tinkerkit lcd module schematic manufacturer

Now move the content of the downloaded “Tinkerkit Drivers” folder inside the Arduino drivers subfolder. At this point it’s important to know that the TinkerKit! (and also the Arduino) boards works in this way: they have two “states”. One is called “bootloader state” that lasts for about seven seconds after you plug the board into the usb port, then it goes into “sketch mode”. Every time you power the board (or reset it) it goes into bootloader mode, then sketchbook mode after seven seconds. We have to install a driver for each mode.

Press the reset button on the TKLCD board, without closing the Device Manager. Once restarted, for the first 7 seconds, while it’s in bootloader mode, you should see an unknown “Arduino Leonardo” in the device list, right click on it and select “Uninstall“. A pop-up confirmation window appears, press OK. (sometimes Windows shows the “unknown device” at the top of the list and not under the “ports” sub-menu)

Now that we have uninstalled the Leonardo drivers for the LCD, we have to install them again. Press reset again on the TKLCD board, and when the unknown “Arduino Leonardo” pops up from the ports menu, right-click then “Update driver software“

Press the reset button, Windows should see a “TinkerKit LCD bootloader”, then after 8 seconds it turns again into an unknown Arduino Leonardo. Repeat the right click, update driver procedure that we did in steps 12 to 14.

Now the LCD is installed on your Windows PC. After installing it, you can select the Arduino Leonardo board from the IDE every time that you want to use the TinkerKit! LCD.

With the TKLCD module you can write text on the module’s screen in a few minutes. It has an LCD display on board and it requires a dedicated software library that is available here. The LCD can be used like a regular module by plugging it into the TinkerKit! shield or as an independent component; it has in fact a microcontroller and a USB port on board that make it a fully-fledged LCD-shaped Arduino Leonardo.

Using a four-connectors wire or 4-pin jumper wire, the LCD module can be hooked-up to the SERIAL port on the TinkerKit! Shield. To work properly it has to be loaded with the right firmware; it is nothing more than a particular Arduino sketch and it’s located inside the examples of the TKLCD library. You can open it from File->Examples->TKLCD->SerialFirmware Mind that this firmware must be uploaded on the LCD module, and not on an Arduino. Connect the module using the USB cable, (the Arduino software recognizes it as an Arduino Leonardo) then load the firmware. You don’t have to upload the firmware every time, just remember to reload it if you upload something else on the module, and then you want to use it again from the serial. Once the firmware is uploaded and the module is connected to the Serial port, open the Arduino software and include the following libraries:TKLCD, LiquidCrystal and Wire. The TKLCD library has two different classes, one for each use; in our case, we are using it via serial port so we have to declare it as TKLCD_Serial in the globals (before the setup):

One of the cool features of the LCD module is that it doesn’t need an Arduino or TinkerKit! shield to run. It can be connected straight to the USB port of your computer exactly like an Arduino Leonardo, then, once the code is finished, just select “Arduino Leonardo” from the board’s list and upload. To control the LCD we have to include the following libraries: TKLCD, LiquidCrystal and Wire, then declare the LCD as TKLCD_Local in the globals (before the setup):

From now on we have a series of methods that we can apply to the lcd object it inside the loop function. Just browse into the examples folder of the TKLCD library or read the library’s reference to see all of them.

The TinkerKit! LCD module mounts nine connectors on the board. Six of these, the ones with the three-pins layout, can be used with other TinkerKit! modules. Don’t be confused by the labels, the A0, A1 and A2 are analog inputs and D5, D6 and D11 are outputs but they can also be used as digital inputs. Use them like regular inputs and outputs, just remember to include the TinkerKit! library in addition to the TKLCD and to declare them using the right port:

In the following sketch we use the LCD module to display the temperature. We use it as a stand-alone module with a thermistor connected directly to one of its input ports.

The TinkerKit LCD module make it really easy to write text on the screen in a few minutes. What make it really unique is that you can use it in two different ways:plugged to a TinkerKit shield like any other TinkerKit module

The TinkerKit LCD module is equiped with its own microcontroller and run with its own library. Uploading the TKLCD code is just a matter of uploading a new sketch to the LCD using:the four-connectors wire connected to the SERIAL port on the TK Shield

To upload LCD firmware, go to Examples->TKLCD->Serial_firmware. Please note that the TinkerKit LCD will be recognize as an Arduino Leonardo board when you connect it to USB. You will need to load that code again if you want to have a fresh install of the LCD. Once uploaded, you are ready to go and write your own program.

Please notice that the way you connect your LCD module is really important for declaring it in your code:use TKLCD_Serial lcd = TKLCD_Serial() if you connect it to the Serial of your TinkerKit Shield

You actually have to go to the 2 wire i2c tutorial to see the pinout of serial though Derp its not in the serial tutorial go figure. like so many problems with tinkerkit it was a great Idea and supported by arduino and radioshack they were not good at support or tutorials etc. so they failed.

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.

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: