sparkfun lcd displays quotation

Bought this from Robotshop retailer. Worked right away like a charm. I even changed splash screen to display my software version. However at some point it stopped displaying text, then backlight started spontaneously switching off several seconds after powering on. I connected LCD to different device and started experimenting just sending one command at a time.

My only complaint with this product is the difficulty in mounting. Finally had to drill out the holes to accept 4-40 standoffs. The Eagle files don"t include the complete board so making a screw hole template from the PCB is impossible. Otherwise works fine with my stand alone Atmega 328P using the SerLCD.h and SoftwareSerial.h libraries.

Does anybody know how to do a hard reset on this LCD? While I was uploading my code, I left it plugged into TX, and it doesn"t work anymore. I"m realizing that it probably got spammed with commands and the configuration got messed up. Does anybody know how to reset to factory defaults?

I have the same question. I now have the 3.3v serial enabled LCD (with backpack) and want to use this one for future usage. VDD of 5V can be supplied, but will the TTL work when its getting 3.3V signals from the TX from Netduino?

Does anybody know if the Infrared Sensor Jumper Wire (http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8733) works with this board? Barring that, anybody know where to find a 3-pin JST connector?

I"ve put together some python code for sending serial data to these LCD screens. In particular, the code pulls my twitter status and writes it to the LCD. To work with the extra characters, I wrote functions to page the text (vertical scroll) or scroll the text (horizontal scroll). Details are available here: http://dawes.wordpress.com/2009/12/23/twitter-to-lcd/

Is it possible to wire this up in parrellel rather than use the serial function? I ran into a snag and am unable to use the serial function of this lcd? I see the pinouts on the schematic but when wired it doesn"t seem to work.

I"ve created a new splash screen for the Serial LCD, now I want to save it to the Serial LCD memory. So, exactly how do I write a "control-j" to the Serial LCD. I"ve put in the required line to transmit special character 124, but I can figure out how to format the "control-j" line of code. I"ve Googled this for about an hour and can"t find an explanation or sample code anywhere. Here"s my code...void setup() {

I"m not sure if you"re referring to comments on the website, or on your LCD screen. You can contact techsupport@ and they"ll be able to assist you further.

I have used a Labview program for this LCD. When i send character "a", the display is "0". Does anyone having a same problem. How should I troubleshoot this problem.Tq

Why do I get power out of the VDD port with only RX and GND hooked up? I have a 5V rail that I use to power everything on my board - and when I added this SerLCD I now have a bridge between the arduino power and my 5v line ... which I dont want. Can I add a diode to the VDD to stop reverse voltage from powering my board?

I think SparkFun needs to add a pull-up resistor on pin 4 (Vpp). This pin is an input (not input/output) and should not be left floating. Another pull-up on the RX pin would also be advisable.

Quick suggestion... It"d be very helpful for some people if you guys added a note in the description pointing people to the correct 3-pin JST jumper wire to be used with these serial LCDs. Two reasons... it"s not clear that the jumper is not included, and you have 3-pin jumpers in your catalog which don"t work with this serial LCD.

I have ported LiquidCrystal library for use with the serial LCD you can look at my code here. Still working on finishing all the documentation. But putting up for now hopefully someone will find it usefull.

I"m also having the same problem after accidentally sending the control character "|" followed by "\", "-", "/" to the LCD as I was trying to animate a rotating bar to indicate a busy status.

Having ordered this exact LCD myself, I can say that aside from the issue mentioned in my other comment, it looks exactly like the picture. No bulky backpack module, everything is on a single board. Pretty sleek, really.

Edit: Got mine fixed. If you checked the soldering on all the terminals, check them again. I also sometimes was getting strings of garbage if I wriggled the terminals on the LCD (I suspect because I was getting a partial connection on the bad terminal). Resoldered and it is working fine now.

Wait, so I get the 3 pins for power and control, but whats with all the other pins on the sides? Can it be used to control another LCD besides the one built in?

The other pins are used if you want to control the LCD without using the serial standard. There"s some tutorials on how to do that with the arduino below. You have more control over what you can do with it, but it takes up more pins on the arduino. If you want to wire it up this way, don"t spend the money on the serial interface, they have cheaper LCD"s that allow you to do it this way, without the serial.

Assuming you"re powering the LCD with 5V, the HIGH logic voltage will be 5V. You can probably get by with slightly lower voltages if you need -- check out our logic levels tutorial for more on that.

Do you offer this board on its own, or the kit without the LCD? It looks like a great kit, especially with the microprocessor "integrated", but some prefer red LCDs.......

Thanks Toni, that article looks like it could be useful at some stage :) As you guessed, I was more making the point about the other (PIC) backpack being different in that you can"t program it in the same way as you can an Arduino (even though I don"t have an Arduino). Like some of the other people I do have a number of suitable LCD"s around and a project I had in mind before seeing this would likely suit this AVR backpack really well, without any other micros, even though I mostly have PIC stuff e.g. ChipKit, Pinguino. Hopefully we"ll see just this backpack at some stage, as it"s a pretty versatile little board :) Cheers

Is there a possibility in getting the board only or just without the LCD? Have couple of those waiting for to be used, no need for any more, yet :) Or is this the wrong place to ask this kind of question?

Can we possibly get this board by itself or at least with a 20x4 LCD? I know I can purchase the LCD-00258 but that is not the same board. It has a PIC instead of the ATmega328.

1) When you program your microcontroller and the serial enabled display (SED) is attached it is possible that garbage commands are sent to the SED. In this case the baud may be changed, brightness etc. Do not program your MCU while the SED is attached. In the case of the Ardunio it is possible to overcome this problem by using software serial instead of the hardware serial. (see: http://playground.arduino.cc/Learning/SparkFunSerLCD).

2) It appears that more often than not the setting that is changed is the baud rate. However this is not the only setting that can be changed. In my case I discovered that the LCD display type had been changed and caused the characters that were sent to the SED to be displayed from bottom up. IE trying to display the word "Hello" resulted in the "o" being displayed in the first line and first character position while "l" was displayed in the second line first character position. It is possible that the same issue could cause the text to be sent to an out of bounds position and result in nothing being displayed.

Is that unpopulated header just above the Sparkfun logo for ICSP? Could I use the AVR Pocket Programmer to program this (after taking the "Red Pill," of course...)? Many thanks!

Hi! This is my problem, when I connect the lcd on arduino, the screen of the lcd turn on, but dont show no one message. I tried the example code hellow world but dont show the message on the lcd! The lcd light just only stays on... Please help me!

Was looking for an enclosure to fit these 2x16 LCD"s and found an "MDT-65" ABS plastic box on eBay that fits perfectly. Seller has them available in both black and white and the mounting holes line up perfectly for this display with enough room to mount the entire assembly. Use M2.5 self-tapping screws to attach the LCD PCB to the enclosure.

I have a serial LCD-10097 interfaces with Arduino Mega 2560. When I run a sample code to test the LCD, it does not seem to line up as the position 1, line 1, or the position 1, line 2.

For this serial LCD to work correctly with my Arduino Mega, would my Arduino software version 1.0.5 work correctly between the Mega and this serial LCD?

Youv could get rid (optionally atleast) of the potentiometer and offer digital contrast by plugging OC1B PWM output to RC filter (220ohm + 4.7u? or something) and that to contrast pin. Works in my ATmega328 + LCD-based device but I have OC0B and OC0A doing BL LED PWM and contrast and Port B as 8-bit LCD interface and no xtal (which I see you want for serial)...

My desoldering skills need work though, I forgot to mount the 10k resistor until after I soldered the headers to hold the LCD to the control board. It seems in trying to get them apart I"ve destroyed both boards :( Glad I picked up an IC socket so I can at least salvage the ATmega 328 by just pulling it out. Practice my obviously lacking desolder skills on the rest of the components and eventually order another of these to play with.

Has anyone directly powered this kit using a 5V wall adapter (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8269)? Is it as simple as connecting the ground and VCC leads from the JST connector, perhaps using a barrel jack adapter (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10288)?

The only complaint I have is that both interrupts are taken by the LCD(D2 and D3 on the ATMega). Not a problem unless you are using the kit as a stand alone unit to read and display RPM.

I love this thing. You can use it for rapid prototyping and then switch to a native interface for the LCD later on... and you still have a use for the serial module as all the pins (or at least most of them) are broken out on the headers. Having a header for the FTDI breakout board is great as well for quick testing... you should like to it at the bottom.

Hi. I"m having trouble with this device. I am sending serial.print text to the LCD, but it seems pretty erratic. I wonder if it was damaged when I soldered it to the board. There is not chip holder in the kit. Sometimes it does not power up:( I"ll have to check it out for bad connections. Should the device should respond to serial.print similar to the way serial monitor works?

i like this kit allot but it has its challenges, i am trying to figure out how to get the back light back on, it seems to have gotten a command to turn it off. and not much seems to want to turn it back on. the other thing i would like to know is that, can i reflash it with a different firmware using a ftdi without taking the lcd off.

I have ported LiquidCrystal library for use with the serial LCD you can look at my code here. Still working on finishing all the documentation. But putting up for now hopefully someone will find it usefull.

This this is pretty awesome, but would be even more awesome (awesomer?) if you could upload custom characters over serial. The LCD itself seems to support this, but the Serial LCD firmware does not.

Not to reply to myself again, but I updated the firmware and it now can upload custom characters to the LCD"s CGRAM. I made a post about it with some example code and the code for the updated firmware on the forums

My display unit LCD-10097, has accidentally become corrupted. In particular the back light has turned off and since I have not yet been able to communicate with the unit I am unable to debug my code. Is there a way to reset the unit to defaults as shipped?

Hum, you might want to talk to tech support. I don"t think there"s a reset, but you can surely reprogram it. See what they have to say, techsupport@sparkfun.com

Had to really dig hard to find out how to use this and the sketch I did find had many errors where special commands were sent which required it to me mostly re-written. Learned a lot however. The documentation is really lacking. For instance, no mention of how to send and display special characters. I would also like to see this kit without the LCD for those of us that would like to use a different color or have and LCD already or have messed up the PCB. Lastly, there is no assembly instructions and the photos don"t show many details that you need to see.

Does anyone have some sample Arduino code that make use of the LCD backpack? I can"t figure out how do things like set the the cursor to a location or how to set the display to 4 X 20.

An ATmega328 seems like massive overkill for a serial-LCD converter, but it"s nice to have all that extra storage for customization, and it"s probably easier than stocking mega8s just for this (and probably not a big price difference).

I"ve created a new splash screen for the Serial LCD, now I want to save it to the Serial LCD memory. So, exactly how do I write a "control-j" to the Serial LCD. I"ve put in the required line to transmit special character 124, but I can figure out how to format the "control-j" line of code. I"ve Googled this for about an hour and can"t find an explanation or sample code anywhere. Here"s my code...void setup() {

The SparkFun SerLCD is an AVR-based, serial enabled LCD that provides a simple and cost effective solution for adding a 16x2 RGB on Black Liquid Crystal Display into your project. We"ve seriously overhauled the PCB design on the back of the screen by including an ATmega328P that handles all of the screen control, meaning a backpack is no longer needed! This display can now communicate in three different ways: serial, I2C, and SPI. This comes equipped with a Qwiic connector, bringing serial LCDs into the Qwiic ecosystem. This simplifies the number of wires needed and allows your project to display all kinds of text and numbers.

The on-board ATmega328P AVR microcontroller utilizes 11.0592 MHz crystal for greater communication accuracy with adjustable baud rates of 1200 through 1000000 but is default set at 9600. The firmware for this SerLCD is fully opensource and allows for any customizations you may need.

Note: Since the SerLCD is a 3.3V device, please make sure you convert to 3.3V logic depending on your chosen microcontroller or single board computer. Otherwise, you may risk damaging your board.

The SparkFun Qwiic Connect System is an ecosystem of I2C sensors, actuators, shields and cables that make prototyping faster and less prone to error. All Qwiic-enabled boards use a common 1mm pitch, 4-pin JST connector. This reduces the amount of required PCB space, and polarized connections mean you can’t hook it up wrong.

Need a custom board? This component can be found in SparkFun"s À La Carte board builder. You can have a custom design fabricated with this component - and your choice of hundreds of other sensors, actuators and wireless devices - delivered to you in just a few weeks.

The latest versions of these LCDs have a Qwiic connector. The previous versions did not. Some of the pictures in this tutorial are from the previous version of the hardware. However, because the change is rather minor, they are still relevant. The pinouts along the edge are still in the same order and position (except for the left-most cluster of 4 PTH pins).

The SparkFun SerLCD is an AVR-based, serial-enabled LCD that provides a simple and cost-effective solution for adding a 16x2 RGB on Black Liquid Crystal Display into your project. We"ve seriously overhauled the PCB design on the back of the screen by including an ATmega328P that handles all of the screen control, meaning a backpack is no longer needed! This display can now communicate in three different ways: serial, I2C, and SPI. This simplifies the number of wires needed and allows your project to display all kinds of text and numbers.

The on-board ATmega328P AVR microcontroller utilizes 11.0592 MHz crystal for greater communication accuracy with adjustable baud rates of 1200 through 1000000 but is default set at 9600. The firmware for this SerLCD is fully open-source and allows for any customizations you may need.

Note: Since the SerLCD is a 3.3V device, please make sure you convert to 3.3V logic depending on your chosen microcontroller or single-board computer. Otherwise, you may risk damaging the LCD.

This 16x2 SerLCD has a row of headers along the top side. This is where you can connect the power and your choice of communication protocol (Serial UART, I2C, or SPI). It also has 6-pin Arduino Serial port available for convenient firmware updates.

The SparkFun SerLCD is an AVR-based, serial enabled LCD that provides a simple and cost effective solution for adding a 16x2 RGB on Black Liquid Crystal Display into your project. We"ve seriously overhauled the PCB design on the back of the screen by including an ATmega328P that handles all of the screen control, meaning a backpack is no longer needed! This display can now communicate in three different ways: serial, I2C, and SPI. This comes equipped with a Qwiic connector, bringing serial LCDs into the Qwiic ecosystem. This simplifies the number of wires needed and allows your project to display all kinds of text and numbers.

The on-board ATmega328P AVR microcontroller utilizes 11.0592 MHz crystal for greater communication accuracy with adjustable baud rates of 1200 through 1000000 but is default set at 9600. The firmware for this SerLCD is fully opensource and allows for any customizations you may need.

Note: Since the SerLCD is a 3.3V device, please make sure you convert to 3.3V logic depending on your chosen microcontroller or single board computer. Otherwise, you may risk damaging your board.

Looking at Future, they do seem to have a few LCDs quoted on their site, however it is certainly not a comprehensive list. If you contact a sales rep (there or anywhere) and provide them your requirements, they may come back with additional parts that their manufacturers produce that better fit your need.

Unless your volumes are going to be in the millions, let me dispel any thoughts you have of "Why not just talk to (LCD mfc) directly?". Said manufacturers will not care about you, and the premium they will charge to deal with you (if they bother at all) will be higher than what a typical distributor would, because, frankly, they do not want your direct business. Use the middlemen. They will make specifying, finding, and sourcing LCD panels vastly easier and cheaper.

The observation you made about the extra byte was the key. I"ve been able to track down that the library I"m trying to use is for the PIC based based boards. It uses the same cursor command of 0x80, but then it uses the lower nibble to set the position. This is the exact same format as the standard parallel LCD library.

However, the Arduino based serial LCD uses a different decoding interface that takes a whole extra byte to get the position information. This is a little easier to program as the serial parser just has to advance the cursor rather than keeping track of the position. I don"t think it is as efficient because it converts the cursor count to a cursor position before each write rather than letting the LCD manage advancing the cursor. I missed the command difference originally because they have the same base command (0x80) The other serial LCD"s list the command as "0x80+" which I figured meant to add an extra byte like the Arduino based serial LCD, instead it means to add just a nibble.

I will try and rewrite the Arduino code in the Serial LCD board to accept the same command as the other Serial LCD"s as they seem to be more common. However, that might be more work than I"m looking for so I might just make a one off fix that makes it work for my purposes. Thanks for the help!