raspbian lcd displays random characters free sample
Many of these LCD controllers differ slightly from the HD44780 controller in things like the initialization sequence, minimum delay between commands and maybe other ways I don"t know of.
try putting a 1n4148 diode between the 5V supply and the 5V of the LCD, so the LCD will get around 4.5V, that is enough for the LCD, and lowers its logical input levels enough so that it sees 3V3 logic highs as "1" reliably. The garbled letters, and blocks are due to the LCD sometimes seeing a "1" as a zero and that corrupts all communication between the PI and the LCD.
Its a well know problem when trying to drive an LCD with 3V3 levels, it actually needs minimally 3.5V when its powered with 5V (70 % of VCC = 0.7 x 5.0 = 3.5).
In the photos above the Pi is a Model B Rev 2 so should work fine with my tutorial. Random characters is usually a sign it has not been initialized correctly. Again this could be caused by intermittent connections.
I was having the same problem as the OP on my current build with an I2C back-packed LCD getting corrupted. I"d tried all kinds of things to fix the problems - changing the delays, trying different libraries, and pulling out hair with no joy in fixing it.
For anyone else with this problem, you may have what I have if you"re doing event-driven code e.g. from from a switch or rotary encoder. I was getting events triggered while the python code was trying to communicate with the LCD screen - which themselves tried to write to the LCD.
I also had the same problem with scrambled characters on my display. I found that there was a short between the data lines on the expander board where it is soldered to the display board. Once I cleaned up the messy solder, the display worked perfectly.
My code seems to work for outputting to the console, however when I try to output to the LCD, it gives some weird characters and stops. Not sure what to do as i"m not a python wiz (you"d think id be more like php, but nah lol).
Previous examples connect the white LED backlight to power. The following example is specifically for those using an LCD with a RGB LED backlight. The only difference between the connection is the LED"s backlight on pins 15-18.
When I start my code, it displays as expected the initial screen on the LCD (as defined in setup() function) and then the temperature. But suddenly the LCD displays random characters, see attached, and somehow never stop displaying random characters until i restart the board.
I have recently bought new LCD for arduino and it works fine except that after a while it shows weird characters. It is programmed in a way the its screen should clear any existing message (lcd.clear) before printing any new message. However, It works fine for a while and then LCD freaks out and start showing some weird characters and keep piling them in a row. If I reset arduino then it again works fine for a while and then again shows weird characters.
This tutorial is about making/building your own characters/special images and then displaying them on character 16×2 lcd. Generating custom characters or special character images and displaying on lcds of any sizes (16×1,16×2,8×1,8×2,20×1,20×2,40×1,40×2 etc) is not a very hard task. One must go through the internal structure of lcd control set in order to know how the character lcd works? Once you know how the lcd works and what features it offers. Then you can easily build and display characters of your desire on lcd screen in a defined matrix.
It requires only knowledge of CG-RAM(character generated ram) of character lcd and the lcd chip set controller to build and display self made characters on 16×2 lcd display. Most of the lcds contains HD4478 controller in them. HD4478 controller is build by Hitachi and its the most popular controller used in the character lcd’s. Almost all of the character lcd’s resides one, but new competitors are also present in market.
By custom characters i mean characters that are not present in the ASCII character set of lcd controller. Like heart symbol, smiley