raspberry pi pico lcd display quotation

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:

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.

1.14" LCD HAT for Raspberry Pi Pico is a 1.14-inch display expansion board module of 240×135 resolution, 65K RGB colors, clear and colorful displaying effect, with a joystick, designed dedicatedly for Raspberry Pi Pico to expand its engagement via SPI communication by providing standard 40 pins GPIO interface.

Now Create a file "Lcd1_14driver.py" as same content from Pico 1.14" LCD HAT"s github repository in any micropython supported ide (preferred thonny ide) and save it in root location of Raspberry Pi Pico with same name "Lcd1_14driver.py" (without quotes).

When the Raspberry Pi Pico was released, UK retailer Pimoroni were the first to market with a slew of add-ons for the latest Pi. The Pico Display retails for around $20 and is a small IPSscreen with pushbuttons and RGB LED that connects directly to the Pico and acts as a fun introduction to writing code that will appear on the screen. While it may just be “a bit of fun” for most, Pico Display and the Raspberry Pi Pico have enough power to competently create games and animations in a package no larger than a pack of gum.

The Pico Display is a pack, a term used by Pimoroni to describe a board which attaches to the pins of a Raspberry Pi Pico, in much the same way as a backpack. Measuring just 2 x 1 x 0.3 inches (53 x 25 x 9mm) Pico Display is only slightly larger than the Pico itself. Dominating the Pico Display is a 1.14 inch 240 x 135 pixel IPS LCD screen. Power to the Pico Display is sent via the 3V3 GPIO pin and the Pico Display communicates with the Raspberry Pi Pico via an SPI interface. Also present on the Pico Display are four pushbuttons (A,B,X,Y) and a single RGB LED.

To use the Pico Display we need to flash Pimoroni’s custom version of MicroPython which has the MicroPython libraries for this and other boards in their range. There are also C/C++ libraries for Pico Display should you require them.

To get a feel for Pico Display we looked to the demos and tried a few out. The first demo that we saw, demo.py, draws random sized and colored circles on the screen. These circles bounce around the screen giving the illusion that they are bound to the laws of physics. Even with 100 circles bouncing around the screen everything ran smoothly.

Once our logic problem was solved, we had scrolling text and random colors. But what next? The four buttons at the corners of the screen had not yet been used, so we adapted our code to include conditional statements that would look for a button press and then run the block of code associated with that condition. In our case it was three different text strings, two with randomly chosen colors and one with a set text color and different background color. The MicroPython library for Pico Display is easy to use, once you understand the process of how it updates the screen

As this is a pack, despite using only a handful of GPIO pins, it denies access to all of them and this will limit where and how it can be used. If you would like to make a simple scrolling text name badge or inspirational quotes then Pico Display is for you.

But this board is not limited to merely text. It can also be used to make your own video games such as Tetris. If you would like to use the Pico Display with another board, then you would need to purchase the Pico Omnibus two way expander or the Pico Decker quad expander, but be mindful of the GPIO pins that each board will use, as clashes will prevent the boards from working.

Pimoroni’s Pico Display is a low cost way to create unique animated projects with your Raspberry Pi Pico. Using the Pico Display with MicroPython is simple and we can get decent results with very little code.

Like the Pico Unicorn pack, the Pico Display is more of a means to learn a new skill while having fun, than a serious board to solve a problem. However, this is not a negative as the Pico Display uses the same library as the Pico Base Explorer and that means the skills learnt on one are transferable to the other.

LCD screens are useful and found in many parts of our life. At the train station, parking meter, vending machines communicating brief messages on how we interact with the machine they are connected to. LCD screens are a fun way to communicate information in Raspberry Pi Pico projects and other Raspberry Pi Projects. They have a big bright screen which can display text, numbers and characters across a 16 x 2 screen. The 16 refers to 16 characters across the screen, and the 2 represents the number of rows we have. We can get LCD screens with 20x2, 20x4 and many other configurations, but 16x2 is the most common.

In this tutorial, we will learn how to connect an LCD screen, an HD44780, to a Raspberry Pi Pico via the I2C interface using the attached I2C backpack, then we will install a MicroPython library via the Thonny editor and learn how to use it to write text to the display, control the cursor and the backlight.

2. Import four librariesof pre-written code. The first two are from the Machine library and they enable us to use I2C and GPIO pins. Next we import the sleep function from Time enabling us to pause the code. Finally we import the I2C library to interact with the LCD screen.from machine import I2C, Pin

3. Create an objecti2c to communicate with the LCD screen over the I2C protocol. Here we are using I2C channel 0, which maps SDA to GP0 and SCL to GP1.i2c = I2C(0, sda=Pin(0), scl=Pin(1), freq=400000)

5. Create an objectlcdto set up the I2C connection for the library. It tells the library what I2C pins we are using, set via the i2c object, the address of our screen, set via I2C_ADDRand finally it sets that we have a screen with two rows and 16 columns.lcd = I2cLcd(i2c, I2C_ADDR, 2, 16)

6. Create a loopto continually run the code, the first line in the loop will print the I2C address of our display to Thonny’s Python Shell.while True:

8. Write two lines of textto the screen. The first will print “I2C Address:” followed by the address stored inside the I2C_ADDR object. Then insert a new line character “\n” and then write another line saying “Tom’s Hardware" (or whatever you want it to say). Pause for two seconds to allow time to read the text.lcd.putstr("I2C Address:"+str(I2C_ADDR)+"\n")

9. Clear the screenbefore repeating the previous section of code, but this time we display the I2C address of the LCD display using its hex value. The PCF8574T chip used in the I2C backpack has two address, 0x20 and 0x27 and it is useful to know which it is using, especially if we are using multiple I2C devices as they may cause a clash on the bus.lcd.clear()

12. Turn the backlight back onand then hide the cursor. Sometimes, a flashing cursor can detract from the information we are trying to communicate.lcd.backlight_on()

13. Create a for loopthat will print the number 0 to 19 on the LCD screen. Note that there is a 0.4 second delay before we delete the value and replace it with the next. We have to delete the text as overwriting the text will make it look garbled.for i in range(20):

Save and runyour code. As with any Python script in Thonny, Click on File >> Saveand save the file to your Raspberry Pi Pico. We recommend calling it i2c_lcd_test.py. When ready, click on the Green play buttonto start the code and watch as the test runs on the screen.

You do not need to download it as I will provide the necessary code at a later stage, but you may find it interesting. The pinout for the board and the pins used for the buttons and joystick are provided.

The whole computer graphics system depends on being able to daw a coloured dot, or pixel, at a precise point on the screen. With this particular screen we have 240 rows of 240 pixels making a total of 57600 pixels.

We position each pixel by counting from the top left hand corner of the screen using co-ordinate geometry. 0 to 239 for x values moving from left to right across the screen and 0 to 239 for y, moving down the screen. Remember computers count from zero!

Each pixel can have 32 intensities, or brightness, of red and blue and 64 degrees of green brightness, making 65536 different possible colours - called the RGB565 colour space. ( Green gets the extra bit because human eyes are more sensitive to green light.) Each colour is given a number, from 0 to 65535. (In hexadecimal from 0x0000 to 0xFFFF - from black to white and all the coloured steps in between.) We can hold such numbers in 16 bits or 2 bytes.

The module with a color LCD IPS display with a diagonal of 1.14 "and a resolution of 240x135 px, designed to work with the Raspberry Pi Pico. It has a built-in controller ST7789, which communicates via the SPI interface. It can display the content in a full range of 65K colors. There are 4 on the board. buttons at the user"s disposal The module is compatible with 3.3 V and 5 V systems. Full documentation with examples is available on the product wiki.

In this tutorial, we will learn how to use ADC in Raspberry Pi Pico with ADC Example Code using MicroPython. An analog to digital converter (ADC) is a circuit that converts a continuous voltage value (analog) to a binary value (digital) that can be understood by a digital device which could then be used for digital computation.

The Raspberry Pi Pico is built using an RP2040 microcontroller. The board exposes 26 multi-function GPIO pins from a total of 36 GPIO pins. Out of 36 GPIO Pins, there are 4 ADC pins but only 3 are usable.

The ADC in Raspberry Pi Pico is 12bits, which is 4 times better than the 10 bits ADC of the Arduino. We will write a MicroPython code to learn how we can use the ADC pin value with any analog sensors. A potentiometer is the best tool to vary the input Analog Voltage. But before jumping directly into the ADC guide, it is recommended to go through Raspberry Pi Pico Getting Started Tutorial.

An Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) is a very useful feature that converts an analog voltage on a pin to a digital number. By converting from the analog world to the digital world, we can begin to use electronics to interface with the analog world around us.

In real-life applications, ADC is a system that converts an analog signal, such as a sound picked up by a microphone or light entering a digital camera, into a digital signal. An ADC may also provide an isolated measurement such as an electronic device that converts an input analog voltage or current to a digital number representing the magnitude of the voltage or current.

Most microcontrollers nowadays have built-in ADC converters. It is also possible to connect an external ADC converter to any type of microcontroller. ADC converters are usually 10 or 12 bits, having 1024 to 4096 quantization levels. A 16 bits ADC has 65536 quantization levels. A Raspberry Pi Pico has 12 Bits ADC with a quantization level of 4096.

The Raspberry Pi Pico supports four 12-bit SAR based analog to digital converters. Out of the 4, you can only use 3 analog channels. The 4th analog channel is internally connected to the internal temperature sensor. You can measure the temperature using build-in temperature by reading the analog value of ADC4. The following table shows that the input signal for ADC0, ADC1, and ADC2 can be connected with GP26, GP27 & GP28 pins respectively.

Now let us learn how to use ADC of Raspberry Pi Pico. We will use a 10K Potentiometer to vary the Analog input voltage. We will map the analog voltage from 0 to 3.3V with 12 Bit or 16 Bit ADC. The connection diagram is given below.

Connect Pin 1 & Pin 3 of Potentiometer to 3.3V Pin & GND Pin of the Raspberry Pi Pico. Connect the Pin 2 of the Potentiometer to GP28 of Raspberry Pie Pico.

In this code part, I define theADC input connected at pin 28. Then to create an infinite loop I make a while true. then I read the ADC value with the read u16 function. Then using print I can show the value on the shell monitor.

When you rotate the potentiometer and the value goes from 0 to 65536 and that’s weird because the value should go from 0 to 4096. This is supposed to be a 12bit ADC and not 16bit. Anyway, that’s how we can read analog values with the ADC on the raspberry Pi Pico.

I have several i2c devices which I use on the Raspberry Pi computers and program then in Python. Now I have a Raspberry Pi Pico RP2040 microcontroller board, I wanted to try my i2c devices out on the Pico. I am using Adafruit"s CircuitPython as there are many libraries already available for many electronic devices which makes it a lot easier.

As Circuit Python is designed for Micro Controllers with low memory the libraries are more basic than the ones use for Python on desktop computers. So common libraries like numpy, matplotlib, scipy and Pillow are not available though there is a ulab which is like a cut down version of numpy.

To install Circuit Python you download the adafruits .uf2 firmware file from circuitpython.org/downloads. Connect the Pico to a computer with the bootsel button pressed to put it in USB mode. Drop the .utf file into the Pico"s drive. Then disconnect the Pico. When you reconnect it CircuitPython will be ready. Then using Thonny or Mu python editors on a PC or Raspberry Pi , you can access the Pico and run your code. When you are done, disconnect the Pico from the computers USB, then when it next has power your code will run.

The main concept is your program is called code.py, this will run automatically when the micro controller has power. Any additional libraries are manually copied to the root or lib folder on the PIco. As soon as you save the file it will run, not always useful when you are developing a program having to stop it before saving it again. Your program can also be called code.txt, main.txt and main.py but code.py is the standard used name. To run a script with a different name you will need to add a reference to code.py or main.py to import and run the myscript,py file. If you are using Thonny then you can run the myscript.py from the tool bar but you have to stop code.py from running first. This is only useful for testing purposes. If there is a short break with no programs running then code.py will start running again which can be a bit of pain while testing new scripts.

The Raspberry Pi Pico has 2 x I2C peripherals, these can be accessed across 6 sets of GPIO pins per peripheral. This means you can easily connect 12 devices without needing any daisy chaining unlike the Raspberry Pi main boards that only have 1 set available as standard.

For your i2c program you will need to import the libraries boardand busio. Your code will use the line i2c = busio.I2C(board.SCL, board.SDA) to create a I2C object but this doesn"t work on a PIco.

For the Pico you will need to replace the SDA and SCL with the Pin numbers. These are different for each micro controller so you can use some programs from the Adafruit website to view the GPIO pin names, the i2c SDA and SCL pins.

To use the i2c sensor, you will need the boardand busio libraries. The time library is useful for sleep and you will also need the libraries to run the SPI LCD display. terminalio, displayio, adafruit_st7789, adafruit_display_text. As the standard font is small and blocky these scripts will also use a free font Sans-SerifPro-Bold so the adafruit_bitmap_font library will also be needed. These are available in a download by following the link at the base of this article.

The sensor needs 4 connections. A 3v supply, Ground, SDA and SCL i2c connections. For this program I have used the last two pins on the left side from the i2c 1 connections. GP14 (SDA) and GP15 (SCL). The 3v supply comes from the 5th pin on the right (3v3 Out)

Note: There are two options: (please choose your preference)Raspberry Pi Pico with PRE-SOLDERED male headers, and it is breadboard friendly, plug and use!

Released on the 21st of January 2021, the Raspberry Pi Pico is the 1st Microcontroller Development Board from Raspberry Pi Foundation. It is also based on the 1st Microcontroller IC/Silicon - RP2040, designed and produced by Engineers from the Raspberry Pi team too.

What are the differences between the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B and this Raspberry Pi Pico? Well basically, the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B is a motherboard or single-board computer that you can use to play games, work, record data, browse the Internet, watch movies, like a media player, and many more. Raspberry Pi Pico is not designed to replace the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B (or similar board), it is more for physical computing projects where it controls anything from small electronic components, LEDs, motors; reading information from sensors, or communicating with other microcontrollers.

As Python is the official programming language of Raspberry Pi OS, MicroPython is chosen to be one of the programming languages for Raspberry Pi Pico. MicroPython is a lean and efficient implementation of the Python 3 programming language that includes a small subset of the Python standard library and is optimized to run on microcontrollers and in constrained environments.

MicroPython is packed full of advanced features such as interactive prompts, arbitrary precision integers, closures, list comprehension, generators, exception handling, and more. Yet it is compact enough to fit and run within a microcontroller such as Raspberry Pi Pico. MicroPython aims to be as compatible with normal Python as possible to allow you to transfer code with ease from the desktop to a microcontroller or embedded system.

Programming loading of MicroPython into Raspberry Pi Pico is effortless. Just connect the Pico to any computer (including Raspberry Pi SBC) via USB, then drag and drop the file onto it. Yes! It is that easy! And Raspberry Pi Foundation has put together a downloadable UF2 file to let you install MicroPython more easily. Visit the Getting Started page by Raspberry Pi to download the necessary file. Or you can get yourself a printed copy of the "Get started with MicroPython on Raspberry Pi Pico" and start your digital-making journey.

Not to worry, C/C++ is not forgotten :) Raspberry Pi Pico can also be programmed with C or C++ Programming language. To get started, please visit this page.

You can always connect the Raspberry Pi Pico to any preferred computer with Windows, macOS, and Linux that supports Python 3.0, yet connecting it with the Raspberry Pi Single Board Computer will be perfect as it is designed by the same team. The official Operating System, Raspberry Pi OS comes pre-installed with Thonny Python IDE which is ready for you to get started writing MicroPython code for Pico. If you are using another OS (Windows, macOS, or other Linux distribution), please visit https://thonny.org/ to download the IDE and install it.

Even though Raspberry Pico is based on 1st silicon designed by the engineers from the Raspberry Pi Foundation, they never disappoint us. The launching of Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, CM4, and Raspberry Pi 400 proves that! Check out the features and specs of this tiny yet powerful microcontroller board. It comes with not one, but two cores (dual-core) of a 32-bit ARM Cortex M0+ processor. Flexible clocking system, withconfigurable up to a maximum speed of 133MHz! This tiny MCU comes with a whopping 264 Kbyte of SRAM, an external QSPI with a capacity of 2 MByte, and eXecute in Place (XIP). Large RAM and Flash size enable you to write high-level programming languages like MicroPython for Raspberry Pi Pico.

1st Microcontroller Platform with the first in-house designed MCU silicon, RP2040! Yet, the Raspberry Pi team never stops surprising us with their work. This tiny board comes with a Dual-core 32-bit processor, ARM Cortex M0+ is an optimized superset of the Cortex-M0. The Cortex-M0+ has complete instruction set compatibility with the Cortex-M0 thus allowing the use of the same compiler and debug tools. The Cortex-M0+ pipeline was reduced from 3 to 2 stages, which lowers the power usage. On top of dual-core Cortex M0+, Raspberry Pi Pico comes with a reconfigurable clock speed, with the on-chip PLL (Phase-Locked Loop), which allows the MCU to be clocked at a maximum speed of 133MHz, of course, a configuration is necessary.

Raspberry Pi Pico is not only super affordable, but it is also ready to be embedded in any product out of the box. If you choose the version without pre-soldered headers, it is ready for SMT (Surface Mount Technology). Raspberry Pi Pico is extended out to 40-pin 21x51 DIP (Dual Inline Package) style, 1mm thick PCB with 0.1" (100mil) through-hole pins. The pins are further extended to the PCB edge with a castellated circuit board. This enables it to be soldered to another PCB board without the need for extra header pins, making it a smaller and compact finished product. Awesome!

Meanwhile, the version with pre-soldered headers is breadboard friendly, so students, makers, and engineers can use the Raspberry Pi Pico on a breadboard or any standard PCB board for development or prototyping.

Raspberry Pi Pico incorporates the famous and commonly used USB Micro B receptor for both Power and Data. Just simply get a USB Micro B cable that normally comes with an Andriod phone or power bank to power it and load the program into it. No additional USB to Serial adapter is needed. Neat!

With 26 GPIO (3.3V) broken out for applications, it has more GPIO pins than Arduino UNO, Arduino NANO, or even Arduino MKR Zero. Among these 26 GPIOs, 3 can be configured as 12-bit ADC with 500ksps (kilo sample per second), 2 x UART, 2 x SPI, 2 x I2C, and up to 16 x PWM pin. Internally, it also comes with 1 x Timer with 4 alarms and 1 x Real Time Counter.  Not to forget the dual Programmable IO (PIO) peripherals which are flexible and user-programmable high-speed IO. It can emulate interfaces such as SD cards and VGA.

Note: The Raspberry Pi Pico GPIO runs at 3.3VDC. The maximum voltage that the I/O pins can tolerate is 3.3V. Applying voltages higher than 3.3V to any I/O pin could damage the board.

With 2 MByte of external QSPI Flash and264 KByte of SRAM on Raspberry Pi Pico, it will never prompt you about not having enough memory :) Besides, the large size of RAM and Flash also enable Raspberry Pi Pico to be supported with higher programming languages such as MicroPython or even Javascript.

With the USB Micro B receptor ready as the physical connection to a computer and the USB 1.1 PHY on the RP2040 (MCU), the Raspberry Pi Pico offers a simple and straightforward program loading method. It is like copying files from a drive to another drive. The Pico appears as USB mass storage when it is connected to the computer via the USB port! It becomes a USB drive! Write your code and drag the file into that USB drive. After the file is completely copied, the Pico will reboot and run the program :) Easy right?

Besides MicroPython, Raspberry Pi Pico also supports C and C++ Programming Langauge. Check out the C/C++ SDK for more info. All these programming languages are loaded into Raspberry Pi Pico through USB Mass Storage which enables the simple drag and drop method (like copying a file to another drive).

The USB Micro B receptor is the main power input to get the Raspberry Pi Pico "running", just connect the USB cable to any USB port and it will supply the power needed for the MCU to execute the program. In the case where you do not want to use the USB port, for example, a battery-powered, or a customized product; not to worry, Raspberry Pi Pico comes with a flexible onboard buck-boost Switch Mode Power Supply (SMPS) that is capable of accepting 2 to 5VDC input and converts it to a stable 3.3V supply for the RP2040 MCU to operate. Simply awesome! The pin is VSYS (Pin 39). With a wide voltage range, Raspberry Pi Pico can be powered by USB, 2 x AA battery, 2 x NiMH AA battery, 1 x 18650 Li-ion battery, or 1 x Cell LiPo battery!

Since Raspberry Pi Pico is the 1st MCU platform from Raspberry Pi Foundation, everyone is new to it. Fear not! It is quite a beginner-friendly microcontroller board. Here are our recommendations for the beginner, maker, and engineer:Get the Raspberry Pi Pico with Pre-soldered headers if you want a hassle-free experience to get started.

Official Get Started with MicroPython on Raspberry Pi Pico-Color Printed, a comprehensive guide from Raspberry Pi to kickstart with this new MCU platform.

Maker Pi Pico is a further beginner-friendly development board that extended all the GPIO of Pico to headers, Grove connectors, MicroSD card slot, ESP-01 (WiFi) socket, LED indicators, On-board buttons, RGB LED (Neo-Pixel).

NEW PRODUCT ALERT: Pico Display Pack - This 1.14" IPS LCD screen is perfectly sized for a Pico, whether you want to display images, menus or 1,000 bouncy balls. It also has buttons!https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/pico-display-pack…