raspberry pi lcd display tutorial quotation

Connecting an LCD display to your Raspberry Pi is sure to take any project up a notch. They’re great for displaying sensor readings, songs or internet radio stations, and stuff from the web like tweets and stock quotes. Whatever you choose to display, LCDs are a simple and inexpensive way to do it.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you two different ways to connect an LCD to the Raspberry Pi with the GPIO pins. The first way I’ll show you is in 8 bit mode, which uses 10 GPIO pins. Then I’ll show you how to connect it in 4 bit mode, and that uses only 6 pins. After we get the LCD hooked up I’ll show you how to program it with C, using Gordon Henderson’s WiringPi LCD library.

I’ll show you how to print text to the display, clear the screen, position the text, and control the cursor. You’ll also see how to scroll text, create custom characters, print data from a sensor, and print the date, time and IP address of your Pi.

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’s another way to connect your LCD that uses only two wires, called I2C. To see how to do that, check out our tutorial How to Set Up an I2C LCD on the Raspberry Pi.

Most people probably want to connect their LCD in 4 bit mode since it uses less wires. But in case you’re interested, I’ll show you how to connect it in 8 bit mode as well.

In 8 bit mode, each command or character is sent to the LCD as a single byte (8 bits) of data. The byte travels in parallel over 8 data wires, with each bit travelling through it’s own wire. 8 bit mode has twice the bandwidth as 4 bit mode, which in theory translates to higher data transfer speed. The main downside to 8 bit mode is that it uses up a lot of GPIO pins.

In 4 bit mode, each byte of data is sent to the LCD in two sets of 4 bits, one after the other, in what are known as the upper bits and lower bits. Although 8 bit mode transfers data about twice as fast as 4 bit mode, it takes a longer time for the LCD driver to process each byte than it takes to transmit the byte. So in reality, there isn’t really a noticeable difference in speed between 4 bit mode and 8 bit mode.

If you’ve never worked with C programs on the Raspberry Pi, you may want to read our article How to Write and Run a C Program on the Raspberry Pi first. It will explain how to write, compile, and run C programs.

WiringPi is a C module that makes it easy to program the LCD. If you already have WiringPi installed on your Pi, you can skip this section. If not, follow the steps below to install it:

WiringPi has it’s own pin numbering system that’s different from the Broadcom (BCM) and RPi physical (BOARD) pin numbering systems. All of the programs below use the WiringPi pin numbers.

To use different pins to connect the LCD, change the pin numbers defined in lines 5 to 14. You’ll need to convert the WiringPi pin numbers to the physical pin numbers of the Raspberry Pi. See here for a diagram you can use to convert between the different numbering systems.

To use the LCD in 4 bit mode, we need to set the bit mode number to 4 in the initialization function (line 20 below). The following code prints “Hello, world!” to the screen in 4 bit mode:

By default, text is printed to the screen at the top row, second column. To change the position, use lcdPosition(lcd, COLUMN, ROW). On a 16×2 LCD, the rows are numbered from 0 to 1, and the columns are numbered from 0 to 15.

The function lcdClear(lcd) clears the screen and sets the cursor position at the top row, first column. This program prints “This is how you” for two seconds, clears the screen, then prints “clear the screen” for another two seconds:

Each LCD character is a 5×8 array of pixels. You can create any pattern you want and display it on the LCD as a custom character. Up to 8 custom characters can be stored in the LCD memory at a time. This website has a nice visual way to generate the bit array used to define custom characters.

To print a single custom character, first define the character. For an example of this see lines 12 to 19 below. Then use the function lcdCharDef(lcd, 2, omega) to store the character in the LCD’s memory. The number 2 in this example is one of the 8 locations in the LCD’s character memory. The 8 locations are numbered 0-7. Then, print the character to the display with lcdPutchar(lcd, 2), where the number 2 is the character stored in memory location 2.

Here’s an example of using multiple custom characters that prints the Greek letters omega, pi, and mu, plus thermometer and water drop symbols for temperature and humidity:

As an example to show you how to display readings from a sensor, this program prints temperature and humidity readings to the LCD using a DHT11 temperature and humidity sensor. To see how to set up the DHT11 on the Raspberry Pi, see our article How to Set Up the DHT11 Humidity Sensor on the Raspberry Pi.

Hopefully this helped you get your LCD up and running on your Raspberry Pi. The programs above are just basic examples, so try combining them to create interesting effects and animations.

If you have any problems or questions about installing the LCD or programming it, just leave a comment below. And don’t forget to subscribe to get an email when we publish new articles. Talk to you next time!

That’s right! In today’s tutorial I show you how to wire up and program your very own mini LCD display to your Raspberry Pi! By the end the of this video you will be printing your own messages to your very own screen module and will understand all of the Python code behind it. A good, cheap and enjoyable little project for Raspberry Pi – with plenty of scope for your own further developments!

some jokes (dark jokes preferably, because I"m a horrible human being) displayed from JokeApi. I basically copied the example script and started from there.

first of all let me say that I dont have any experience with a Raspberry, Arduino etc. at all, and also dont own any equipment yet. This is more a general question to the more experienced members here, so please bear with me if this comes across as a big unfocused

What I would like to do is built a keystand for my girlfriend in a NES case, that includes a function to display random quotes in the cardridge slot on key press. Basically, everytime she leaves the house in the morning she can press a button and a nice random quote from storage will be displayed on a LED. Thats it!

I have read through a lot of post here and other forums, and I found things similar to this (I found a post about random fortune cookie quotes), but those were all a bit more focused on the coding in itself, which is not really accessible to me (i have only very basic programming knowledge, and I am not sure if I have time to learn the basics fully). I am trying to catch up on everything myself, but thought that asking my be helpful. So I just wanted to ask for opinions on the following things:

2) Would it be very possible to do something like this without any knowledge with Arduino, maybe just by following tutorial on how to put out stuff in LED etc?

3) Is there are generally very well regarded resource for such tutorials? I have started reading the "Beginning with Raspberry Thread" here, but just in case I thought it might be good to ask.

After I posted my Raspberry Pi server room rack temperature monitor project, I received many questions on how to integrate LCD displays with the Pi. This video is the first in a series of tutorials:

R is the resistor value in ohms and Vdd is the supply voltage. VLED and ILED are the typical LED voltage and current respectively as specified in the LCD display datasheet. Even if you display supports 5 V you might want to add a resistor or variable resistor to control the brightness. The same holds true for the contrast pin. I normally use variable resistors for both (see below).

I’ll demonstrate 2 different Python modules for controlling the LCD display. The first is a modified version of lcd.py by Raspberry Pi Spy which can be downloaded below.

You can use any GPIO pins for the LCD RS, E, & D1 – D4. The GPIO to LCD pin mappings are specified in the LCD.py file. If you change from the default below then you have to update the file with your new selections.

Here is some sample code (updated 4/23/16) to demonstrate the Adafruit library. As with the LCD.py module, you can use any GPIO pins. You specify the GPIO to LCD pin mappings when you instantiate the Adafruit_CharLCD class. Please note that super-user privileges are no longer required for GPIO access with the latest version of Raspbian

A potentiometer can be added to the LCD display C pin to control the contrast. The pin is connected to the wiper of the pot which is usually the middle pin. One of the outside pins is connected to ground and the other to Vcc. It doesn’t matter which outside pin goes to Vcc or ground because the pot is acting as a voltage divider either way. As the dial is turned the wiper’s pin voltage will vary from 0 to 5 V and this will cause the contrast to change. 10 KΩ is a good value for the pot. This same wiring will also work to control the LCD display brightness. Instead of of the contrast pin, the wiper would be connected to the LED back light anode. Most LCD display back lights will tolerate 5 V but please double check so you don’t damage the LED. You can alter the 0 – 5 V range by adding a resistor in series with one of the outside pins. This can help fine tune the amount of range provided by the pot. You can use a multimeter to measure the voltage on the wiper and determine how different resistors affect the range. Here is a simple schematic:

The Adafruit IP clock example from the video is no longer compatible with the latest version of the Adafruit LCD_Char library. Here is an updated version of the IP clock program. Please note that sudo is no longer necessary to run the program with the latest version of Raspbian, but you still need the shebang line and chmod +x to give the file executable permissions, if you run it from the command line.

The Adafruit_Python_CharLCD library has been deprecated since this tutorial was released in 2014. Therefore, I’m including an example using the newer Adafruit_CircuitPython_CharLCD library which can run on both the Raspberry Pi and other CircuitPython compatible boards. I have several CircuitPython tutorials. The library can easily be installed using pip:

It is possible to connect multiple LCD displays to a Raspberry Pi. Normally I’d recommend using an I²C display as discussed in my Using an I²C LCD Display with a Raspberry Pi tutorial because the wiring is less complicated. However, LCD displays can be daisy chained in 4 bit mode. The second display is connected to the existing GPIO pins for RS and D1 – D4, but each display must have a unique GPIO pin for Enable.

Computer monitors are great for office work, gaming, and browsing, but these displays can be large and power consuming. One display found in both the commercial and hobby world is the HD44780 16 x 2 display, which can display two lines of alphanumeric characters. In this tutorial, we will learn how to connect one to a Raspberry Pi and code it using the Python programming language!

The HD44780 has a number of registers and commands that are used to control the display, but getting the display to work can be somewhat tricky, especially for inexperienced users. This is why most coders will turn to libraries. They include prewritten code that has been proven to work. In this tutorial, we will be relying on two libraries to control the LCD: RPLCD and RPi.GPIO. Before we can continue, we need to install the RPLCD library by using the following command in a terminal window:

First, we need to import the RPi.GPIO library as GPIO. This will allow us to use the GPIO library and refer to it as “GPIO”, which is easier than RPi.GPIO. The next library that we need to include is the RPLCD library, which allows us to use the LCD. Therefore, the first two lines of code in our Python program will be:

CharLCD is a Python library that lets users access Adafruit character LCDs from a Raspberry Pi. Next, we need to tell the RPLCD library what pins we have connected the LCD to. In the Scheme-It schematic above, we connected the LCD pins to the following GPIO (using the BOARD numbering scheme). The Pi has two numbering schemes; BOARD and BCM. The BOARD numbering scheme refers to the I/O header whereas the BCM scheme refers to the GPIO numbers from the Broadcom IC. It is often easier to use BOARD scheme as you can count the pins to determine which one you need to use whereas the BCM scheme requires you to first choose a GPIO and then determine its pin number (BOARD).

Now that we have configured the LCD, it’s time to do a few tasks with it! The first function that we should learn to use is “write_string()”, which is used to write text to the LCD. Try the following command:

Writing predefined strings is not entirely helpful, and displaying variables can be very beneficial. Luckily for us, Python allows typecasting, where one variable can be converted into another variable. The example below shows how we can display a counter, which displays an integer on the LCD, along with a simple “Count” message.

Next, we’ll learn how to clear the display. Displays like those based around the HD44780 are static, and they remember what you tell them to display. However, this also means that when you want to write new data, you may need to clear the entire display. Therefore, you can use this clear function to clear the display:

Sometimes printing text on the top left of the display may not be desirable. In this case, you will need to change the cursor’s position. To do this, we can set the cursor_pos variable to a specific value. The example below sets the cursor position to row 2 (x) and column 0 (y).

At the end of your program, you should include the function “lcd.close()”, as this will free up the GPIO for other programs that may need to use them.

This repository contains all the code for interfacing with a 16x2 character I2C liquid-crystal display (LCD). This accompanies my Youtube tutorial: Raspberry Pi - Mini LCD Display Tutorial.

During the installation, pay attention to any messages about python and python3 usage, as they inform which version you should use to interface with the LCD driver. For example:

It is possible to define in CG RAM memory up to 8 custom characters. These characters can be prompted on LCD the same way as any characters from the characters table. Codes for the custom characters are unique and as follows:

For example, the hex code of the symbol ö is 0xEF, and so this symbol could be printed on the second row of the display by using the {0xEF} placeholder, as follows:

This demo uses ping and nc (netcat) to monitor the network status of hosts and services, respectively. Hosts and services can be modified by editing their respective dictionaries:

exchangerate-api.com / free.currencyconverterapi.com: There are a lot of currency apis but these ones offer free currency exchange info. Both are used, one as main, the other as backup. Requires an API key to use.

In order to use the script, you need to get API key tokens for both exchange rate services and the weather api. Once you"ve done that, edit the script to put your tokens in the USER VARIABLES section.

The Internet is full of real time data. Weather information, stock quotes, etc, can be obtained from different service providers. Since most of the Raspberry Pi computers come with Wifi, and it’s extremely easy to handle the data obtained from the Internet with Python, it makes sense to use Raspberry Pi to fetch data from the Internet automatically.

On the other hand, every Raspberry Pi comes with GPIOs, which can be used to connect different devices. For example, we can connect a 16 x 2 character LCD display to the Raspberry Pi.

A communication interface called I2C is frequently used by many devices. Any I2C device uses 4 pins: one for power, one for the ground, one for data (“SDA”) and one for clock signals (“SCL”). For instance, this character LCD display can be connected to Raspberry Pi or other microcontroller via I2C.

This all sounds complicated. Fortunately, Adafruit has created the CircuitPython library for the Raspberry Pi. With this library, we can use I2C devices on Raspberry Pi very easily.

To achieve the above learning outcomes, we will use a Raspberry Pi Zero W to fetch some weather data from the Internet, and display the fetched data on a character LCD screen:

We usually use a browser to look for information on the Internet. We type a URL in the browser, and the browser will display an HTML page. However, if you look at the source of a HTML page, you will see that HTML is actually kind of messy.

For example, the Hong Kong Observatory provides a set of Open Data API so it’s actually really easy to get the latest weather update from the Observatory. To get the latest local weather forcast, all you need to do is to enter this URL in the browser:

NOTE: You may see the term ‘RESTful APIs’ from time to time. Many of these data services are indeed RESTful APIs, which means you can interact with these services with standard HTTP methods (GET, POST, etc.). Since we only need to get this time, we won’t go into the details of RESTful APIs.

Next, we are going to install two Python libraries: Adafruit’s CircuitPython and the library for the LCD1602 display. Let’s create a new folder on the Raspberry Pi for this project inside the terminal.

Then, make sure that the Raspberry Pi Zero W is on the Internet. We will download the libraries from the Internet and install them. If everything is ready, use pip3 to install RPI.GPIO and adafruit-blinka:

NOTE: We only need cd_api.py and circuitpython_i2c_lcd.py only, so it’s better to just copy the python scripts and not to install the entire library.

Both board and busio are from the CircuitPython library. As you will see in a minute, you don’t need to worry about typing the wrong pin numbers when you initialize an I2C device if you use the CircuitPython library. Also, we import the I2cLcd class and the sleep function.

This is where the CircuitPython really shines: the exact same code can be used in other microcontrollers running CircuitPython! So if you get yourself a Circuit Playground Bluefruit, you can use the character LCD display with the exact same code.

DEFAULT_I2C_ADDR = 0x27 defines the address of character LCD display. Every I2C device has an address. This address is important because multiple I2C devices can be connected to the Raspberry Pi, and the Raspberry Pi needs that address to communicate with the device correctly. Finally, we create an instance of I2cLcd with the i2c object, the I2C address, the number of rows and the number of columns as the parameters for the constructor. The backlight is turned on by calling the backlight_on method.

NOTE: This particular LCD1602 display’s address is 0x27, but yours may have a different one. You may need to call busio.I2C.scan() to check the actual address, as described in this Adafruit guide.

Next, rather than printing out all the JSON data in the console, we extract the information that we want and display it on the LCD display. For example, we can just display the temperatures in different regions. Replace print(data) with the following lines of code:

For each entry in the temp_data array, we first clear the display by calling clear(). Then, we move the cursor to (0, 0), i.e. the first position in the first row, and display the first 16 characters of the ‘place’ entry (a string) in the first row. Similarly, we move the cursor to (0, 1), i.e. the first position in the second row, and display the ‘value’ entry (a number). Finally, we pause the program for 2 seconds before showing the next entry.

You can get other data like real time stock quotes in the same way, and create things that are more exciting, such as stock market analysis with AI. Also, you can use other methods in the requests library to interact with other RESTful APIs. For instance, you can POST the data from a sensor attached to a Raspberry Pi to a Google Sheets spreadsheet via Google’s APIs. The possibility of this paradigm is only limited by our imagination.

This is a LCD display HAT for Raspberry Pi, 1.44inch diagonal, 128x128 pixels, with embedded controller, communicating via SPI interface. It also comes with three push button and a joystick, a good option as user interface panel for your Raspberry Pi Zero :)

Wondering what to do with that Raspberry Pi you bought? Can this little device really act as a desktop PC? As a server? As a radio station? Yes, it can!

Along with the Pi itself, the microSD card, and power supply, you"ll need a HDMI cable and a suitable display. For the Pi 3 and 4, you"ll also need a keyboard and mouse – USB or Bluetooth. Later Raspberry Pis have built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. For older models, check elinux.org"s Raspberry Pi Hub for compatible dongles.

Whether you have an old printer that doesn’t have wireless, or one that won’t connect to your network (perhaps due to an old Wi-Fi standard), you can avoid sending it to landfill by employing a Raspberry Pi.

Once this is set up, any computer on your home network can access the printer You can even add AirPrint support to Raspberry Pi, for iPhone and Android devices.

At one time, one of the popular uses for the Raspberry Pi was as a Kodi media center. Several Kodi builds have been released, with OSMC and LibreELEC still going strong.

If you prefer to keep your computer available for other projects, Kodi can be installed on Raspberry Pi OS. It can also be added to retro gaming systems (see below). Installing Kodi comes with some caveats, however. Not all add-ons are available, and of those that are, many will be intended to stream pirated content.

As well as streaming media, the Raspberry Pi is ideal as a retro gaming machine. Compact and powerful enough to be used in several ways, the device is suitable as a full size arcade cabinet, or even as part of a Game Boy-esque handheld.

You probably know that a special version of Minecraft is available for Raspberry Pi OS. But did you know that your Pi can be used as a Minecraft game server, letting you play from anywhere on your home network?

Beyond Minecraft, however, other multiplayer network games can be set up on the Raspberry Pi. Open source ports of Quake, Civilization, Doom, and Open TTD can be installed as game servers on your Raspberry Pi.

Using the Python programming language, a suitable mount (overhead for Gilliam-esque paper craft animation, a standard tripod for clay- or toy-based), and a well-lit area, you’ll also need to rig a button to the Pi’s GPIO.

Combining the Raspberry Pi camera module with a different script creates another use for your Pi: making time-lapse movies. This is done by taking single frames with a timed delay. Again, you’ll need a tripod or mount to keep the camera module steady.

Do you have a message you want to share? Need to communicate with a community that has no internet access? The answer is to broadcast using radio, a secret feature of the Raspberry Pi.

Broadcasting over FM is illegal without a license. Fortunately, the Pi can only broadcast over a short distance, so you should be able to avoid getting into trouble.

But there are a few useful things you can do with a Twitter bot and if your Raspberry Pi has a permanent internet connection, you can create your own.

You"ll need to register a Twitter app to gain access to the Twitter API, and with some code (Python or Node.js) your bot will be ready. You could tweet anything from your Pi’s CPU temperature to a randomly selected quote of the day or even a photo.

Off-the-shelf digital photo frames are attractive, if somewhat limited in space, storage, and purpose. What if they could do more than just display your favorite family photos?

This is one of the best Raspberry Pi projects you will build: a digital photo frame that delivers inspiring messages alongside photos of beautiful scenes. The result is something that dazzles your eyes while making you really think about the message. We used a Raspberry Pi touchscreen display for this project; any compatible LCD display should be suitable.

Alonside the standard Raspberry Pi Camera Module, a No-IR module is also available. This is particularly suitable for nighttime photography. Raspberry Pi No-IR Camera Module.

For instance, you might use time-lapse photography to track the path of the stars and the moon overnight. Or employ a slow shutter speed to get a trace effect. Whatever your plan for night photography, the Raspberry Pi should suit your requirements perfectly.

Several network monitoring tools are available, but none is as easy to install and configure as Nagios. Once installed on your Raspberry Pi, you can monitor uptime, view a visualization of the devices on your network, and more.

Another way to enjoy media streaming on the Raspberry Pi is to configure it as a Plex server. Any PC, TV, or any other device running the standard Plex client app can then view media stored on the Raspberry Pi.

To get started with this project, you"ll need your own YouTube channel ready to use, and the libav-tools package installed. Check our detailed tutorial to streaming live video to YouTube from a Raspberry Pi for the full instructions.

It isn’t as complicated as you might think, with several pre-installed applications in Raspberry Pi OS included to aid basic programming. Among these is Scratch.

With a Raspberry Pi 2 or later you can stream Steam games from your main PC or Steam Deck to a TV. You"ll need to ensure that the Raspberry Pi or the PC (preferably both) are connected to your router via Ethernet. This is because Wi-Fi isn’t fast enough for streaming games without latency.

Ever wanted to catch up with the latest news, movie trailers, pop videos, and traffic and weather information while shaving? The answer is a smart mirror, a device powered by a Raspberry Pi.

Basically, this is a two-way mirror with a special display mounted behind the glass. Any type of mirror can be used for a smart mirror project; you should use one that suits your purposes.

You can emulate classic platforms on a Raspberry Pi, or you can stream games from a PC. If you"re not comfortable setting up streaming or emulators, plenty of games can be installed on the Raspberry Pi natively.

Some great games can be run on your Raspberry Pi without emulators. A great example is Doom, which incredibly can be installed to run on the Raspberry Pi. Other examples include FreeCiv, Quake III, and even the open source SimCity clone, Micropolis.