-wire devices. In short, the �LCD-144-G2(GFX) offers one of the most flexible embedded graphics solutions available.

Note: This module is shipped with the “GFX” firmware. Either firmware can be loaded onto the device, however. For more information on reloading the firmware, see the 4D Systems product page below. Also, It’s been brought to our attention that trying to program the 4D screens using an FTDI breakout can damage the driver. You’ll need to use the FT232RQ USB to Serial which you can find in the related items below.