lcd display program quotation

If you like collecting quotations like I do, then this instructable is for you. This instructable will show you how to put together a way to display your quotes for all to see, using things you probably already have around the house.

Any kind of quote will do, but because the picture frame scrolls through the images that will contain the quotes it works best if you keep the quotes short. Longer quotes, although interesting, may not remain on screen long enough to be read. If you have a number of longer quotations, see "Some Final Notes" at the end of this instructable for tips that you can consider for longer display times.

Look at the sample images stored on your LCD picture frame. For my frame, all of the sample images were 856x480 pixels. To determine this, right click on the image file, and select Properties. You should see a number of tabs, one of which should be called “Details.” Click on the details tab; under Image you should see a width and height. Write this down or keep the window open, because we will use it to set up PowerPoint.

Take the smaller of the two numbers (usually the height), and divide that by the larger number. In my case, 480/856=0.5607. Checking the table below (which shows common screen image ratios), I can see that the native images on my LCD picture frame are just about in 16:9 format.

Open PowerPoint, and start a new presentation. On the ribbon, click Design, Page Setup. In the setup dialog box, select the image format that matches the native format of your LCD picture frame. We do this because it helps prevent the software driving the frame from cropping or stretching the images unnecessarily. Click Home on the ribbon.

At this point, your presentation should have two slides: The initial default title slide, and your newly inserted blank slide. Click on the first slide (the title slide), click your right mouse button, and select delete. You should be left with a single blank slide in your presentation, sized to the native image size of your LCD picture frame.

In many cases, the picture won’t fill the slide because it’s in a different format than the native format for the LCD picture frame. Thus, we’ll need to resize the image to fit. At the same time, we don’t want to distort the image either. Here’s the most straightforward approach:

3. Once you add your first quote, select the text box and copy it. Then, move to each slide and select “Paste.” This will place a formatted text box on each slide, in the same location from which it was copied. This is a great place to start. One caveat: When pasting your quotes from your word processing program, use “Paste Special” and choose unformatted text. That preserves your text box formatting.

4. My LCD picture frame doesn’t let you change the display time for pictures, and some of the transitions happen too quickly to allow you to read the entire quote. You can do what I did, which was to make two copies of every slide. PowerPoint is creative in its naming; the slides are called Slide1.jpg, Slide2.jpg, et cetera. I named my copies Slide1a.jpg, Slide2a.jpg. The file system sorts the original and the copy together when the files are named this way, so every quote is displayed twice with an intervening transition.

5. If you don’t have a lot slides suitable for quotes, consider visiting a site like Interface Lift, which has a wide range of images in a variety of formats for desktop wallpapers. Chances are, you’ll be able to find images in a format suitable for the native format of your LCD picture frame.

In this tutorial, I’ll explain how to set up an LCD on an Arduino and show you all the different ways you can program it. I’ll show you how to print text, scroll text, make custom characters, blink text, and position text. They’re great for any project that outputs data, and they can make your project a lot more interesting and interactive.

The display I’m using is a 16×2 LCD display that I bought for about $5. You may be wondering why it’s called a 16×2 LCD. The part 16×2 means that the LCD has 2 lines, and can display 16 characters per line. Therefore, a 16×2 LCD screen can display up to 32 characters at once. It is possible to display more than 32 characters with scrolling though.

The code in this article is written for LCD’s that use the standard Hitachi HD44780 driver. If your LCD has 16 pins, then it probably has the Hitachi HD44780 driver. These displays can be wired in either 4 bit mode or 8 bit mode. Wiring the LCD in 4 bit mode is usually preferred since it uses four less wires than 8 bit mode. In practice, there isn’t a noticeable difference in performance between the two modes. In this tutorial, I’ll connect the LCD in 4 bit mode.

Here’s a diagram of the pins on the LCD I’m using. The connections from each pin to the Arduino will be the same, but your pins might be arranged differently on the LCD. Be sure to check the datasheet or look for labels on your particular LCD:

Also, you might need to solder a 16 pin header to your LCD before connecting it to a breadboard. Follow the diagram below to wire the LCD to your Arduino:

All of the code below uses the LiquidCrystal library that comes pre-installed with the Arduino IDE. A library is a set of functions that can be easily added to a program in an abbreviated format.

In order to use a library, it needs be included in the program. Line 1 in the code below does this with the command #include . When you include a library in a program, all of the code in the library gets uploaded to the Arduino along with the code for your program.

Now we’re ready to get into the programming! I’ll go over more interesting things you can do in a moment, but for now lets just run a simple test program. This program will print “hello, world!” to the screen. Enter this code into the Arduino IDE and upload it to the board:

There are 19 different functions in the LiquidCrystal library available for us to use. These functions do things like change the position of the text, move text across the screen, or make the display turn on or off. What follows is a short description of each function, and how to use it in a program.

TheLiquidCrystal() function sets the pins the Arduino uses to connect to the LCD. You can use any of the Arduino’s digital pins to control the LCD. Just put the Arduino pin numbers inside the parentheses in this order:

This function sets the dimensions of the LCD. It needs to be placed before any other LiquidCrystal function in the void setup() section of the program. The number of rows and columns are specified as lcd.begin(columns, rows). For a 16×2 LCD, you would use lcd.begin(16, 2), and for a 20×4 LCD you would use lcd.begin(20, 4).

This function clears any text or data already displayed on the LCD. If you use lcd.clear() with lcd.print() and the delay() function in the void loop() section, you can make a simple blinking text program:

Similar, but more useful than lcd.home() is lcd.setCursor(). This function places the cursor (and any printed text) at any position on the screen. It can be used in the void setup() or void loop() section of your program.

The cursor position is defined with lcd.setCursor(column, row). The column and row coordinates start from zero (0-15 and 0-1 respectively). For example, using lcd.setCursor(2, 1) in the void setup() section of the “hello, world!” program above prints “hello, world!” to the lower line and shifts it to the right two spaces:

You can use this function to write different types of data to the LCD, for example the reading from a temperature sensor, or the coordinates from a GPS module. You can also use it to print custom characters that you create yourself (more on this below). Use lcd.write() in the void setup() or void loop() section of your program.

The function lcd.noCursor() turns the cursor off. lcd.cursor() and lcd.noCursor() can be used together in the void loop() section to make a blinking cursor similar to what you see in many text input fields:

Cursors can be placed anywhere on the screen with the lcd.setCursor() function. This code places a blinking cursor directly below the exclamation point in “hello, world!”:

This function creates a block style cursor that blinks on and off at approximately 500 milliseconds per cycle. Use it in the void loop() section. The function lcd.noBlink() disables the blinking block cursor.

This function turns on any text or cursors that have been printed to the LCD screen. The function lcd.noDisplay() turns off any text or cursors printed to the LCD, without clearing it from the LCD’s memory.

This function takes anything printed to the LCD and moves it to the left. It should be used in the void loop() section with a delay command following it. The function will move the text 40 spaces to the left before it loops back to the first character. This code moves the “hello, world!” text to the left, at a rate of one second per character:

Like the lcd.scrollDisplay() functions, the text can be up to 40 characters in length before repeating. At first glance, this function seems less useful than the lcd.scrollDisplay() functions, but it can be very useful for creating animations with custom characters.

lcd.noAutoscroll() turns the lcd.autoscroll() function off. Use this function before or after lcd.autoscroll() in the void loop() section to create sequences of scrolling text or animations.

This function sets the direction that text is printed to the screen. The default mode is from left to right using the command lcd.leftToRight(), but you may find some cases where it’s useful to output text in the reverse direction:

This code prints the “hello, world!” text as “!dlrow ,olleh”. Unless you specify the placement of the cursor with lcd.setCursor(), the text will print from the (0, 1) position and only the first character of the string will be visible.

This command allows you to create your own custom characters. Each character of a 16×2 LCD has a 5 pixel width and an 8 pixel height. Up to 8 different custom characters can be defined in a single program. To design your own characters, you’ll need to make a binary matrix of your custom character from an LCD character generator or map it yourself. This code creates a degree symbol (°):

Liquid crystal display (LCD) is a flat panel display that uses the light modulating properties of liquid crystals. Liquid crystals do not produce light directly, instead using a backlight or reflector to produce images in colour or monochrome.

For our first project, we’re using both the inbuilt LCD screen and WiFi module to get text data of famous quotes. Since we’re all nerds at DIYODE, we’ve of course chosen to choose famous programming quotes. The center button of the Wio Terminal will be used to load a new quote and display it on the screen.

WiFi is involved here because we’re using a simple Web API to gather data and display it live. Since it’s connecting to WiFi, we could connect it with virtually any other web interface and make it work.

If you’re new to programming, this code may appear daunting, but it’s really just our Wio Terminal pretending to be a computer sending a web request and reading the response. An API is just an ‘application programming interface’ and is a fancy way of saying it’ll be the source of our data.

The ‘wasPressed’ variable will be used during the main loop to ensure we only display one new quote when the button is pressed, and not to continue looking for quotes when the button is held. This is typically referred to as state detection, and we’ll talk about this shortly.void setup() {

The getQuoteResponse() function is where the request actually happens, which consists of opening our URL (feel free to visit the URL shown, it will show a random programming quote in your browser), and loading it from a JSON format. We won’t go into JSON formats and the specifics of it in this project, but essentially its a field and value-based system where attributes are given names. Our response usually comes in this format:{"id":"5a6ce86f2af929789500e824","author":"Ken Thompson","en":"One of my most productive days was throwing away 1,000 lines of code."}

Text wrapping is the process of bringing text fields down to the next line on the screen if it’s too long – which is often the case with quotes. The LCD library does have this function built-in, but it wasn’t cooperating for us, so we wrote it ourselves!

Essentially, we’re taking ‘chunks’ out of the text with the substring function and writing each to one line of the Wio Terminal’s LCD screen. The ‘len’ variable describes the number of characters on each line. If the function is confusing, just change some values and observe the effects!

…and boom! It’s all working. Inspiring programming quotes at the press of a button. Obviously, this isn’t the most practical program ever – but it’s a good starting program to experiment with the Wio Terminal and to demonstrate its capabilities with precisely zero external wiring required.

The Serial Monitor is a convenient way to view data from an Arduino, but what if you want to make your project portable and view sensor values without access to a computer? Liquid crystal displays (LCDs) are excellent for displaying a string of words or sensor data.

This guide will help you in getting your 16×2 character LCD up and running, as well as other character LCDs (such as 16×4, 16×1, 20×4, etc.) that use Hitachi’s LCD controller chip, the HD44780.

As the name suggests, these LCDs are ideal for displaying only characters. A 16×2 character LCD, for example, can display 32 ASCII characters across two rows.

Character LCDs are available in a variety of sizes and colors, including 16×1, 16×4, 20×4, white text on a blue background, black text on a green background, and many more.

One advantage of using any of these displays in your project is that they are “swappable,” meaning that you can easily replace them with another LCD of a different size or color. Your code will need to be tweaked slightly, but the wiring will remain the same!

Before we get into the hookup and example code, let’s check out the pinout. A standard character LCD has 16 pins (except for an RGB LCD, which has 18 pins).

Vo (LCD Contrast) pin controls the contrast of the LCD. Using a simple voltage divider network and a potentiometer, we can make precise contrast adjustments.

RS (Register Select) pin is used to separate the commands (such as setting the cursor to a specific location, clearing the screen, etc.) from the data. The RS pin is set to LOW when sending commands to the LCD and HIGH when sending data.

R/W (Read/Write) pin allows you to read data from or write data to the LCD. Since the LCD is only used as an output device, this pin is typically held low. This forces the LCD into WRITE mode.

E (Enable) pin is used to enable the display. When this pin is set to LOW, the LCD ignores activity on the R/W, RS, and data bus lines; when it is set to HIGH, the LCD processes the incoming data.

D0-D7 (Data Bus) pins carry the 8 bit data we send to the display. To see an uppercase ‘A’ character on the display, for example, we set these pins to 0100 0001 (as per the ASCII table).

The LCD has two separate power connections: one for the LCD (pins 1 and 2) and one for the LCD backlight (pins 15 and 16). Connect LCD pins 1 and 16 to GND and 2 and 15 to 5V.

Depending on the manufacturer, some LCDs include a current-limiting resistor for the backlight. It is located on the back of the LCD, close to pin 15. If your LCD does not contain this resistor or if you are unsure whether it does, you must add one between 5V and pin 15. It should be safe to use a 220 ohm resistor, although a value this high may make the backlight slightly dim. For better results, check the datasheet for the maximum backlight current and choose an appropriate resistor value.

Let’s connect a potentiometer to the display. This is necessary to fine-tune the contrast of the display for best visibility. Connect one side of the 10K potentiometer to 5V and the other to Ground, and connect the middle of the pot (wiper) to LCD pin 3.

That’s all. Now, turn on the Arduino. You will see the backlight light up. As you turn the potentiometer knob, you will see the first row of rectangles appear. If you have made it this far, Congratulations! Your LCD is functioning properly.

We know that data is sent to the LCD via eight data pins. However, HD44780-based LCDs are designed so that we can communicate with them using only four data pins (in 4-bit mode) rather than eight (in 8-bit mode). This helps us save 4 I/O pins!

The sketch begins by including the LiquidCrystal library. This library comes with the Arduino IDE and allows you to control Hitachi HD44780 driver-based LCD displays.

Next, an object of the LiquidCrystal class is created by passing as parameters the pin numbers to which the LCD’s RS, EN, and four data pins are connected.

In the setup, two functions are called. The first function is begin(). It is used to initialize the interface to the LCD screen and to specify the dimensions (columns and rows) of the display. If you’re using a 16×2 character LCD, you should pass 16 and 2; if you’re using a 20×4 LCD, you should pass 20 and 4.

In the loop, the print() function is used to print “Hello world!” to the LCD. Please remember to use quotation marks " " around the text. There is no need for quotation marks when printing numbers or variables.

The function setCursor() is then called to move the cursor to the second row. The cursor position specifies where you want the new text to appear on the LCD. It is assumed that the upper left corner is col=0 and row=0.

There are many useful functions you can use with LiquidCrystal Object. Some of them are listed below:lcd.home() function positions the cursor in the upper-left of the LCD without clearing the display.

lcd.scrollDisplayRight() function scrolls the contents of the display one space to the right. If you want the text to scroll continuously, you have to use this function inside a for loop.

lcd.scrollDisplayLeft() function scrolls the contents of the display one space to the left. Similar to the above function, use this inside a for loop for continuous scrolling.

lcd.display() function turns on the LCD display, after it’s been turned off with noDisplay(). This will restore the text (and cursor) that was on the display.

If you find the default font uninteresting, you can create your own custom characters (glyphs) and symbols. They come in handy when you need to display a character that isn’t in the standard ASCII character set.

The CGROM stores the font that appears on a character LCD. When you instruct a character LCD to display the letter ‘A’, it needs to know which dots to turn on so that we see an ‘A’. This data is stored in the CGROM.

CGRAM is an additional memory for storing user-defined characters. This RAM is limited to 64 bytes. Therefore, for a 5×8 pixel LCD, only 8 user-defined characters can be stored in CGRAM, whereas for a 5×10 pixel LCD, only 4 can be stored.

After including the library and creating the LCD object, custom character arrays are defined. The array consists of 8 bytes, with each byte representing a row in a 5×8 matrix.

Display Logic offers a number of LCD interfaces with a variety of inputs and outputs to meet any system requirement. We can provide custom Lcd controller boards designed by our specialists to meet customer specific requirements.

Most off-the-shelf displays are not designed to operate in extreme environments although the use of TFT LCD displays is now common in many outdoor, rugged and/or public access applications. Concerns for high performance viewability, protection against damage and functionality in EMI/RFI sensitive applications can be addressed with combinations of a Display Logic LED Backlight Enhancement and the following solutions.

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The Canadian mechanical engineering student hacked the dashboard display screen in his car, so it’s now displaying funny quotes from Reddit. Specifically, it’s displaying those weird “Shower Thoughts” — the headlines from Reddit’s forum for the brilliant one-off insights that pop into your head at random moments.

“I have no programming experience other than a few Arduino projects around the house,” De Mel wrote in a blog post, “so my code is definitely not optimal.” But within one month, he’d already finished the project, and shared its Python code on GitHub. “Hopefully, this will at least give you some kind of starting point for your own project, and you will be able to see the underlying process for making this work.”

Luckily, all the digital devices in his 2012 Hyundai Genesis Coupe were connected using a fairly common standard — the “Controller Area Network bus” (or CAN bus). So Harin grabbed one of his Arduino’s — plus a cheap SPI CANBUS circuit board — and just started doing some experiments. When he first installed his Arduino circuit board into the dashboard, the LCD began showing the time of day — every ten milliseconds — and any new messages that he sent to the screen were simply being wiped out when the system re-transmitted. But Harin had already built up a strong motivation to keep moving forward, according to a recent write-up in Make: magazine, because “I hated that stupid little blue LCD. It would just sit there staring at me brightly with the words ‘AUX’…”

So he re-routed the LCD’s input. And fortunately, Harin’s other Raspberry Pi board could accommodate a WiFi dongle. By using an iPhone for connectivity, it was now able to draw down the funny Reddit quotes. And Make: also reported that his next project may be to install a router directly into his car.

Harin’s even mounted his Nexus 7 Android tablet into his car’s dashboard and is using it to play music. In the comments on his blog, he talks about one day transmitting the “now playing” information from the tablet to the LCD. Somewhere in the mix, there’s even an SQL database. “My main script retrieves the top post from Shower Thoughts and converts the characters to their hexadecimal equivalents, adds the message ID and row identifier, and stores it in an SQL database.”

There’re two more scripts just for retrieving the quote from the database and display it on the screen, which Harin says will be building blocks for more features down the road. “Eventually, I’ll be able to screen the messages intended for the LCD on the primary [CAN bus] network and add the ones I want to keep to the SQL database while removing the ones I don’t need anymore.”

Now instead of seeing the external temperature on his display, he sees bits of mind-blowing amateur philosophy. But maybe it goes to show you that if you’re going someplace strange, your journey there can be just as unpredictable. According to his blog post, the screen was originally intended for displaying song information (title and artist) for Sirius XM.

Download our Crystalfontz LCD Software. We provide software for you to test many types of LCDs including character displays and graphic displays. Our character and graphic USB display modules can use CrystalControl2 to quickly set up the display. Bitmap to ePaper and Image2Code provide a simple interface to add an image to your display. We also USB LCD drivers and demonstration code for Linux.

Mount the AKCP LCD Display on a wall, at the end of an aisle, or a cabinet door. Red and yellow LEDs will indicate whether a sensor is in a critical or warning state. The display screen will also identify in rotation each sensors’ status and readings.