inverted lcd display in stock

The most common complaint we hear at G-Central is about reverse LCD displays, a.k.a. negative displays. These are LCD displays that are inverted, from the standard dark digits on a clear background, to clear digits on a dark background. (The display, in either case, may also be tinted to give the background or digits a colored appearance.)

It’s true that reverse displays are not as legible as standard displays, especially when viewed at an angle and in low-light conditions (though the EL or LED light will help with the latter). The use of STN displays in some models helps to alleviate the problem, but there are not many G-Shock models with this feature and many people still prefer a standard display. With so many people constantly complaining online about reverse displays, why does G-Shock continue to make so many of these models? Because they look cool and a lot of people buy them.

Those who use G-Shock as a tool watch want it to tell the time (and provide other functions) in the most effective way possible, and for them a standard display makes the most sense. Other people may use G-Shock as a fashion watch, where maximum readability is not the main priority. Of course, it’s not an all or nothing proposition when it comes to utility versus fashion, and many people are caught somewhere in the middle. (We believe that this is where the frustration stems from, as they want a cool new watch, but can’t compromise with what they believe is an inferior feature.) There are also those who can appreciate both sides and buy multiples watches without having an issue, using some of their G-Shock watches as tool watches and others as fashion pieces.

Are there too many G-Shock models with negative displays? We don’t think so, because for people who need a tool watch, there is usually a standard model available with a standard LCD display (although we admit that this isn’t always the case). We realize that there seems to be more new models with reverse displays than standard displays these days. This is because most of the new monthly releases are of the fashion variety, and it’s probably safe to assume that G-Shock would like you to buy more than one watch. As most G-Shock fans will attest to, it’s very difficult to find that one perfect G-Shock that can be your go-to watch in every situation. There is nothing wrong with buying more than one watch for different uses and settings, just as you would buy different pairs of shoes. We believe in freedom of choice and having options, and this is something that G-Shock does quite well. Should G-Shock release more new models with standard displays? We don’t know, but a lot of people seem to think so. Would they look as cool and sell as well as reverse display models? Maybe not.

Let’s look at the evidence that reverse displays are popular. A visit to the best-selling lists of some of the top e-commerce sites provides the answer.

(We are excluding the GPRB1000-1 Rangeman from the digital models. We also excluded all analog-digital models because most of the top-selling G-Shocks are analog-digital watches with reverse LCD displays.)

Need a 4 line 20 character lcd for your product? Crystalfontz keeps stock of the most popular colors and interfaces for standard 20x4 character LCDs. We pride ourselves in being able to get our 20x4 lcd display modules in your hands quickly and with all the product support you can use. Our CFA635, CFA735, CFA634 are all intelligent lcd display modules, that have their own command set making integrating them into your product a much faster process than using a standard LCD module. If you"re looking for a 40x2 character lcd, we have those as well!

A large share of our business originates from customers who need our LCD reverse engineering services for a replacement display module. Their current supplier has discontinued the LCD series or no longer supplies Liquid Crystal Displays.

A short time ago a customer contacted our technical engineering support department and asked if we could develop a 40x2 custom character LCD display to replace a module that their previous supplier had discontinued. They required our LCD reverse engineering services to provide a drop-in equivalent including EL backlight and exact pin-out.

This display is much larger than most character LCD displays with a length of 9.8 inches and a width of 1.5 inches. Its character height is a little over ½ inch.

This large character display is a good solution for products that need to be read at a distance. This includes industrial, test and measurement, scales and many outdoor applications.

Although the standard display configuration is with an EL (Electro-luminescent) backlight, the character display can be manufactured with a LED (Light Emitting Diode) backlight.

EL backlights are AC (Alternating Current) driven which means there needs to be an inverter on the LCD or on the customers PCB to convert the DC (Direct Current) to AC. This adds cost and requires real estate on the PCB.

EL backlights now have a higher minimum order quantity of 500 displays per build. Focus is able to hold inventory in our Chandler warehouse if necessary.

EL backlights are limited in their size, when a larger backlight is required, a CCFL (Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp) is required. The challenge is that CCFL backlights in LCDs have been phased out.

LEDs can create hot and cold spots under the LCD glass. Most of the time the light can be ‘smoothed’ out with a diffuser, but the brighter the LED backlight is driven, the greater the chances of hot spots.

Character displays can be built in a variety of background and backlight colors. The photos below present a sampling of different options. Available colors include:

The standard operating temperature range for this character display is -20C to 60C, but it is possible to build the display as a wide temperature version that will operate from -30C to 70C.

If the display needs to operate to a lower temperature than -30C, it would be necessary to add a heater. Contact Focus Displays for help with your custom LCD heater.

The standard, stock display is built as a positive mode, but can be built as a negative mode.Positive mode means that there are dark letters on a light colored background.

Below are photos of two character displays in both positive and negative mode. Positive mode is standard, but the character LCD can be built as negative mode

The negative mode version requires the backlight to be on for the display to be readable, and is not the best solution for battery and solar powered products.

FSTN monochrome LCD displays contains a retardation film applied to the STN display to produce a black and white display. The film produces a higher contrast and wider viewing angle than STN or TN.

STN monochrome LCDs require less power and are less expensive to manufacture than TFT’s. They produce a sharper contrast then TN but less sharp then FSTN. Basic color options are Gray, Blue and Yellow/Green (most common). Other colors are available through the use of filters.

TN monochrome LCDs is the lowest cost of the three options. Contrast is not as sharp as STN and FSTN. Primary color options are black letters on a gray background. Other colors are available through the use of filters.

As mentioned at the beginning of the article. Focus Displays is able to design and build an equivalent character LCD to take the place of a discontinued display. Sometimes it may require LCD reverse engineering services.

Many times a one-time tooling or NRE (Non-Recurring Engineering) fee is required. This tooling fee is much lower for segment, character and monochrome graphic displays than it is for OLEDs (Organic light emitting diode) and TFT"s (thin-film-transistor).

The first step is for the customer to send Focus Displays the datasheets for the LCD they were using. If the customer does not have a current datasheet or there is a concern that it may not be accurate, Focus may be able to ‘estimate’ a cost from a photo.

Most LCD displays require some type of on-board controller driver processor. There are many companies that manufacture LCD IC’s. The challenge is that a controller from one company may not be 100% compatible with the controller from a second company.

Focus Display Solutions provides off-the-shelf standard displays as well as custom LCD design services to help companies replace their current LCD. Call Focus now (480-503-4295) if you need LCD reverse engineering services. Or fill out the contact form.

Sometimes you have to bust out the wayback machine to find a good hack. Back in 2008, [Brian] performed this awesome negative display hack on his classic Casio G-Shock watch. The G-Shock, like most digital watches, uses a twisted nematic LCD. All Liquid Crystal Displays are made up of a layer cake of polarizers, glass, and liquid crystal. In non touchscreen displays, the top layer is a sheet of polarizing film glued down with an optical quality adhesive.

[Brian] disassembled his watch to reveal the LCD panel. Removing the glued down polarizing film can be a difficult task. Pull too hard and the thin glass layers will crack, rendering the display useless. After some patient work with an X-acto knife [Brian] was able to remove the film.

Much like the privacy monitor hack, the naked watch appeared to be off. Holding a sheet of linear polarizing film between the watch and the viewer reveals the time. If the film is rotated 90 degrees, the entire screen is color inverted. [Brian] liked the aesthetics of the inverted screen, so he glued down his polarizing film in the offset position. After reassembly, [Brian’s] “customized” watch was ready to wear.

@aprice10 you did not tell us if it still shows everything appropriate just upside down. Let us know if the menus are also upside down. If it Looks right side up when the LCD is flipped out to the left side of the body but upside down when folded back  it is most commonly an issue with the orientation sensor. Make sure that you also go through your menu items to make sure that things are normally set.

If it is not in the menu anywhere etc you may need to check on something like this LCD Screen Flex Cable FPC Flip LCD Hinge Rotating Shaft Flex Cable for your model,

Let us start with the basics first; refresh the knowledge about TN and LCD displays in general, later we will talk about TFTs (Thin Film Transistors), how they differ from regular monochrome LCD displays. Then we will go on to the ghosting effect, so we will not only discuss the technology behind the construction of the TFT, but also some phenomena, like the ghosting effect, or grayscale inversion, that are important to understand when using an LCD TFT display.

Next, we will look at different technologies of the TFT LCD displays like TN, IPS, VA, and of course about transmissive and transflective LCD displays, because TFT displays also can be transmissive and transflective. In the last part we will talk about backlight.

Let us start with a short review of the most basic liquid crystal cell, which is the TN (twisted nematic) display. On the picture above, we can see that the light can be transmit through the cell or blocked by the liquid crystal cell using voltage. If you want to learn more about monochrome LCD displays and the basics of LCD displays, follow this link.

What is a TFT LCD display and how it is different from a monochrome LCD display? TFT is called an active display. Active, means we have one or more transistors in every cell, in every pixel and in every subpixel. TFT stands for Thin Film Transistor, transistors that are very small and very thin and are built into the pixel, so they are not somewhere outside in a controller, but they are in the pixel itself. For example, in a 55-inch TV set, the TFT display contains millions of transistors in the pixels. We do not see them, because they are very small and hidden, if we zoom in, however, we can see them in every corner of each pixel, like on the picture below.

On the picture above we can see subpixels, that are basic RGB (Red, Green, Blue) colors and a black part, with the transistors and electronic circuits. We just need to know that we have pixels, and subpixels, and each subpixel has transistors. This makes the display active, and thus is called  the TFT display. TFT displays are usually color displays, but there are also monochrome TFT displays, that are active, and have transistors, but have no colors. The colors in the TFT LCD display are typically added by color filters on each subpixel. Usually the filters are RGB, but we also have RGBW (Red, Green, Blue, White) LCD displays with added subpixels without the filter (White) to make the display brighter.

Going a little bit deeper, into the TFT cell, there is a part inside well known to us from the monochrome LCD display Riverdi University lecture. We have a cell, liquid crystal, polarizers, an ITO (Indium Tin Oxide) layer for the electrodes, and additionally an electronic circuit. Usually, the electronic circuit consists of one transistor and some capacitors to sustain the pixel state when we switch the pixel OFF and ON. In a TFT LCD display the pixels are much more complicated because apart from building the liquid crystal part, we also need to build an electronic part.

That is why TFT LCD display technologies are very expensive to manufacture. If you are familiar with electronics, you know that the transistor is a kind of switch, and it allows us to switch the pixel ON and OFF. Because it is built into the pixel itself, it can be done very quickly and be very well controlled. We can control the exact state of every pixel not only the ON and OFF states, but also all the states in between. We can switch the light of the cells ON and OFF in several steps. Usually for TFT LCD displays it will be 8-bit steps per color, so we have 256 steps of brightness for every color, and every subpixel. Because we have three subpixels, we have a 24-bit color range, that means over 16 million combinations, we can, at least theoretically, show on our TFT LCD display over 16 million distinct colors using RGB pixels.

Now that we know how the TFT LCD display works, we can now learn some practical things one of which is LCD TFT ghosting. We know how the image is created, but what happens when we have the image on the screen for a prolonged time, and how to prevent it. In LCD displays we have something called LCD ghosting. We do not see it very often, but in some displays this phenomenon still exists.

If some elements of the picture i.e., your company logo is in the same place of the screen for a long period of time, for couple of weeks, months or a year, the crystals will memorize the state and later, when we change the image, we may see some ghosting of those elements. It really depends on many conditions like temperature and even the screen image that we display on the screen for longer periods of time. When you build your application, you can use some techniques to avoid it, like very rapid contrast change and of course to avoid the positioning the same image in the same position for a longer time.

You may have seen this phenomenon already as it is common in every display technology, and even companies like Apple put information on their websites, that users may encounter this phenomenon and how to fix it. It is called image ghosting or image persistence, and even Retina displays are not free of it.

Another issue present in TFT displays, especially TN LCD displays, is grayscale inversion. This is a phenomenon that changes the colors of the screen according to the viewing angle, and it is only one-sided. When buying a TFT LCD display, first we need to check what kind of technology it is. If it is an IPS display, like the Riverdi IPS display line, then we do not need to worry about the grayscale inversion because all the viewing angles will be the same and all of them will be very high, like 80, 85, or 89 degrees. But if you buy a more common or older display technology type, like the TN (twisted nematic) display, you need to think where it will be used, because one viewing angle will be out. It may be sometimes confusing, and you need to be careful as most factories define viewing direction of the screen and mistake this with the greyscale inversion side.

On the picture above, you can see further explanation of the grayscale inversion from Wikipedia. It says that some early panels and also nowadays TN displays, have grayscale inversion not necessary up-down, but it can be any angle, you need to check in the datasheet. The reason technologies like IPS (In-Plane Switching), used in the latest Riverdi displays, or VA, were developed, was to avoid this phenomenon. Also, we do not want to brag, but the Wikipedia definition references our website.

We know already that TN (twisted nematic) displays, suffer from grayscale inversion, which means the display has one viewing side, where the image color suddenly changes. It is tricky, and you need to be careful. On the picture above there is a part of the LCD TFT specification of a TN (twisted nematic) display, that has grayscale inversion, and if we go to this table, we can see the viewing angles. They are defined at 70, 70, 60 and 70 degrees, that is the maximum viewing angle, at which the user can see the image. Normally we may think that 70 degrees is better, so we will choose left and right side to be 70 degrees, and then up and down, and if we do not know the grayscale inversion phenomena, we may put our user on the bottom side which is also 70 degrees. The viewing direction will be then like a 6 o’clock direction, so we call it a 6 o’clock display. But you need to be careful! Looking at the specification, we can see that this display was defined as a 12 o’clock display, so it is best for it to be seen from a 12 o’clock direction. But we can find that the 12 o’clock has a lower viewing angle – 60 degrees. What does it mean? It means that on this side there will be no grayscale inversion. If we go to 40, 50, 60 degrees and even a little bit more, probably we will still see the image properly. Maybe with lower contrast, but the colors will not change. If we go from the bottom, from a 6 o’clock direction where we have the grayscale inversion, after 70 degrees or lower we will see a sudden color change, and of course this is something we want to avoid.

To summarize, when you buy older technology like TN and displays, which are still very popular, and Riverdi is selling them as well, you need to be careful where you put your display. If it is a handheld device, you will see the display from the bottom, but if you put it on a wall, you will see the display from the top, so you need to define it during the design phase, because later it is usually impossible or expensive to change the direction.

We will talk now about the other TFT technologies, that allow us to have wider viewing angles and more vivid colors. The most basic technology for monochrome and TFT LCD displays is twisted nematic (TN). As we already know, this kind of displays have a problem with grayscale inversion. On one side we have a higher retardation and will not get a clear image. That is why we have other technologies like VA (Vertical Alignment), where the liquid crystal is differently organized, and another variation of the TFT technology – IPS which is In-Plane Switching. The VA and IPS LCD displays do not have a problem with the viewing angles, you can see a clear image from all sides.

Apart from the different organization of the liquid crystals, we also organize subpixels a little bit differently in a VA and IPS LCD displays. When we look closer at the TN display, we will just see the subpixels with color filters. If we look at the VA or IPS display they will have subpixels of subpixels. The subpixels are divided into smaller parts. In this way we can achieve even wider viewing angles and better colors for the user, but of course, it is more complicated and more expensive to do.

The picture above presents the TN display and grayscale inversion. For IPS or VA technology there is no such effect. The picture will be the same from all the sides we look so these technologies are popular where we need wide viewing angles, and TN is popular where we don’t need that, like in monitors. Other advantages of IPS LCD displays are they give accurate colors, and wide viewing angles. What is also important in practice, in our projects, is that the IPS LCD displays are less susceptible to mechanical force. When we apply mechanical force to the screen, and have an optically bonded touch screen, we push the display as well as squeeze the cells. When we have a TN display, every push on the cell changes the image suddenly, with the IPS LCD displays with in-plane switching, different liquid crystals organization, this effect is lesser. It is not completely removed but it is much less distinct. That is another reason IPS displays are very popular for smartphones, tablets, when we have the touchscreens usually optically bonded.

If we wanted to talk about disadvantages, there is a question mark over it, as some of them may be true, some of them do not rely on real cases, what kind of display, what kind of technology is it. Sometimes the IPS displays can have higher power consumption than others, in many cases however, not. They can be more expensive, but not necessarily. The new IPS panels can cost like TN panels, but IPS panels definitely have a longer response time. Again, it is not a rule, you can make IPS panels that are very fast, faster than TN panels, but if you want the fastest possible display, probably the TN panel will be the fastest. That is why the TN technology is still popular on the gaming market. Of course, you can find a lot of discussions on the internet, which technology is better, but it really depends on what you want to achieve.

Now, let us look at the backlight types. As we see here, on the picture above, we have four distinct types of backlight possible. The most common, 95 or 99 per cent of the TFT LCD displays on the market are the transmissive LCD display type, where we need the backlight from the back. If you remember from our Monochrome LCD Displays lecture, for transmissive LCD displays you need the backlight to be always on. If you switch the backlight off, you will not see anything. The same as for monochrome LCD displays, but less popular for TFT displays, we have the transflective LCD display type. They are not popular because usually for transflective TFT displays, the colors lack in brightness, and the displays are not very practical to use. You can see the screen, but the application is limited. Some transflective LCD displays are used by military, in applications where power consumption is paramount; where you can switch the backlight off and you agree to have lower image quality but still see the image. Power consumption and saving energy is most important in some kind of applications and you can use transflective LCD displays there. The reflective type of LCD displays are almost never used in TFT. There is one technology called Low Power Reflective Displays (LPRD) that is used in TFT but it is not popular. Lastly, we have a variation of reflective displays with frontlight, where we add frontlight to the reflective display and have the image even without external light.

Just a few words about Low Power Reflective Displays (LPRD). This kind of display uses environmental light, ambient light to reflect, and produce some colors. The colors are not perfect, not perfectly clear, but this technology is becoming increasingly popular because it allows to have color displays in battery powered applications. For example, a smartwatch would be a case for that technology, or an electrical bike or scooter, where we can not only have a standard monochrome LCD display but also a TFT LCD color display without the backlight; we can see the image even in

strong sunlight and not need backlight at all. So, this kind of TFL LCD display technology is getting more and more popular when we have outdoor LCD displays and need a low power consumption.

On the picture above, we have some examples of how transmissive and reflective LCD displays work in the sunlight. If we have a simple image, like a black and white pattern, then on a transmissive LCD display, even with 1000 candela brightness, the image probably will be lower quality than for a reflective LCD display; if we have sunlight, we have very strong light reflections on the surface of the screen. We have talked about contrast in more detail in the lecture Sunlight Readable Displays. So, reflective LCD displays are a better solution for outdoor applications than transmissive LCD displays, where you need a really strong backlight, 1000 candela or more, to be really seen outdoors.

To show you how the backlight of LCD displays is built, we took the picture above. You can see the edge backlight there, where we have LEDs here on the small PCB on the edge, and we have a diffuser that distributes the light to the whole surface of LCD screen.

In addition to the backlight, we have something that is called a frontlight. It is similar to backlight, it also uses the LEDs to put the light into it, but the frontlight needs to be transparent as we have the display behind. On the example on the picture above we can see an e-paper display. The e-paper display is also a TFT display variation, but it is not LCD (liquid crystal), it is a different technology, but the back of the display is the same and it is reflective. The example you see is the Kindle 4 eBook reader. It uses an e-paper display and a frontlight as well, so you can read eBooks even during the night.

As we know, LCD screen is a negative display which can’t emit light on its own. It either relies on ambient light or uses LED backlight in the back as a light source. We divide LCD screen intotransmissive LCD, reflective LCD, and transflective LCDaccording to the employing mode of light. Also, we divide LCD screen into the positive display and negative display according to the light of the background part.

It is very simple, but most people can’t fully understand the meaning. We already introduced the difference between TN, HTN, STN and FSTN LCD in my previous post. The offset angle of liquid crystal in TN LCD is 90 degrees. What is that? If we see TN, HTN, STN and FSTN LCD in the perspective of view angle, it is much easier for us to understand.

Normally, it would be 6:00 o’clock direction or 12:00 o’clock direction. 6:00 o’clock direction means that we can see it clearly from the frontage and 6:00 o’clock direction. We can still see it clear from 3:00 or 9:00 o’clock direction if we make it well enough even it is 6:00 o’clock direction. The digital clock display in a car is installed on the right-hand side of the driver, which is usually 9:00 o’clock direction.

For example: if the view direction of TN LCD is 6:00 o’clock direction, you will see the graphic very blurred at any angle of 3:00 o’clock or 9:00 o’clock direction. We can still see it clearly within 20 degrees of 3:00 o’clock or 9:00 o’clock direction if it is 6:00 o’clock direction HTN LCD.

I experienced the usual problems with inverting the LCD but that was eventually solved, however, each solution presented a problem that I was not happy with. I"ll explain the current issue which someone with more Xorg experience might be able to assist with.

Best I can tell is that it is the hardware mouse pointer which does not flip along with the rest of the screen even though the mouse tracks perfectly. Moving the upside down pointer to the bottom right of the screen I can see the menu button highlighting at the top left. So the mouse tracks correctly, but the cursor is still inverted.

I"d appreciate any new ideas as to how to flip the cursor along with the screen or alternatively yet another mechanism to persistently flip the screen. The primary criteria for succes would be persistence as well hardware acceleration, and both the external mouse (or touchpad) and LCD ts should work.

1. The first solution was to use vc4-kms-dsi-7inch in config.txt, with lcd_rotate and display_rotate. It works perfectly except for one major flaw, there is no hardware acceleration which make the pi essentially unusable.

2. xrandr works perfectly except for two problems, the console is not inverted and it is not persistent. I could not find the culprit, but I can confirm the Screen configuration utility correctly implements the inversion with xrandr, but during the login process, it is flipped back. .xsession, .xprofile etc could not solve the problem. I"ve never had this issue on any other distribution, but clearly there is something I am missing.

NHD-C12864A1Z-FSW-FBW-HTT COG (Chip-On-Glass) Liquid Crystal Display Module NHD- Newhaven Display C12864- 128 x 64 Pixels A1Z- Model F- Transflective SW- Side White LED Backlight F- FSTN, Positive B- 6:00 Optimal View W- Wide Temp HTT- With 12V Heater (-40C to +70C) RoHS Compliant Newhaven Display International, Inc. 2661 Galvin Ct. Elgin IL, 60124 Ph: 847-844-8795 Fax: 847-844-8796 www.newhavendisplay.com nhtech newhavendisplay.com nhsales newhavendisplay.com Document Revision History Revision Date Description Changed by 0 7/17/08 Initial Release - 1 9/28/09 User guide reformat BE 2 10/14/09 Updated Electrical Characteristic MC 3 11/20/09 Updated backlight supply current MC 4 10/26/10 Updated backlight current BE 5 10/27/10 Supply current updated BE 6 08/31/15 Electrical characteristics, Optical characteristics, Mechanical SB drawings updated 7 8/3/2016 Updated Electrical Characteristics and Quality Info TM 8 9/23/16 Updated Electrical Characteristics TM 9 3/30/17 Updated Electrical Characteristics TM 10 12/20/18 Updated Heater Resistance, Response time & Double-Sided SB Tape added to drawing 11 3/21/19 Heater Resistance Updated SB 12 5/14/19 Heater Resistance Modified, Backlight Current Updated SB 13 5/23/19 Heater Note Added SB 14 6/4/19 Added PCB Footprint Drawing AS 15 1/24/20 Heater Resistance, Backlight Design & Electrical SB Characteristics Updated 16 7/16/20 Updated Serial Interface Timing Characteristics AS 17 10/9/20 Updated LCD Contrast Range from 8.7V/9.0V/9.3V to AS 8.8V/9.0V/9.2V Part Revision Upgraded to Rev1D 18 3/26/21 Updated MIN Backlight Current & MAX Supply Voltage AS 19 4/8/21 Updated the Electrical, Optical Characteristics, Table of JT Commands, Quality Information and Mechanical Drawing Functions and Features 128 x 64 pixels Built-in ST7565P controller +3.0V power supply 1/65 duty cycle 1/9 bias Built-in Heater RoHS Compliant 2

The LCD Screen Inverted Fluorescent Microscope is an epifluorescence device with an 8” LCD screen and a 5 Mega Pixel camera. It is equipped with long working distance plan achromatic lens, large field of vision eyepieces and it renovated the traditional way of microscopic observation and thoroughly resolves the fatigue for a long time working. Eyepieces and LCD Screen can both be used for convenient and comfortable viewing by individuals and share with groups. It also features the latest 5 Mega Pixel digital imaging microscopy techniques for quick and easy snapshots or videos. Innovative inverted structure, sharp image display, convenient and special for viewing cell tissue incubating.

Think back to the pre-iPhone era, when the only time you touched your phone’s tiny black-and-white LCD screen was to wipe it clean. Back then, Nokia’s 3310 and 5110 cell phones used these tiny LCDs.

As technology progressed, these displays found a new place in the world of DIY. They quickly gained popularity among hobbyists due to their small size (about 1.5″), low cost, ease of use, low power consumption, and ability to display text as well as bitmaps.

The PCD8544 controller’s on-chip LCD supply and bias voltage generation reduces power consumption, making it suitable for power-sensitive applications. The LCD normally consumes only 6 to 7 mA.

The backlight is made up of four LEDs spaced around the display’s edges. To change the LCD’s backlight, remove the LCD from the board by pushing the metal clips on the back side. You’ll notice four LEDs soldered around the display’s edges. Simply replace the LEDs with the desired color LEDs.

The PCD8544 LCD driver includes 504 bytes of Graphic Display Data RAM (GDDRAM) that stores the bit pattern to be displayed on the screen. This memory area is divided into 6 banks (from 0 to 5). Each bank has 84 columns/segments (from 0 to 83). And each column can store 8 bits of data (from 0 to 7). That certainly proves that we have:

RST pin is used to reset the display. It is an active low pin, which means that by pulling it low, the display can be reset. By connecting this pin to the Arduino’s reset, the screen will be automatically reset.

BL (Backlight) pin controls the backlight of the display. By connecting this pin to any PWM-capable Arduino pin or by using a potentiometer, the brightness can be controlled.

The PCD8544 LCD controller has flexible but complex drivers. To use the PCD8544 controller, extensive knowledge of memory addressing is required. Fortunately, the Adafruit PCD8544 Nokia 5110 LCD library was written to hide the complexities of the PCD8544 controller, allowing us to control the display with simple commands.

Filter your search by typing ‘nokia‘. There should be a few entries. Look for Adafruit PCD8544 Nokia 5110 LCD library. Click on that entry, and then choose Install.

This library is a hardware-specific library that handles lower-level functions. To display graphics primitives such as points, lines, circles, and rectangles, it must be paired with the Adafruit GFX Library. Install this library as well.

This sketch will provide you with a thorough understanding of how to operate the Nokia 5110 LCD display and can serve as the foundation for more practical experiments and projects. Try out the sketch, and then we’ll go over it in detail.

The next step is to create an object of Adafruit_PCD8544.h. The Adafruit_PCD8544 constructor accepts five Arduino pin numbers, which are connected to the display’s CLK, DIN, D/C, CE, and RST pins. There is also a rotatetext variable defined, the significance of which will become clear in a moment.

In the setup function, we initialize the LCD object using the begin() function. We also set the contrast of the display using the setContrast(value) function, where value can range from 0 to 100. However, a value of 50-60 produces excellent results.

To display text on the screen, we must first set the font size. This can be accomplished by calling setTextSize() and passing a non-negative number (starting from 1) as a parameter.

The final step is to use the display() command to instruct the library to bulk transfer the screen buffer to the PCD8544 controller’s internal memory and display the contents on the LCD.

To display inverted text, we use the setTextColor(FontColor, BackgroundColor) function. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll notice that we previously passed only one parameter to this function, but now we’re passing two. This is possible due to function overloading.

The print() or println() functions can be used to display numbers on the LCD. Because an overloaded implementation of these functions accepts 32-bit unsigned int values, you can only display numbers ranging from 0 to 4,294,967,295.

The print() and println() functions send data to the display as human-readable ASCII text, whereas the write() function sends binary data to the display. This function can thus be used to display ASCII symbols. For example, sending 3 displays a heart symbol.

You can rotate the contents of the display by using the setRotation() function. It allows you to view your display in either portrait or landscape mode.

This function takes only one parameter, which corresponds to four cardinal rotations. This can be any non-negative integer beginning with 0. When you increase the value, the display’s contents rotate 90 degrees anticlockwise. For example:0 – Maintains the screen’s standard landscape orientation.

Our last example shows how to draw bitmap images on the Nokia 5110 LCD display. This comes in handy when displaying things like logos, sprites, infographics, or icons.

The drawBitmap() function is used to display a bitmap image on the LCD. This function accepts six parameters: the top left corner X coordinate, the top left corner Y coordinate, the monochrome bitmap byte array, the bitmap width in pixels, the bitmap height in pixels, and color.

But, before we can use the drawBitmap() function, we need an image to draw. Remember that the display’s screen resolution is 84×48 pixels, so images larger than that will not display properly. To get a properly sized image, open your favorite drawing program, such as Inkscape, Photoshop, or MS Paint, and set the canvas size to 84×48 pixels.

Once you have a bitmap, you must convert it into an array that the PCD8544 controller can understand. This can be accomplished in two ways: with image2cpp (online) or with LCD Assistant (offline).

The dimensions of your image will be displayed in the Canvas size option under Image Settings. If your image is larger than 84×48, change it to 84×48 by selecting the appropriate scaling option. You can see the result in the Preview section.

For your information, there is a setting called “Draw Mode”. It actually generates images based on the scanning pattern of the display. If your image appears distorted on your screen, try changing the mode.

There’s also a Windows application called LCD assistant that can turn your bitmap image into a data array. It is not as powerful as image2cpp, but it is still widely used by hobbyists.

For your information, there is a setting called Byte Orientation. It actually generates images based on the scanning pattern of the display. If your image appears distorted on your screen, try changing the mode.

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