lcd display c code supplier

Established in 1998, Winstar Display Co., Ltd. is a reliable LCD Display Module Manufacturer and LCD Panel Supplier. Winstar has development of high-quality display module products. We operate worldwide, configure, service products, and also provide logistics support to deliver products and services competitively. We provide LCM Modules including monochrome TN/STN/FSTN LCM, COG LCD, TFT LCM / TFT panels, FSC-LCD, graphic LCM, character LCD displays, OLED display modules (PMOLED), custom LCD displays, OLED and LCD panel.

In electronics world today, Arduino is an open-source hardware and software company, project and user community that designs and manufactures single-board microcontrollers and microcontroller kits for building digital devices. Arduino board designs use a variety of microprocessors and controllers. The boards are equipped with sets of digital and analog input/output (I/O) pins that may be interfaced to various expansion boards (‘shields’) or breadboards (for prototyping) and other circuits.

The boards feature serial communications interfaces, including Universal Serial Bus (USB) on some models, which are also used for loading programs. The microcontrollers can be programmed using the C and C++ programming languages, using a standard API which is also known as the “Arduino language”. In addition to using traditional compiler toolchains, the Arduino project provides an integrated development environment (IDE) and a command line tool developed in Go. It aims to provide a low-cost and easy way for hobbyist and professionals to create devices that interact with their environment using sensors and actuators. Common examples of such devices intended for beginner hobbyists include simple robots, thermostats and motion detectors.

In order to follow the market tread, Orient Display engineers have developed several Arduino TFT LCD displays and Arduino OLED displays which are favored by hobbyists and professionals.

Although Orient Display provides many standard small size OLED, TN and IPS Arduino TFT displays, custom made solutions are provided with larger size displays or even with capacitive touch panel.

Newhaven 16x2 character Liquid Crystal Display shows characters with dark pixels on a bright yellow/green background when powered on. This transflective LCD Display is visible with ambient light or a backlight while offering a wide operating temperature range from -20 to 70 degrees Celsius. This NHD-0216HZ-FL-YBW-C display has an optimal view of 6:00 and comes with a temperature compensation circuit. This display operates at 5V supply voltage and is RoHS compliant.

Adjust the length, position, and pinout of your cables or add additional connectors. Get a cable solution that’s precisely designed to make your connections streamlined and secure.

Easily modify any connectors on your display to meet your application’s requirements. Our engineers are able to perform soldering for pin headers, boxed headers, right angle headers, and any other connectors your display may require.

Choose from a wide selection of interface options or talk to our experts to select the best one for your project. We can incorporate HDMI, USB, SPI, VGA and more into your display to achieve your design goals.

Choose from a wide selection of changes including shape, size, pinout, and component layout of your PCB to make it a perfect fit for your application.

This 2×16 character LCD Module with BLUE Backlight uses an I2C interface to communicate with the host microcontroller. This budget-conscious LCD is used on projects requiring the display of text, data, or ASCII characters of all types. Connect to Vcc, Gnd, SDA (serial data line), and SCL (serial clock line). This is a 5VDC device and will be found on the I2C bus at address 0x27 / 0x3F.

If you just need a few samples, it`s better to directly on ourAliexpress store, we are 5 stars feedback supplier with 100% Honesty. (The buy link is on the right of the product image)

Different displays have different characteristics, just tell Panox Display your application, and operating environment, Panox Display will suggest a suitable display for you.

But Panox Display is not a school, if customers don`t know the basic knowledge to design circuit boards, we suggest using our controller board to drive the display.

First, you need to check whether this display has On-cell or In-cell touch panel, if has, it only needs to add a cover glass on it. If not, it needs an external touch panel.

Because the shape of the cover glass depends on the design of the clients, to avoid infringement of appearance, most of the developers need different customized touch panels.

If you don`t know or don`t want to write a display program on Raspberry Pi, it`s better to get an HDMI controller board from us, and Panox Display will send a config.txt file for reference.

Before you get involved with LCD display programming, its critical you first choose the correct LCD display for your product. All LCD modules can be classified into one of two categories: those requiring a controller/driver chip and those that don"t.

Displays requiring a controller/driver chip to interface with your product require a programmer to write software code, sometimes referred to as firmware, to connect the LCD to the end product. Those that have a controller/driver are much easier and faster to program. Specifically, this article will address programming the character or alphanumeric displays with a parallel bus (a parallel bus LCD sends and receives 4 bits, 8 bits or 16 bits of data at a time).

The second category, those that don"t require a controller/driver chip, are called static or segment displays. This means that there is one connection on the LCD for each segment. Although this eliminates the controller chip, it requires a great deal of connections between the display and the customers product.

So what exactly is this all important piece of technology—the controller/driver (C/D)—that will make your life easier through quick and simple programming? It is a small microprocessor whose function is to convert the designers’ firmware/software into characters, numbers, and punctuation marks. The C/D makes it easy for the product designer to quickly program the character display. Inside each C/D is a character table, sometimes referred to as a character map or font table, which contains pre-loaded letters, numbers, and punctuation. The table allows the designer to call out the requested character by addressing the number of that character. In other words, the letter ‘T’ may be the number 27 and the n-dash (i.e. “-”) could be number 122. This eliminates the need to create each character from scratch and reduces the amount of time necessary to program the LCD module. In the font table shown below, the letter ‘P’ would be displayed when the designer calls the number sequence below.

D0=0, D1=0, D2=0, D3=0, D4 =0, D5=0, D6=1, D7=1. The letter Do, D1 and so on above means data bit 0, data bit 1 etc. Most character displays use eight data bits.

The character table contains 255 possible characters. This number of characters is sufficient for one language, but would be impossible to display every character in every language when limited to only 255 options. This challenge is solved by making use of a different C/D for each language. You can order a C/D for French, German and many other languages.

There are several manufactures of C/D’s including Seiko, Epson, Toshiba, and Sunplus. There are distinct advantages of having multiple makers in multiple places in the world. Specifically, you won’t have to worry about a delay in the supply chain that is the result from the constraint of the C/D being made by only one or two manufacturers. You don’t want anything to delay the launch of your product.

Character LCD displays contain 14 pins if no backlight is attached and 16 pins when an EL or LED backlight is included with the module. Below is a breakdown of each pin and the function of that pin. The function of these pins directly relates to your success at programming character LCD displays, so pay attention!

The Ground is necessary for the voltage and the contrast adjust to reference. Ground, also referred to as zero volts, is required on all electronic devices. Electrical ground is similar to the ground floor of a tall building. All the floors above the ground floor are positive and all the floors below the ground floor, the basement, are negative. The ground pin on the LCD is connected to the ground on the customer’s product

This is the Logic voltage necessary to drive the LCD. There are two common voltages for a character LCD, 3.3V (this is equal to two "aa" batteries in series) and 5V.

It is possible to order a character LCD with both a positive and negative voltage. This option is not very common and is seen in replacing older discontinued displays.

We do not recommend using the same Ground and VDD connections to supply both your LCD logic and your LED backlight. It is better to use a separate power for your backlight which is what pins 15 and 16 or the A and K tab on the side of the LCD are designed for.

This is the connection for the contrast adjust. This function is to modify the voltage between VDD and Ground and then to adjust the contrast. If you are not able to achieve the desired contrast, it may be necessary to add a resistor to the back of the printed circuit board. The addition of the resistor alleviates the low contrast issue.

Register Select has two positions: 1 (on or high) or 0 (off or low). When RS is low (0), the data is to be treated as an instruction such as ‘move the position of the cursor’ or ‘clear the screen’. When RS is high (1), the data being sent to the display is a letter, number or punctuation mark that is to be displayed on the screen.

The RW line is the "Read/Write" control line. When RW is low (0), the information on the data bus is being written to the LCD. When RW is high (1), the program is effectively querying (or reading) the LCD. Only one instruction ‘check LCD status’ is a read command. All others are write commands--so RW will almost always be set to low.

The data bits on a parallel LCD display can accept up to 8 bits of data at a time. It is possible to use just four of the eight data bits if your microcontroller lacks enough connections to drive all 8 bits; however, this is a slow transfer of information. The data bit lines are numbered DB and begin at number DB0, DB1 etc. up to DB7.

These two lines are called A for Anode and K for Cathode. Yes, it is strange to use the letter K for a word that starts with a C, but that is an entirely different subject!

The anode is the positive voltage for the backlight, while the K is the ground for the backlight. You have options when it comes to ordering your backlights; you can order an LCD display with either a 3.3V LED backlight or a 4.2V LED backlight.

One key component in LCD display programming is to make sure the controller driver you have designed will continue in production. Over time C/D suppliers will discontinue various models. So, the issue you solved with maintaining a steady supply chain does crop up again when models become obsolete. To mitigate the inconvenience, when the IC is discontinued, the LCD supplier will recommend a replacement or compatible controller. This is where the word ‘compatible’ does not mean ‘exact drop in equivalent’; however, we find that a compatible controller is an exact match 95% of the time. If you find yourself in that unlucky 5%, then you will either need to make a last-time buy of the controller that is being discontinued or change the software on your product to match the new controller.

16×2 Character LCD is a very basic LCD module which is commonly used in electronics projects and products. It contains 2 rows that can display 16 characters. Each character is displayed using 5×8 or 5×10 dot matrix. It can be easily interfaced with a microcontroller. In this tutorial we will see how to write data to an LCD with PIC Microcontroller using Hi-Tech C Compiler. Hi-Tech C has no built in LCD libraries so we require the hardware knowledge of LCD to control it. Commonly used LCD Displays uses HD44780 compliant controllers.

This is the pin diagram of a 16×2 Character LCD display. As in all devices it also has two inputs to give power Vcc and GND. Voltage at VEE determines the Contrast of the display. A 10K potentiometer whose fixed ends are connected to Vcc, GND and variable end is connected to VEE can be used to adjust contrast. A microcontroller needs to send two informations to operate this LCD module, Data and Commands. Data represents the ASCII value (8 bits) of the character to be displayed and Command determines the other operations of LCD such as position to be displayed. Data and Commands are send through the same data lines, which are multiplexed using the RS (Register Select) input of LCD. When it is HIGH, LCD takes it as data to be displayed and when it is LOW, LCD takes it as a command. Data Strobe is given using E (Enable) input of the LCD. When the E (Enable) is HIGH, LCD takes it as valid data or command. The input signal R/W (Read or Write) determines whether data is written to or read from the LCD. In normal cases we need only writing hence it is tied to GROUND in circuits shown below.

The interface between this LCD and Microcontroller can be 8 bit or 4 bit and the difference between them is in how the data or commands are send to LCD. In the 8 bit mode, 8 bit data and commands are send through the data lines DB0 – DB7 and data strobe is given through E input of the LCD. But 4 bit mode uses only 4 data lines. In this 8 bit data and commands are splitted into 2 parts (4 bits each) and are sent sequentially through data lines DB4 – DB7 with its own data strobe through E input. The idea of 4 bit communication is introduced to save pins of a microcontroller. You may think that 4 bit mode will be slower than 8 bit. But the speed difference is only minimal. As LCDs are slow speed devices, the tiny speed difference between these modes is not significant. Just remember that microcontroller is operating at high speed in the range of MHz and we are viewing LCD with our eyes. Due to Persistence of Vision of our eyes we will not even feel the speed difference.

Hope that you got rough idea about how this LCD Module works. Actually you need to read the datasheet of HD44780 LCD driver used in this LCD Module to write a Hi-Tech C program for PIC. But we solved this problem by creating a header file lcd.h which includes all the commonly used functions. Just include it and enjoy.

Lcd8_Init() & Lcd4_Init() : These functions will initialize the LCD Module connected to the following defined pins in 8 bit and 4 bit mode respectively.

Lcd8_Set_Cursor() & Lcd4_Set_Cursor() : These functions set the row and column of the cursor on the LCD Screen. By using this we can change the position of the character being displayed by the following functions.

Lcd8_Write_Char() & Lcd4_Write_Char() :These functions will write a character to the LCD Screen when interfaced through 8 Bit and 4 Bit mode respectively.

Lcd8_Shift_Left() & Lcd4_Shift_Left() : These functions are used to shift the content on the LCD Display left without changing the data in the display RAM.

Lcd8_Shift_Right() & Lcd4_Shift_Right() : Similar to above functions, these are used to shift the content on the LCD Display right without changing the data in the display RAM.

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16×2 LCD is named so because; it has 16 Columns and 2 Rows. There are a lot of combinations available like, 8×1, 8×2, 10×2, 16×1, etc. But the most used one is the 16*2 LCD, hence we are using it here.

All the above mentioned LCD display will have 16 Pins and the programming approach is also the same and hence the choice is left to you. Below is the Pinout and Pin Description of 16x2 LCD Module:

These black circles consist of an interface IC and its associated components to help us use this LCD with the MCU. Because our LCD is a 16*2 Dot matrix LCD and so it will have (16*2=32) 32 characters in total and each character will be made of 5*8 Pixel Dots.  A Single character with all its Pixels enabled is shown in the below picture.

So Now, we know that each character has (5*8=40) 40 Pixels and for 32 Characters we will have (32*40) 1280 Pixels. Further, the LCD should also be instructed about the Position of the Pixels.

It will be a hectic task to handle everything with the help of MCU, hence an Interface IC like HD44780 is used, which is mounted on LCD Module itself. The function of this IC is to get the Commands and Data from the MCU and process them to display meaningful information onto our LCD Screen.

The LCD can work in two different modes, namely the 4-bit mode and the 8-bit mode. In 4 bit mode we send the data nibble by nibble, first upper nibble and then lower nibble. For those of you who don’t know what a nibble is: a nibble is a group of four bits, so the lower four bits (D0-D3) of a byte form the lower nibble while the upper four bits (D4-D7) of a byte form the higher nibble. This enables us to send 8 bit data.

Now you must have guessed it, Yes 8-bit mode is faster and flawless than 4-bit mode. But the major drawback is that it needs 8 data lines connected to the microcontroller. This will make us run out of I/O pins on our MCU, so 4-bit mode is widely used. No control pins are used to set these modes. It"s just the way of programming that change.

As said, the LCD itself consists of an Interface IC. The MCU can either read or write to this interface IC. Most of the times we will be just writing to the IC, since reading will make it more complex and such scenarios are very rare. Information like position of cursor, status completion interrupts etc. can be read if required, but it is out of the scope of this tutorial.

The Interface IC present in most of the LCD is HD44780U,in order to program our LCD we should learn the complete datasheet of the IC. The datasheet is given here.

There are some preset commands instructions in LCD, which we need to send to LCD through some microcontroller. Some important command instructions are given below:

If you’ve ever attempted to connect an LCD display to an Arduino, you’ve probably noticed that it uses a lot of Arduino pins. Even in 4-bit mode, the Arduino requires seven connections – half of the Arduino’s available digital I/O pins.

The solution is to use an I2C LCD display. It only uses two I/O pins that are not even part of the digital I/O pin set and can be shared with other I2C devices.

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.

If you look closely, you can see tiny rectangles for each character on the screen as well as the pixels that make up a character. Each of these rectangles is a grid of 5×8 pixels.

At the heart of the adapter is an 8-bit I/O expander chip – PCF8574. This chip converts the I2C data from an Arduino into the parallel data required for an LCD display.

There is a jumper on the board that provides power to the backlight. To control the intensity of the backlight, you can remove the jumper and apply external voltage to the header pin labeled ‘LED’.

If you have multiple devices on the same I2C bus, you may need to set a different I2C address for the LCD adapter to avoid conflicting with another I2C device.

For this purpose, the adapter comes with three solder jumpers/pads (A0, A1, and A2). The address is set when a jumper is shorted with a blob of solder.

An important point to note here is that several companies, including Texas Instruments and NXP Semiconductors, manufacture the same PCF8574 chip. And the I2C address of your LCD depends on the chip manufacturer.

According to the Texas Instruments’ datasheet, the three address selection bits (A0, A1, and A2) are located at the end of the 7-bit I2C address register.

According to the NXP Semiconductors’ datasheet, the three address selection bits (A0, A1, and A2) are located at the end of the 7-bit I2C address register. However, the remaining bits in the address register are different.

So the I2C address of your LCD is most likely 0x27 or 0x3F. If you’re not sure what your LCD’s I2C address is, there’s an easy way to figure it out. You’ll learn about that later in this tutorial.

Now we are left with the pins that are used for I2C communication. Note that each Arduino board has different I2C pins that must be connected correctly. On Arduino boards with the R3 layout, the SDA (data line) and SCL (clock line) are on the pin headers close to the AREF pin. They are also referred to as A5 (SCL) and A4 (SDA).

After wiring the LCD, you will need to adjust the contrast of the LCD. On the I2C module, there is a potentiometer that can be rotated with a small screwdriver.

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

Before you can proceed, you must install the LiquidCrystal_I2C library. This library allows you to control I2C displays using functions that are very similar to the LiquidCrystal library.

To install the library, navigate to Sketch > Include Library > Manage Libraries… Wait for the Library Manager to download the library index and update the list of installed libraries.

Filter your search by entering ‘liquidcrystal‘. Look for the LiquidCrystal I2C library by Frank de Brabander. Click on that entry and then choose Install.

As previously stated, the I2C address of your LCD depends on the manufacturer. If your LCD has a PCF8574 chip from Texas Instruments, its I2C address is 0x27; if it has a PCF8574 chip from NXP Semiconductors, its I2C address is 0x3F.

If you’re not sure what your LCD’s I2C address is, you can run a simple I2C scanner sketch that scans your I2C bus and returns the address of each I2C device it finds.

However, before you upload the sketch, you must make a minor change to make it work for you. You must pass the I2C address of your LCD as well as the display dimensions to the LiquidCrystal_I2C constructor. If you’re using a 16×2 character LCD, pass 16 and 2; if you’re using a 20×4 character LCD, pass 20 and 4.

The next step is to create an object of LiquidCrystal_I2C class. The LiquidCrystal_I2C constructor accepts three inputs: I2C address, number of columns, and number of rows of the display.

In the setup, three functions are called. The first function is init(). It initializes the interface to the LCD. The second function is clear(). This function clears the LCD screen and positions the cursor in the upper-left corner. The third function, backlight(), turns on the LCD backlight.

The function setCursor(2, 0) is then called to move the cursor to the third column of the first 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_I2C 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.

As previously discussed in this tutorial, a character is made up of a 5×8 pixel matrix; therefore, you must define your custom character within this matrix. You can define a character by using the createChar() function.

To use createChar(), you must first create an 8-byte array. Each byte in the array corresponds to a row in a 5×8 matrix. In a byte, the digits 0 and 1 indicate which pixels in a row should be OFF and which should be ON.

CGROM is non-volatile memory that retains data even when the power is removed, whereas CGRAM is volatile memory that loses data when the power is removed.

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 pixels 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.

Creating custom characters has never been easier! We’ve developed a small application called Custom Character Generator. Can you see the blue grid below? You can click on any pixel to set or clear that pixel. And as you click, the code for the character is generated next to the grid. This code can be used directly in your Arduino sketch.

There’s no limit to what you can create. The only limitation is that the LiquidCrystal_I2C library only supports eight custom characters. But don’t be sad, look at the bright side; at least we have eight characters.

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.

This sketch contains eight custom-characters. Take, for example, the Heart[8] array. You can see that the bits (0s and 1s) are forming the shape of a heart. 0 turns the pixel off, and 1 turns it on.

In the setup, we use the createChar() function to create a custom character. This function accepts two parameters: a number between 0 and 7 to reserve one of the eight supported custom characters, and the name of the array.

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.

When activated by an electric current, these liquid crystals become opaque, blocking the backlight that is located behind the screen. As a result, that area will be darker than the rest. By activating the liquid crystal layer in specific pixels, characters can be generated.

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.

If you look closely, you can see tiny rectangles for each character on the screen as well as the pixels that make up a character. Each of these rectangles is a grid of 5×8 pixels.

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!

8-bit mode is significantly faster than 4-bit mode. This is because in 8-bit mode, data is written in a single operation, whereas in 4-bit mode, a byte is split into two nibbles and two write operations are performed.

Therefore, 4-bit mode is commonly used to save I/O pins. 8-bit mode, on the other hand, is best suited when speed is a priority in the application and at least 10 I/O pins are available.

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.

As previously discussed in this tutorial, a character is made up of a 5×8 pixel matrix; therefore, you must define your custom character within this matrix. You can define a character by using the createChar() function.

To use createChar(), you must first create an 8-byte array. Each byte in the array corresponds to a row in a 5×8 matrix. In a byte, the digits 0 and 1 indicate which pixels in a row should be ON and which should be OFF.

CGROM is non-volatile memory that retains data even when the power is removed, whereas CGRAM is volatile memory that loses data when the power is removed.

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.

Creating custom characters has never been easier! We’ve developed a small application called Custom Character Generator. Can you see the blue grid below? You can click on any pixel to set or clear that pixel. And as you click, the code for the character is generated next to the grid. This code can be used directly in your Arduino sketch.

There’s no limit to what you can create. The only limitation is that the LiquidCrystal library only supports eight custom characters. But don’t be sad, look at the bright side; at least we have eight characters.

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.

This sketch contains eight custom-characters. Take, for example, the Heart[8] array. You can see that the bits (0s and 1s) are forming the shape of a heart. 0 turns the pixel off, and 1 turns it on.

In the setup, we use the createChar() function to create a custom character. This function accepts two parameters: a number between 0 and 7 to reserve one of the eight supported custom characters, and the name of the array.

An example schematic for interfacing the PC1601A LCD display to the PIC16F84A. The potentiometer can be used to provide simple contrast control on the LCD.

In this project, we will have brief discussion on how to interface 16×2 LCD module to AT89C51, which is an 8051 family microcontroller. We use LCD display for the displaying messages in a more interactive way to operate the system or displaying error messages etc. Interfacing 16×2 LCD with 8051 microcontroller is very easy if you understanding the working of LCD.

16×2 Liquid Crystal Display which will display the 32 characters at a time in two rows (16 characters in one row). Each character in the display is of size 5×7 pixel matrix. This matrix differs for different 16×2 LCD modules, if you take JHD162A, this matrix goes to 5×8. There are 16 pins in the LCD module, the pin configuration us given below

4RSRS is the register select pin used to write display data to the LCD (characters), this pin has to be high when writing the data to the LCD. During the initializing sequence and other commands this pin should low.

So by reading the above table you can get a brief idea how to display a character. For displaying a character you should enable the enable pin (pin 6) by giving a pulse of 450ns, after enabling the pin6 you should select the register select pin (pin4) in write mode. To select the register select pin in write mode you have to make this pin high (RS=1), after selecting the register select you have to configure the R/W to write mode that is R/W should be low (R/W=0).

Commands:There are some preset commands which will do a specific task in the LCD. These commands are very important for displaying data in LCD. The list of commands given below:

RST Pin is pulled-LOW with the help of a 10KΩ Resistor. With the help of a 10μF Capacitor and a Push Button, you can reset the 8051 Microcontroller. EA is pulled-HIGH with the help of a 10KΩ resistor.

The data pins of the LCD are connected to PORT0 (first, the PORT0 pins must be pulled-HIGH with the help of a 1KΩ Resistor Pack). RS and E are connected to PORT2 pins P2.0 and P2.1.

The programs given below will use above functions and display the complete string which is given by the programmer to display the data. We have provided two demo codes working properly and easy to understand.