micro bit lcd screen supplier

2023-01-03 12:32:11

The bottom edge of the board has a replication of the BBC microbit"s own edge connector, this allows you to plug the :VIEW Text32 into any board that the microbit itself can be slotted into. This is great news if your project outputs strings of text and numbers that previously would have slowly scrolled across the LED Matrix.

The board has been designed so that the BBC micro:bit can be slotted into the edge connector on the top side of the PCB. No extra tools are required for installation, the board is supplied and ready to go --plug and play/work!

On the back of the :VIEW Text32 is a 3 x AAA battery holder to provide power to the :VIEW Text32, the attached micro:bit, and the replicated edge connector. There is a power switch for turning the battery supply on and off. The replicated edge connector can supply 90mA (as per the normal micro:bit)

Kitronik has produced a set of custom blocks for the Microsoft MakeCode editor. To add them click on the cog icon in the top right of the editor, then; select Extensions from the drop down menu, type and enter Kitronik into the search bar and select the :VIEW Text32 tile from the list. The custom blocks will now be added to the editor and can be used in your code.

micro bit lcd screen supplier

This shield is specially designed for Micro: bit, LCD1602 and Micro: bit using 4-wire connection, it is the same size as LCD1602 display and has 4 crowtail interface, IIC, UART, analog port and digital port. The LCD 1602 Dimensions is 37mm*80mm. LCD1602 display contrast also can be adjusted.

micro bit lcd screen supplier

The Micro:bit is a great device for learning programming. One limitation is the limited display provided by the 5x5 LED matrix. This can be used to display scrolling text but it"s difficult to read and far from user friendly.

In this guide I will show how you can use an LCD display to show text messages to users. Through this you can create a stop watch program which uses the display for showing elapsed time.

This video gives an overview of the steps taken in programming the micro:bit. This uses the Microsoft block based editor MakeCode, and I also shown what the code looks like in JavaScript. In a future video I"ll also show how this can be programmed using Python.

For this example I used a 1602 LCD display. The code refers to 16 characters per row and 2 rows in total. You could use other models such as a 16x4 which would also work.

It is important to get one with an I2C adapter. These are needed because the LCD display takes parallel data and so would use up many of the pins of the MicroBit. The I2C adapter allows you to instead send the data as serial data so needs only 2 pins (plus ground). The image below shows an LCD display without the adapter and one below with adapter. You can buy the adapter separately but that will need to be soldered to the display, whereas it is more convenient to buy them pre-soldered on. The adapters are normally based around the PCF8574 or PF8574A ICs. These normally have I2C address 39 (0x27) for the PF8574 or 63 (0x3F) for the PF8574A. If you want to connect multiple devices then you can change the address using solder pads on the bottom of the board.

The LCD display needs a 5V power supply. This is higher than the 3V power supply available on the micro:bit pins. Some breakout boards include 5V from the USB connector, but if not then you will need a separate power supply. In my case I used a USB lead with a micro-USB breakout connector. If using a separate power supply then the grounds will need to be connected together.

The diagram below shows how I wired up my particular setup [click the image for a larger version]. This includes an external micro USB connector which is mounted on a breadboard and used to provide the 5V power needed by the LCD display.

The ground of the microbit and the LCD are connected together. Pin 19 from the MicroBit connects to SCL (Serial Clock) and pin 20 to SDA (Serial Data).

micro bit lcd screen supplier

The Kitronik :VIEW Text32 character LCD, for those times when the LED Matrix and/or external LEDs aren"t delivering adequate visual feedback from your microbit project. The :VIEW Text32 is a character LCD showing 32 characters (2 lines of 16 characters). The :VIEW Text32 also breaks out the BBC micro:bit pins to edge pads (excluding pin14).

The bottom edge of the board has a replication of the BBC microbits own edge connector, this allows you to plug the :VIEW Text32 into any board that the microbit itself can be slotted into. This is great news if your project outputs strings of text and numbers that previously would have slowly scrolled across the LED Matrix.

micro bit lcd screen supplier

The Kitronik :VIEW Text32 LCD Screen for BBC micro:bit is a character LCD showing 32 characters (2 lines of 16 characters). The :VIEW Text32 also breaks out the BBC micro:bit pins to edge pads (excluding pin14).

The bottom edge of the board has a replication of the BBC micro:bits own edge connector, this allows you to plug the :VIEW Text32 into any board that the micro:bit itself can be slotted into. This is great news if your project outputs strings of text and numbers that previously would have slowly scrolled across the LED Matrix.

micro bit lcd screen supplier

The Kitronik: VIEW Text32 is a character LCD showing 32 characters (2 lines of 16 characters). The: VIEW Text32 also breaks out the BBC micro:bit pins to edge pads (excluding pin14).

The bottom edge of the board has a replication of the BBC micro:bits own edge connector, this allows you to plug the: VIEW Text32 into any board that the micro:bit itself can be slotted into. This is great news if your project outputs strings of text and numbers that previously would have slowly scrolled across the LED Matrix.

micro bit lcd screen supplier

This is the Kitronik :VIEW Text32 character LCD...for those times when the LED Matrix isn"t delivering adequate visual feedback from your micro:bit project!

The :VIEW Text32 is a character LCD showing 32 characters (2 lines of 16 characters). The :VIEW Text32 also breaks out the BBC micro:bit pins to edge pads (excluding pin 14).

The bottom edge of the board has a replication of the BBC micro:bit"s own edge connector, this allows you to plug the :VIEW Text32 into any board that the micro:bit itself can be slotted into. This is great news if your project outputs strings of text and numbers that previously would have slowly scrolled across the LED Matrix.

Kitronik has produced a set of custom blocks for the Microsoft MakeCode editor. To add them click on the cog icon in the top right of the editor, then; select Extensions from the drop-down menu, type and enter Kitronik into the search bar and select the :VIEW Text32 tile from the list. The custom blocks will now be added to the editor and can be used in your code.

micro bit lcd screen supplier

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micro bit lcd screen supplier

LCD character displays are a useful way to get output from a microcontroller. The one used on this page is a fairly standard size, able to display 2 rows of 16 characters. The advantage we have over the LED matrix is that we don"t need to have our text scrolling across the screen. This allows us to display things like sensor readings so that we can see them change in real time.

The most common standard for the controllers built into these displays is the Hitachi HD44780 LCD controller protocol. This is a parallel interface (we need to send signals down several wires at the same time). For many microcontrollers that have been around longer than the micro:bit (like Arduino), there are libraries to help you interact with common hardware like this. Although no such libraries exist for the micro:bit, I have been able to make a rough conversion of the Arduino library code for use with the micro:bit.

The HD44780 LCD controller interface is made up of 16 connections, not all of which are needed to communicate with the display. On most modules, these are broken out to 0.1 inch spaced pins and are in the following order,

We will need to connect up LCD pins 1 & 2 to our power pins on the micro:bit as well as connecting LCD pins 15 & 16 up to the power to make the backlight work. The resistor for this light is built into the display module.

The RS pin needs to connect to a GPIO pin. It is set to LOW when we send commands to the display (like clearing the screen or moving the cursor) and set to 1 when we are sending character data.

The RW pin is set to LOW when writing to the LCD and set to HIGH when reading. We don"t need to read from the display so we can save ourselves a GPIO pin by connecting this pin directly to GND.

There are 8 data pins. We can operate the display in either 8 bit or 4 bit mode. 4 bit mode means 4 rather than 8 connections. When we use 4 bit mode, we only connect up D4 - D7 to our GPIO pins. This does mean that we will be sending our bytes in two parts and will be a little slower when updating the display but will save us 4 GPIO connections.

The micro:bit hasn"t been around long enough for there to be many examples of how to connect to these or any hardware libraries that provide simple functions for you to use. This has been converted from the open source Arduino library with the timings for delays rounded up. This makes the communication a little slower than can be achieved but more than good enough for most uses you want to make of the LCD.

micro bit lcd screen supplier

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