lcd module python code sunfounder in stock

SunFounder is a company focused on STEAM education with products like Open-source robots, Arduino&Raspberry Pi Kits, Display screens, and other smart devices. Learn More

SunFounder is a company focused on STEAM education with products like Open-source robots, Arduino&Raspberry Pi Kits, Display screens, and other smart devices. Learn More

SunFounder is a company focused on STEAM education with products like Open-source robots, Arduino&Raspberry Pi Kits, Display screens, and other smart devices. Learn More

Connecting an LCD to your Raspberry Pi will spice up almost any project, but what if your pins are tied up with connections to other modules? No problem, just connect your LCD with I2C, it only uses two pins (well, four if you count the ground and power).

In this tutorial, I’ll show you everything you need to set up an LCD using I2C, but if you want to learn more about I2C and the details of how it works, check out our article Basics of the I2C Communication Protocol.

BONUS: I made a quick start guide for this tutorial that you can download and go back to later if you can’t set this up right now. It covers all of the steps, diagrams, and code you need to get started.

There are a couple ways to use I2C to connect an LCD to the Raspberry Pi. The simplest is to get an LCD with an I2C backpack. But the hardcore DIY way is to use a standard HD44780 LCD and connect it to the Pi via a chip called the PCF8574.

The PCF8574 converts the I2C signal sent from the Pi into a parallel signal that can be used by the LCD. Most I2C LCDs use the PCF8574 anyway. I’ll explain how to connect it both ways in a minute.

I’ll also show you how to program the LCD using Python, and provide examples for how to print and position the text, clear the screen, scroll text, print data from a sensor, print the date and time, and print the IP address of your Pi.

Connecting an LCD with an I2C backpack is pretty self-explanatory. Connect the SDA pin on the Pi to the SDA pin on the LCD, and the SCL pin on the Pi to the SCL pin on the LCD. The ground and Vcc pins will also need to be connected. Most LCDs can operate with 3.3V, but they’re meant to be run on 5V, so connect it to the 5V pin of the Pi if possible.

If you have an LCD without I2C and have a PCF8574 chip lying around, you can use it to connect your LCD with a little extra wiring. The PCF8574 is an 8 bit I/O expander which converts a parallel signal into I2C and vice-versa. The Raspberry Pi sends data to the PCF8574 via I2C. The PCF8574 then converts the I2C signal into a 4 bit parallel signal, which is relayed to the LCD.

Before we get into the programming, we need to make sure the I2C module is enabled on the Pi and install a couple tools that will make it easier to use I2C.

Now we need to install a program called I2C-tools, which will tell us the I2C address of the LCD when it’s connected to the Pi. So at the command prompt, enter sudo apt-get install i2c-tools.

Next we need to install SMBUS, which gives the Python library we’re going to use access to the I2C bus on the Pi. At the command prompt, enter sudo apt-get install python-smbus.

Now reboot the Pi and log in again. With your LCD connected, enter i2cdetect -y 1 at the command prompt. This will show you a table of addresses for each I2C device connected to your Pi:

We’ll be using Python to program the LCD, so if this is your first time writing/running a Python program, you may want to check out How to Write and Run a Python Program on the Raspberry Pi before proceeding.

I found a Python I2C library that has a good set of functions and works pretty well. This library was originally posted here, then expanded and improved by GitHub user DenisFromHR.

There are a couple things you may need to change in the code above, depending on your set up. On line 19 there is a function that defines the port for the I2C bus (I2CBUS = 0). Older Raspberry Pi’s used port 0, but newer models use port 1. So depending on which RPi model you have, you might need to change this from 0 to 1.

The function mylcd.lcd_display_string() prints text to the screen and also lets you chose where to position it. The function is used as mylcd.lcd_display_string("TEXT TO PRINT", ROW, COLUMN). For example, the following code prints “Hello World!” to row 2, column 3:

On a 16×2 LCD, the rows are numbered 1 – 2, while the columns are numbered 0 – 15. So to print “Hello World!” at the first column of the top row, you would use mylcd.lcd_display_string("Hello World!", 1, 0).

You can create any pattern you want and print it to the display as a custom character. Each character is an array of 5 x 8 pixels. Up to 8 custom characters can be defined and stored in the LCD’s memory. This custom character generator will help you create the bit array needed to define the characters in the LCD memory.

The code below will display data from a DHT11 temperature and humidity sensor. Follow this tutorial for instructions on how to set up the DHT11 on the Raspberry Pi. The DHT11 signal pin is connected to BCM pin 4 (physical pin 7 of the RPi).

By inserting the variable from your sensor into the mylcd.lcd_display_string() function (line 22 in the code above) you can print the sensor data just like any other text string.

These programs are just basic examples of ways you can control text on your LCD. Try changing things around and combining the code to get some interesting effects. For example, you can make some fun animations by scrolling with custom characters. Don’t have enough screen space to output all of your sensor data? Just print and clear each reading for a couple seconds in a loop.

The screen monitor shown above is the 7inch one we"re using, available on our website www.sunfounder.com and our Amazon store. Check out now and use your Raspberry Pi in a most convenient way.

Besides, in Python, pins are usually defined by the physical position on the board. From top to bottom and left to right, the pin is defined as 3V3 (1), 5V0 (2), SDA1 (3), etc., till GPIO21 (40). You"ll get to more details in lessons later.

After you press Enter, with the script build, the source code of wiringPi will be compiled automatically and installed to the appropriate directory of Raspberry Pi OS.

Raspberry Pi.GPIO is a module to control Raspberry Pi GPIO channels. This package provides a class to control the GPIO on a Raspberry Pi. For examples and documents, visit http://sourceforge.net/p/raspberry-gpio-python/wiki/Home/

The advantage of this method is that, you can download the latest code any time you want, and then place the code under the path /home/pi/. But in case of incorrect typing which is possible especially when you"re strange to the commands, you can just enter github.com/sunfounder at the address bar of a web browser, and on the page directed find the code for Super Kit.

Go to /home/pi/ and find the folder Sunfounder_SuperKit_C_code_for_RaspberryPi. Find 01_LED in the folder, right-click on it and select Open in Terminal. Then a window will pop up as shown below. So now you"ve entered the path of the code led.c.

To run the Python code, you don"t need to compile it. Therefore, you can put all the .py files together. Open the downloaded folder Sunfounder_SuperKit_Python_code_for_RaspberryPi and you can see them.

To stop it from running, just click the X button to close it and then you"ll back to the code details. If you modify the code, before clicking Run Module(F5) you need to save it first. Then you can see the results.

The Picar-S is a cool smart sensor car that can work withRaspberry Pi 4 Model B, 3 Model B+/B, 2 Model B, Model B+. With three sensor modules including ultrasonic obstacle avoidance, light follower, and line follower, you can better learn programming on how to control the car. Some constructure plates in a well-designed structure, solid, durable, and shatterproof. Updated with high-performance 9g servo motors which confirm the good quality. Python code is provided for the car, and you can also program and debug it with Dragit, a Snap-based graphical interface, by just simply dragging and dropping the code blocks for more complex functions.

Raspberry Pi 16×2 LCD I2C Interfacing and Python Programming– I have been using 16×2 LCD for quite a long time in different Arduino and IoT related projects. You know we have two types of the 16×2 LCD, the normal one used more wires and the other one is based on the I2C interface which needs only two wires.

The backpack module uses the I-squred-C (or I2C) protocol to communicate with the Raspberry Pi, which uses only two wires: SDA and SCL (data and clock). Please note that the display is a 5 volt device, and it is powered by 5 volts, but due to design of the I2C protocol, and the fact that the Raspberry Pi is the controlling device, it is safe to connect such display to the Raspberry Pi directly.

I suggest using wires of different colors to connect the LCD display. This minimizes the risk of damage due to incorrect connections. For example, I’m using

Before you start using the I2C 16×2 LCD display with Python, you need to make sure that the I2C protocol is enabled on your Raspberry Pi. You can use the sudo raspi-config utility to take care of that. This program is navigated using keyboard arrows, tab and the Enter key. Look for I2C in the interfacing options and enable it. Enabling I2C requires a reboot.

The 27 hexadecimal addresses happen to be the most common, but your display’s address may be different. For example, it could be 3f. This will depend on the chip version of the backpack module. As long as the i2cdetect command shows the display is connected, you are good to go.

The easiest way to program this 16×2 I2C LCD display in Python is by using a dedicated library. There are many to choose from. I like things simple, so the library I recommend is rpi_lcd.

This library has the default 27 address hard-coded. If your display has a different address you will need to change it. You need to find the library on your system and the following command should do that for you.

Raspberry Pi is my hobby and I thought of sharing with you about these tiny projects. This will be a multi article series. Let us start with how to connect a I2C LCD display with the Raspberry Pi.

When you buy the LCD module, you can purchase LCD, I2C adapter separately and solder it. If soldering is not your thing, then it is better to buy the LCD module that comes with the I2C adapter backpack with it.

The above image is backside of a 2004 LCD module. The black thing is the I2C adapter. You can see the four pins GND, VCC, SDA and SCL. That’s where the you will be connecting the Raspberry Pi.

Raspberry Pi GPIO pins are natively of 3.3V. So we should not pull 5v from Raspberry Pi. The I2C LCD module works on 5V power and to make these compatible, we need to shift up the 3.3V GPIO to 5V. To do that, we can use a logic level converter.

You might see RPIs connected directly to a 5V devices, but they may not be pulling power from RPI instead supplying externally. Only for data / instruction RPI might be used. So watch out, you might end up frying the LCD module or the RPI itself.

As you know my language of choice to build website is PHP. But for IoT with Raspberry Pi, let us use Python. Reason being availability of packages and that will save ton of effort. Low level interactions via serial or parallel interface is easier via Python.

Following code imports the RPLCD library. Then initializes the LCD instance. Then print the “Hello World” string followed by new line. Then another two statements. Then a sleep for 5 seconds and switch off the LCD backlight. Finally, clear the LCD screen.

I think the SunFounder 7-inch screen is a good solution to see or control something optimized for a small screen. For example, Volumio as a remote control, maybe a calendar or dashboard (like for home automation), a photo frame or webcam monitor, etc.

For a 7″ inch size with the touchscreen feature, the model from SunFounder I just reviewed is probably one of the best. The issues I found are not so annoying, and you’ll really like it.

If you want to try another one to fix the few cons I see, I would recommend tryingthe SunFounder 10″ version, that should be a bit more comfortable (I also tested a 10″ touchscreen from another brand here).

In summary, the SunFounder 7 inch touchscreen for Raspberry Pi is not perfect, but it’s an excellent one, that you can use as a control monitor for many applications.

The LCD is not too hard, I looked at your docs and I see they are using the Adafruit_CharLCD Python module to drive the display. You can get information on how to use that on the Adafruit website.