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|   Jan 25, 2008 at  7:06am

Great little lcd, for basic output, debugging etc. Very easy to interface, and looks very slick! If you need a basic no frills LCD, this is a good buy.

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|   Sep 14, 2008 at  2:59pm

Nice bit of kit : )

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|   Jan  6, 2009 at 11:27am

Has anyone got this working with the LiquidCrystal or LCD4bit library? I am having quite a bit of trouble getting it to work reliably and am at the point where I am going to try and code my own library for it.

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|   May 11, 2009 at  3:13am

I'm also having heaps of trouble. I can sometimes get it to display text, maybe once out of every 30 attempts. And IF it decides to display anything it ends up garbling the message and locking up, not displaying the other strings in the sequence. Is this the LCD, my Arduino or the library? I tried using LCD4bit and a modified LiquidCrystal and they all yield the same, frustrating results.

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|   May 10, 2009 at  1:32am

Works fine with Arduino and LiquidCristal library.

Needs a lcd.clear() in void setup()

And don't just ground the contrast (V0), use a pot or you won't be able to read anything.

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|   Aug  4, 2009 at  1:28pm

are the above dimensions the lcd itself or the actual part?

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|   Aug  4, 2009 at  1:30pm

nvm the pdf above not only has the dimensions but also the tolerances! nice

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|   Sep 27, 2009 at  9:30am

Does anyone have a recommended source for a mounting bezel faceplate for this display?

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|   Oct  2, 2009 at  5:49am

Characters on mine look very dimmed! I'm using a potentiometer, however when powered up doesn't look anything like the product image thumbnail.

I'm following the schematics from Arduino website: http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/LiquidCrystal

It works fine with my second LCD (black on green) but not with this one (white on black).

Am I missing something?

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|   Oct  2, 2009 at  9:27am

Hey Montini,

Shoot us an email (techsupport at sparkfun dot com), and give us as much info as you can. We'd be happy to help troubleshoot.

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|   Oct  8, 2009 at  6:29pm

I am also ahving this same problem. The LCD was great and easy to set up, but the brightness is really really poor. I installed a pot and all, but no dice.

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|   Nov  7, 2009 at  8:34am

Have you wired in the backlight? That tutorial doesn't include wiring pins 15 and 16 on the lcd. I have hooked the backlight up to a pwm output so that I can turn it on and off via sketch.

Hope this helps.
Denny

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|   Oct 29, 2009 at  8:58pm

Hey I'm thinking of buying one, but I'd like to know. How bright is it, I'm thinking of using it on a buggy to show fuel, tack, and speed. So it will be vibrating around in bright sunlight. My question is, will it be legible?
Thanks.

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|   Nov 10, 2009 at  5:38pm

Ordered mine a week ago and finally got around to playing with it. I used the included LiquidCrystal.h for Arduino to run this thing. Very easy to use once you get it up and running. To get the contrast working I used a 3.3Kohm resistor going to ground, looks amazing. Not quite as bright as picture but I think I'm close. 2.2Kohm is too washed out and 6.8 Kohm nothing shows up. I can't believe how much easier this is compared to the 68HC12. Uhhh, I'm going to have nightmares for the rest of my life.

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|   Nov 20, 2009 at  7:58pm

I'm very impressed. I followed the connections from the data sheet and set them up the same way the LiquidCrystal "Hello World" example sketch calls for, and the display worked perfectly with my Arduino Duemilanove. It does take some playing with the contrast potentiometer, but I quickly found the perfect setting. The display is sharp, clear, and cool white letters on a black background.

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|   Jan 15, 2010 at  9:55am

Pretty cool little LCD. I had some problems initially with the 4bit LCD library, but after finding that the standard LiquidCrystal library supports 4-bit data lines it worked great.

The one thing that threw me off was that the standard (not extended) datasheet mentions that the backlight (BKL) can be driven by pins 1,2 or 15,16 -- however I found that I needed to apply 4.2v to pins 15,16 before the backlight would work. Easy fix, just misleading on the datasheet.

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|   Jan 20, 2010 at  7:26pm

Thanks loophole! I got the display working fine using this link that link that was mentioned, http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/LiquidCrystal, but it was dim since the backlight was not working. After reading loophole's comment and looking at datafile I applied 4.2V pin 15 and grounded pin 16, and all was GREAT!

Note: To get around 4.2V I just ran it through two IN4004 diodes.

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|   Jan 22, 2010 at  9:45pm

I made it work by using the same schematic featured in the LiquidCrystal Arduino library page, except LCD pin 6 is hooked to a digital PWM instead of a potentiometer for controlling contrast.

I used a 10ohm resistor for pin 15 to drop the backlight voltage, it works great and looks just like the picture. Pin 16 is hooked to ground.

Very nice, bright, easy to use LCD!

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|   Jan 28, 2010 at 10:09pm

Working OK with Picaxe 20x2 but uses pins I would like to have free for i2c. So, I am getting bigger picaxe to go with it. Used 2 rectifier diodes in series for the voltage drop to 4.2v on the backlight and two 1k ohm resisters in series for the contrast. Looks good.

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|   Mar 17, 2010 at  4:50pm

Thanks to the guy who did that wiring up diagram at Aruduino.

Thanks to the guy who first pointed that for that bcklight to work one needs pin 15 on +4.2V and pin 16 on ground. Without that I was getting a pretty dim job.

For me, 82ohm resistor produced exactly 4.2V, on the pin 15. 10ohm resistor was giving me around 4.8V. Since I've no clue, better safe than sorry.

It is a brilliant little LCD. Really looks cool. I bought it for the looks ;-)

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|   Mar 29, 2010 at  2:13pm

For those having problems try this. With the pins at the top pin 1 is next to the edge. I'm using an Arduino ATMega 328 mini pro.

using the example Hello World arduino sketch.

PIN1 = tie to gnd
2 = tie to 5v
3 = resistor ~2-3K to gnd
4 = rs = tie to pin 12 on arduino
5 = r/w = tie to gnd
6 = enable = tie to pin 11 on arduino
7-10 = open (no connections)
11 = tie to pin 5 on arduino
12 = tie to pin 4 on arduino
13 = tie to pin 3 on arduino
14 = tie to pin 2 on arduino
15 = tie to 4.2 V (5V is working for me right now)
16 = tie to gnd

using this with an arduino will work

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|   Apr 25, 2010 at 10:24am

Got it working with this tutorial

http://www.hacktronics.com/Tutorials/arduino-character-lcd-tutorial.html

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|   Jun  4, 2010 at  8:30pm

For those of you trying to hook up the LED backlight, here are some things to consider:

1) The spec sheet says 120mA typical, 160mA max. for the backlight.

2) The backlight is a 4.2V forward biased LED, so pin A (or 15) is the anode and K (or 16) is the Cathode.

3) If you hook it to an Arduino, powering the LED backlight from a digital I/O pin will only source 40mA max. (PIC micros are even less), any more and you are overloading your output. Tie pin K (or 16) to ground, and A (or 15) will be the high side. If you design for 40mA, calculate the current limiting resistor to put between the I/O pin and pin A (or 15) of the LED backlight as follows: 5V-4.2V=0.8V and 0.8V/0.040A=20ohms however, be sure to measure the voltage across your current limiting resistor and calculate the actual current flowing to the LED just in case... don't overload your Arduino I/O!

(more continued below...)

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|   Jun  4, 2010 at  8:35pm

4) If you want to really drive it properly, you need more POWER! So grab an NPN transistor such as a 2N4401 or 2N2222 or 2N3904, and amplify your I/O. Hook a 220 to 330 ohm resistor between your I/O and the base of the NPN, hook the emitter of the NPN to ground, and the collector to the K pin (or 16) of the LED backlight. Hook a 5 to 10 ohm 1/4W resistor between the A pin (or 15) of the LED backlight and the 5V rail (make sure your 5V regulator can handle the extra 120-160mA of current you are going to be consuming)

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|   Jun  4, 2010 at  8:39pm

Oh, almost forgot... if you make that I/O a PWM output... you can then vary the brightness from 0-100%