urn:uuid:214d0e4e-f1b1-d287-ce26-ac5b4c9f8249 2017-07-14T18:44:02-06:00 SparkFun Electronics Customer #829686 urn:uuid:68e51659-c569-7b2a-4c03-f4288def3ab9 2017-03-01T08:35:24-07:00 <p>We designed a case to fit this LCD screen perfectly, and you can download it from <a href="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2144898" rel="nofollow" >thingiverse</a> and use it for free :)</p> Customer #388540 urn:uuid:2777b8ab-a821-085e-bb3c-a6ed426551b0 2015-11-24T14:52:10-07:00 <p>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&rsquo;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.</p> spiked3 urn:uuid:9ef3fefb-8e56-551a-ffe2-255289d6dcaf 2015-02-04T18:42:31-07:00 <p>I&rsquo;d have to say, as a 35+ year experienced programmer and spending over 4 hours trying to make this thing work any way logically, it needs a lot of work. It is very difficult to reset which is required if it gets into some weird baud mode. It is even more difficult to get it into the baud rate you want it, so leave it at 9600 if you ever get it working at that. It assumes you have some ftdi cable and are talking to putty or some other terminal. Not very practical in the real world. I spent more time today trying to use this to help in debugging an Arduino, than if I would have just soldered on a JTAG connector, installed linux, and used that.</p> Customer #641708 urn:uuid:76ca043e-90a9-e3f1-7d0a-9cfa5bd669e4 2015-02-01T10:47:44-07:00 <p>wrong place</p> Customer #641708 urn:uuid:1677f411-f99d-39bc-10b3-f170814f8c47 2015-01-22T14:03:26-07:00 <p>could you tell me what the code was compiled in?</p> <p>I trying to compile the C code in Mplab X and getting a serious amount of errors. I dont know enough yet about the PIC&rsquo;s/environment to fix them. Thanks in advance</p> <p>Edit: Its compiled with cc5x and compiles with the cc5xfree, i had to comment out the include 16f88.h for my particular setup.</p> Customer #218348 urn:uuid:9d86ebc1-70c7-7551-1f5b-55436ecc7bbc 2014-06-11T11:19:36-06:00 <p>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&rsquo;t seem to work.</p> Customer #376072 urn:uuid:8586a9a1-ebb9-17ee-26f8-06238096664c 2013-10-28T15:28:22-06:00 <p>I&rsquo;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 &ldquo;control-j&rdquo; to the Serial LCD. I&rsquo;ve put in the required line to transmit special character 124, but I can figure out how to format the &ldquo;control-j&rdquo; line of code. I&rsquo;ve Googled this for about an hour and can&rsquo;t find an explanation or sample code anywhere. Here&rsquo;s my code&hellip;</p> <pre><code>void setup() { sLCD.begin(9600); //Set serial baud rate with LCD sLCD.write(0XFE); // = Decimal 254. This line of code MUST preceed the next line sLCD.write(0X01); //Clears the screen. (See SerLCD 2.5 Data Sheet, page 2, Section 3.3) sLCD.write(0xFE); // = Decimal 254. This line of code MUST preceed the next line sLCD.write(134); //Places cursor on Row 0, Col 6 (See Data Sheet, page 3) sLCD.print("NEW"); sLCD.write(0xFE); // = Decimal 254. This line of code MUST preceed the next line sLCD.write(193); //Places cursor on Row 1, Col 1 (See Data Sheet, page 3) sLCD.print("SPLASH_SCREEN"); sLCD.write(0X7c); // = Decimal 124. This line of code MUST preceed the next line sLCD.write("&lt; control &gt;j"); /*If you copy &amp; paste this code, remove the spaces in front of an behind "control". I had to add the spaces so that the inequality symbols and "control" would show up This should save Splash Screen to LCD memory (but it doesn't) Multiple Errors are generated if quotation marks are omitted.*/ } </code></pre> <p>Instead of getting &ldquo;NEW&rdquo; on the first line and &ldquo;SPLASH_SCREEN&rdquo; on the second line, I get &ldquo;ntrol>NEW&rdquo; on the first line and &ldquo;SPLASH_SCREENco&rdquo; on the second line. Naturally you might leave off the quotation marks from around &ldquo;&lt; control > j&rdquo;, but that just generates multiple errors. Any suggestions?</p> Toni_K urn:uuid:4a35ee04-8ba9-3242-12fe-6d82dac56eb9 2013-08-18T23:09:48-06:00 <p>I&rsquo;m not sure if you&rsquo;re referring to comments on the website, or on your LCD screen. You can contact techsupport@ and they&rsquo;ll be able to assist you further.</p> Toni_K urn:uuid:aed76b3a-c71a-5ee7-a5f6-bb532921f2f2 2013-08-18T23:07:50-06:00 <p>No, this is TTL serial. You would need an I2C to UART converter.</p> Customer #439309 urn:uuid:7bea22df-e793-b669-37b6-6b796cb5422a 2013-08-18T13:42:24-06:00 <p>my comments don&rsquo;t work</p> Customer #439309 urn:uuid:0893ca48-9c33-2840-6e1f-5346e9891878 2013-08-18T13:41:00-06:00 <p>is this I2C compatible</p> Toni_K urn:uuid:fa46184f-5eaf-ee40-23be-4f741e16480c 2013-07-05T09:45:24-06:00 <p>We recommend using this <a href="https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8733" rel="nofollow" >JST Interface cable</a>.</p> Customer #335103 urn:uuid:d60e21fd-cb92-fc2d-7e84-a5f371e2b289 2013-07-04T12:34:55-06:00 <p>I think I ruined this trying to solder to the connect points, would like easier way to hook up.</p> Customer #335103 urn:uuid:ad07c345-b76d-57dc-127c-a15ffbfc3c1b 2013-07-04T12:33:22-06:00 <p>where can i get a 3-pin connector to breakout the RX, gnd, 5v for easier access maybe to a screw terminal or female connection</p> Customer #367155 urn:uuid:9219a640-3e8a-cc01-022c-97937a2cd7c4 2013-05-28T11:40:56-06:00 <p>Did a Solid Works drawing here for those designing enclosures may come in handy:</p> <p>http://grabcad.com/library/sparkfun-serial-enabled-16x2-lcd-1</p> MikeGrusin urn:uuid:662b767c-0e17-49af-d90c-e632db6c41cc 2013-04-30T10:44:56-06:00 <p>It was an older rev, but the features haven&rsquo;t changed.</p> IanM urn:uuid:eb2ee429-a044-6df2-1421-92ee72bc3872 2013-04-30T02:29:00-06:00 <p>Was this same PCB green at one point, or was that an older rev with different features?</p> Customer #428060 urn:uuid:0c36e0f1-7e75-5099-44fa-60857ad23947 2013-04-11T02:55:50-06:00 <p>I have used a Labview program for this LCD. When i send character &lsquo;a&rsquo;, the display is &lsquo;0&rsquo;. Does anyone having a same problem. How should I troubleshoot this problem.Tq</p> Dallas Edwards urn:uuid:10bf6392-0818-ae90-ba59-3aafb1a46073 2012-11-23T20:16:41-07:00 <p>Just tried it and it does!</p> FrankenNeil urn:uuid:50c2fb50-6169-9250-e7c4-cc4710148241 2012-09-23T18:40:40-06:00 <p>Has anyone managed to get the PWM backlighting working with an Arduino? I&rsquo;m trying variations of this and nothing works except the standard On/Off commands using 0xFE as the escape. All my attempts turn the display off but the backlight LED is on full.</p> <p>The splash screen on mine says SerLCD 2.5 so I believe my firmware is current. My board&rsquo;s about 8 months old.</p> <p>void backlightLow() { //serCommand(); Serial.write(0x7C); Serial.write(140); }</p> <p>void backlightSet(int level) { Serial.write(0x7C); Serial.write(byte(level + 128)); }</p> SONorris urn:uuid:a2faca8c-d9f0-f7c2-7abc-cbd7134c5d39 2012-08-07T20:39:19-06:00 <p>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 &hellip; which I dont want. Can I add a diode to the VDD to stop reverse voltage from powering my board?</p> Customer #197750 urn:uuid:1bc82aef-ea28-9ead-e2b4-7437123e20fe 2012-06-04T20:16:28-06:00 <p>I&rsquo;m having trouble setting the cursor position on the second line, can anyone help? This line of code (PICAXE) works fine:</p> <pre><code>serout B.5, T9600_8, (254, 142) serout B.5, T9600_8, ("++") </code></pre> <p>and puts two pluses at the very end of the first line. However, this code doesn&rsquo;t put anything on the screen, where it should put two plusses at the start of the second line, correct?</p> <pre><code>serout B.5, T9600_8, (254, 146) serout B.5, T9600_8, ("++") </code></pre> <p>any ideas, anyone? Thanks!</p> <p>*** Edit - never mind, got it! Apparently the position numbers aren&rsquo;t contiguous, so it has to be location 192. Way to read the datasheet, Chris!</p> Customer #312790 urn:uuid:9296fcea-f060-ca49-7a6e-9b74ab6e3af0 2012-04-02T12:11:20-06:00 <p>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&rsquo;t work anymore. I&rsquo;m realizing that it probably got spammed with commands and the configuration got messed up. Does anybody know how to reset to factory defaults?</p> RobertC. urn:uuid:5912403c-4a06-e438-8a88-7ca1d14c77a5 2012-03-01T15:04:25-07:00 <p>What doesn&rsquo;t work on it? Have you contact tech support yet? They should be able to help you out.</p> Maverick Ideas urn:uuid:786bc2a3-f985-a5fa-b600-167f612dfb1a 2012-03-01T10:53:24-07:00 <p>Not sure of your situation, but i&rsquo;ve connected my lcd backwards to my arduino twice and its still good. Robust, just the way I like it.</p> RobertC. urn:uuid:135799cc-e017-8099-97d5-1a61e1cdb32c 2012-02-21T17:05:01-07:00 <p>scroll way down and see how I did it:</p> <p>http://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/204</p> ShadowGrass urn:uuid:aa361746-c219-d099-c8a2-81cd211f78bf 2012-02-21T16:13:35-07:00 <p>Being new, I am trying to mount this in a project box. Does anyone know where I can find a bezel for this or can someone offer some advice on how best to mount this into the cover of a project box so that it looks professional?</p> Doogie urn:uuid:3abd0cac-8e3d-d501-dd67-9b64486f818d 2012-01-27T14:55:05-07:00 <p>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.</p> Customer #128577 urn:uuid:9348b069-0f3e-e7c5-8361-88794c400220 2012-01-24T12:01:35-07:00 <p>It seems like the MCLR function has been disabled through the config bits. No pullup to Vdd is installed. This makes it really irritating to work with this display. Programming an arduino with this hooked the HW serial port will screw up the display, and without the reset line you have to pull power. A simple solution would just be to wire the PICs MCLR pin to the Arduinos reset line, but this isn&rsquo;t possible without the MCLR function obviously.</p> Customer #268897 urn:uuid:51dfe58e-be53-0bdc-fc4b-d02a686c7cd8 2011-12-16T15:40:30-07:00 <p>I&rsquo;m using usb->rs232 adapter for data and an open wire usb cable for power and am getting garbage on all baud rates using code and putty. Am I doing something wrong?</p> <p>Lcd: http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9395 Setup: http://imgur.com/g9GKB Code: http://pastebin.com/3DsWZFQH</p> <p>Edit: begining to think I need to ensure my data is switched between 0-5v using a TTL adapter like this: http://www.acroname.com/robotics/parts/ &hellip; ERIAL.html</p> Customer #270359 urn:uuid:36992c6a-884f-0be3-eadc-b8ce5c3aaa8e 2011-12-01T13:00:42-07:00 <p>Quick suggestion&hellip; It&rsquo;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&hellip; it&rsquo;s not clear that the jumper is not included, and you have 3-pin jumpers in your catalog which don&rsquo;t work with this serial LCD.</p> <p>And I realize it shows up in the &lsquo;related products&rsquo; list, as do many things I don&rsquo;t need.</p> <p>Thanks.</p> N00b_Programmer urn:uuid:8808d8a0-67c5-ca75-05c5-ef02937a1b84 2011-09-15T10:07:54-06:00 <p>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.<br/> http://arduino.cc/playground/Code/SerLCD<br/> -Thanks</p> BUCE urn:uuid:4a5f7779-09ca-0de8-2a17-1081d89bb94c 2011-08-01T00:03:30-06:00 <p>Are there any updated drawings of this? I&rsquo;m trying to design a board and would like to know the positions of the stand-off holes. All of your drawings are only for the &ldquo;backpack&rdquo;. Thanks!</p> EliTheIceMan urn:uuid:521f3438-e886-a9c5-f409-762edab47307 2011-07-16T00:54:35-06:00 <p>Has anyone driven the data line at 3.3V? I wouldn&rsquo;t think it should be a problem&hellip;</p> James - Orange urn:uuid:d2cb0b81-0175-4a3f-6c30-9938d427aa57 2011-06-28T14:39:45-06:00 <p>Schematic is no longer up to date it appears, for example JP2 only has 6 pins in the schematic, where it has 10 pins on the board in the pictures.</p> JLC urn:uuid:3ca7e9ad-b43c-7e27-09d0-944948ee77ac 2011-06-06T20:06:08-06:00 <p>Shouldn&rsquo;t be a problem.</p> MyBuddy urn:uuid:515220a8-9346-ca22-0623-bfebb6b425ef 2011-04-09T12:33:15-06:00 <p>I bought this about a year ago and am finally playing with it now, but I see that the V2 schematic doesn&rsquo;t match my board&rsquo;s jumpers. Mine has JP1 a 6-pin and JP2 10-pin, JP3 is 3-pin, just like in the picture above.<br/> my board is: 2010-4-25<br/> adm1602U-NSW-FSB/Z<br/> 5.0V</p> Rhettkun urn:uuid:2483d7a1-424b-1acd-c101-ac0fc49f838f 2011-03-21T20:24:15-06:00 <p>can you power these right off an arduino&rsquo;s 5v rail?</p> Echo urn:uuid:83faefc8-5da7-5c05-c526-bb12ebbf5509 2011-03-13T10:58:48-06:00 <p>Have you figured out how to get it to work properly when it shows blocks all along the top line? Mine has done this since the day I received this.<br/> 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.</p> Mr Earl urn:uuid:526164b5-e37d-6c8d-4569-59932486da93 2011-03-07T09:48:43-07:00 <p>I&rsquo;m confused by the data sheet. It says JP2 numbered from 1 through 6.<br/> However, on the LCD JP2 is numbered through 10. What are the remaining 4 pins for? (and where can I find the documentation for them?)</p> Dezorian urn:uuid:7a2d0bd5-2900-8240-3cc6-e52c40b4b54f 2011-02-23T06:52:50-07:00 <p>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?</p> Customer #104909 urn:uuid:b20fabd6-c7c1-41ad-c263-a97431267c9d 2011-02-13T13:26:23-07:00 <p>Same question. I have an order being held up by this.</p> Mr Earl urn:uuid:f40f298c-f269-2431-689a-0b31c05bd7b5 2011-01-14T06:23:26-07:00 <p>Hi, guys!<br/> Is there any estimation when these LCDs will be back in stock again?</p> acmeng urn:uuid:81f9ef4d-0d91-73fe-489b-c630c20a0cd7 2010-12-01T04:51:24-07:00 <p>I&rsquo;m surprised that a mechanical drawing is not included in the data sheet. It&rsquo;s not too hard to measure but seems like a documentation oversight for anyone who wants to integrate the display into a case.</p> Nakor urn:uuid:a3e6bff6-8acf-c85b-1c4b-8168ca9fae75 2010-11-26T18:39:28-07:00 <p>Hmm. I just scanned through the code. It appears that the code was written without a command to shut off text wrapping. That is just bad practice. I already wrote my system to avoid the text wrapping, but just so I know, is there a way to update the PIC on this?</p> Nakor urn:uuid:e089607b-7855-c3d8-d9a0-e9f906eb986e 2010-11-25T17:09:44-07:00 <p>Does anyone know how to disable text wrap? It is annoying me that I can&rsquo;t find a command to disable it.</p> Lucas Fragomeni urn:uuid:61a7541d-7201-21f1-1007-84a7d54fd01e 2010-09-18T08:55:55-06:00 <p>Very nice lib. Thanks.</p> taler urn:uuid:32992c83-fb42-0851-4407-363b08354294 2010-08-14T15:37:07-06:00 <p>hi,<br/> now my lcd will show only 7 char on left side on two lines. Before the lcd works good and views 16 chars on two lines.<br/> I don&rsquo;t know what happens to do this.<br/> Anywhere to help me?<br/> taler</p> thirteenthd urn:uuid:4382a96d-99e7-edd1-99a3-b5a2c1177369 2010-07-21T17:21:57-06:00 <p>Somehow it returned to normal with no additional work on my part&hellip;</p> thirteenthd urn:uuid:009da155-aa86-a07e-f435-cfe7d44f1b41 2010-07-13T10:54:12-06:00 <p><strong><a href="account.php?id=75445" rel="nofollow" >pichenettes</a>:</strong> <em>&hellip;<br/> A problem that appeared recently is the display losing its &ldquo;line width&rdquo; setting, and resulting in text strangely wrapped.</em><br/> I&rsquo;m also having the same problem after accidentally sending the control character &lsquo;|&rsquo; followed by &lsquo;\&rsquo;, &lsquo;-&rsquo;, &lsquo;/&rsquo; to the LCD as I was trying to animate a rotating bar to indicate a busy status.<br/> As it is right now, text is wrapping at the 12th character but I can still draw in all the viewable area if I specify cursor location.<br/> Does anyone know how to set the text wrapping?</p> jazfresh urn:uuid:63f6afa6-9177-ab4c-14f4-4357e434be3e 2010-07-11T01:05:11-06:00 <p>Yes you can, but you are limited to only 8 custom characters. First define 8 bytes that will hold your custom character, one byte per line (obviously only the lower 5 bits can be used since this is a 5x8 display). Then decide which character (from 0-7) you want to set. Call this &ldquo;x&rdquo;. Then do this pseudocode:<br/> for(i = 0; i &lt; 8; i++)<br/> lcd.print(0xFE, BYTE); // Send command<br/> lcd.print(0x40 | (x &lt;&lt; 3) | i, BYTE); // Set the CGRAM address<br/> lcd.print(character_data[i], BYTE); // Set the character<br/> }<br/> lcd.print(0x80, BYTE); // Set the cursor back to DDRAM<br/> To use your custom character, use:<br/> lcd.print(x, BYTE);</p> pichenettes urn:uuid:956ae023-700b-8525-e5d7-c58bf8c860c7 2010-06-30T18:36:41-06:00 <p>I echo Doogie&rsquo;s report. It happens that some of the settings supposed to be written to eeprom (baud rate, splash screen) are lost after several power cycles.<br/> The baud rate problem can be solved by writing at 9600, at startup, a &ldquo;change baud rate&rdquo; command to the target rate. At worst, the display is already at the target rate and will misinterpret the command and display garbage, at best, it will be set to the right baud rate.<br/> Splash screen is more problematic, since there&rsquo;s no command to systematically enable/disable it - there&rsquo;s only a &ldquo;toggle&rdquo; command, and no way of knowing if it is in the desired state or if it reset itself.<br/> A problem that appeared recently is the display losing its &ldquo;line width&rdquo; setting, and resulting in text strangely wrapped.</p> JerryRigged urn:uuid:b0300c44-cb4a-f9aa-15fa-9fd3136a14db 2010-06-27T18:53:53-06:00 <p>Does the serial version of the display still have the parallel pins available on it? I would like to use the serial access for the most part, but I might need regular old parallel for one project.</p> societyofrobots urn:uuid:b87cc395-b753-99a1-8df6-58765d9edba3 2010-06-08T08:34:01-06:00 <p>Anyone know if this will work at 3.3V TTL, or will work while being powered below 4V?</p> NotHans urn:uuid:4afb03ac-57a1-1712-642e-41c39bc8681a 2010-05-28T15:17:27-06:00 <p>The IO-204 has two ways to output serial - one directly out of a channel and the other is thru a serial smart board. If you see &ldquo;SO=&rdquo; then the widget was using the smart board protocol. Using a Serial Out widget under &ldquo;I/O Channel Widgets&rdquo;. I hope that helps out.</p> Neverhood urn:uuid:81338e0d-cde7-3542-9007-22cd02621e4c 2010-04-29T21:10:14-06:00 <p>I mean custom character as in if I wanted a pac-man character to go across the screen and eat the text.</p> RobertC. urn:uuid:173e33d8-c534-678c-5c43-305a77f714f9 2010-04-28T17:01:42-06:00 <p>Define &lsquo;custom characters&rsquo;. ASCII characters, or like the batman symbol.</p> Neverhood urn:uuid:18a46b67-35e1-13fa-8589-cf84f14bbe81 2010-04-28T16:48:04-06:00 <p>Is there anyway to display custom characters on this display through serial or am I missing something in the datasheet?</p> Altitude urn:uuid:69b4a670-a344-ec32-d236-84ccecced27b 2010-04-04T18:29:23-06:00 <p>Greetings,<br/> Can someone point me to a mechanical drawing of this? I am working on a case for a project and need the XY coordinates of the holes, viewable area etc..</p> mrsteve urn:uuid:350966a3-f3c1-ef6a-e22a-67eae4afd46e 2010-04-02T22:51:23-06:00 <p><strong><a href="account.php?id=92509" rel="nofollow" >mikegoelzer</a>:</strong> <em>Why does the datasheet on this page say &ldquo;V2.5&rdquo; but the schematic say &ldquo;V2&rdquo;? If I order the item on this page, am I buying v2 or v2.5?<br/> I&rsquo;m asking b/c I&rsquo;m in a space constrained situation where the serial backpack just isn&rsquo;t going to fit. The datasheet (2.5) shows a picture with a backpack (soldered on?), but nothing else on this page suggests that any backpack is required to talk with this device thru 3-wire serial.<br/> Basically, if I can&rsquo;t accommodate the backpack&rsquo;s size, is it a mistake to buy this?</em><br/> 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.<br/> Also, the mounting holes are too small for the #4-40 screws that most Sparkfun boards will handle. Just FYI, I found this out about 45 seconds ago&hellip;</p> mikegoelzer urn:uuid:3700a107-4e56-fc6e-a274-4f52e08adb05 2010-03-29T11:57:43-06:00 <p>Why does the datasheet on this page say &ldquo;V2.5&rdquo; but the schematic say &ldquo;V2&rdquo;? If I order the item on this page, am I buying v2 or v2.5?<br/> I&rsquo;m asking b/c I&rsquo;m in a space constrained situation where the serial backpack just isn&rsquo;t going to fit. The datasheet (2.5) shows a picture with a backpack (soldered on?), but nothing else on this page suggests that any backpack is required to talk with this device thru 3-wire serial.<br/> Basically, if I can&rsquo;t accommodate the backpack&rsquo;s size, is it a mistake to buy this?</p> mrsteve urn:uuid:ff2093a7-9360-e33e-edc4-fbc38c5afea3 2010-03-27T23:19:19-06:00 <p>Is it just me, or are the solder holes for VDD, GND, and TX near the JST connector too small to accept standard pin headers? Perhaps I just need to use a little more force? I see that one of the pictures of this module shows what appear to be standard headers installed in that location, so I am confused..</p> zachtos urn:uuid:eca76c44-e637-bf14-b986-98d457af093f 2010-03-23T14:21:59-06:00 <p>I used a few of these in my IRcombat laser tag game with my arduino duemiloves and love them. I also used the Red and Black. I like the white and black better outdoors and the red/black indoors. I just wish I could figure out how to send the reset code to them. I know how to clear and change brightness in code, but the ctrl+ command boggles my mind. A few of them have to be unplugged and plugged back in to work after power on because of this issue. Not worth replacing them yet.</p> DougTidwell urn:uuid:23102a7f-adec-c3a7-aabb-395950db87a3 2010-02-17T12:48:20-07:00 <p>Does anybody know if the Infrared Sensor Jumper Wire (<a href="http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8733" rel="nofollow" >http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8733</a>) works with this board? Barring that, anybody know where to find a 3-pin JST connector?</p> hafiz urn:uuid:177c246c-5e3c-97ea-c83d-9f64dea561c8 2010-02-06T21:22:51-07:00 <p>Hi&hellip;noob question. how do i send data on the fly via arduino? it only has 1 connection to tx. i tried using the serial monitor to send something, but it doesnt work&hellip;im looking for something which i guess is similar to liquidCrystal->SerialDisplay example.<br/> Thanks for the help.</p> JWerner urn:uuid:37719d16-6609-41ca-da04-e582568b729e 2010-01-24T10:30:04-07:00 <p>Nevermind, my own fault. I calculated the wrong offset to the start of the second line when I repositioned the cursor. Although the second line was displayed correctly, the offset was wrong by -32.</p> JWerner urn:uuid:08b0946a-58f8-267a-49ae-ba9eed3454da 2010-01-23T14:22:43-07:00 <p>I&rsquo;m having trouble setting the second line of the splash screen. I can set the first line to whatever I&rsquo;d like. But no matter what I put on the second line, it isn&rsquo;t saved when I send in the 0x7C, 0x0A sequence. Just to be clear, I do set both lines before sending the sequence.</p> TMC4242 urn:uuid:afc8e554-97f6-5d84-4c8e-177082ce4785 2010-01-14T11:05:30-07:00 <p>Hi,<br/> I notice that the datasheet is lacking environmental specifications for this device. It would nice to have that information. Temperature limits especially.</p> Tycho Vhargon urn:uuid:21071330-6f66-fd8e-45b1-1859be8967ad 2010-01-09T10:08:01-07:00 <p>It turned out to be the ioBridge that was formatting the serial outputs weird. The Arduino works fine with it.</p> Tycho Vhargon urn:uuid:dfee2b8c-3178-8e74-a159-a018095be5a3 2010-01-09T10:06:51-07:00 <p>The other pins are used if you want to control the LCD without using the serial standard. There&rsquo;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&rsquo;t spend the money on the serial interface, they have cheaper LCD&rsquo;s that allow you to do it this way, without the serial.<br/> <a href="http://www.hacktronics.com/Tutorials/arduino-character-lcd-tutorial.html" rel="nofollow" >http://www.hacktronics.com/Tutorials/arduino-character-lcd-tutorial.html</a></p> AMCDawes urn:uuid:4d56cddb-a01a-c648-45a7-a28528453282 2010-01-03T07:43:58-07:00 <p>I&rsquo;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: <a href="http://dawes.wordpress.com/2009/12/23/twitter-to-lcd/" rel="nofollow" >http://dawes.wordpress.com/2009/12/23/twitter-to-lcd/</a><br/> Thanks for this great module, I&rsquo;ve really enjoyed tinkering and actually had the first version working in under an hour!</p> Cannikin urn:uuid:0ece5118-8981-27c7-c4ef-91682602e90a 2009-12-24T22:41:40-07:00 <p>Just got this guy and it&rsquo;s working great! I put together a sketch for using this with an Arduino: <a href="http://github.com/cannikin/arduino_serial_lcd" rel="nofollow" >http://github.com/cannikin/arduino_serial_lcd</a></p> Doogie urn:uuid:ebd4e1b9-7f12-6e08-f967-7c1ea20a0bbe 2009-12-18T11:26:26-07:00 <p>The data stream I tapped into once inadvertently changed the backlight level to something less than 100%, and I noticed that the dimmed display had a noticeable flicker.</p> Doogie urn:uuid:992c973d-eedf-a417-e4aa-df36fa7bf56d 2009-12-18T11:21:16-07:00 <p>I have a couple of suggestions for a future version: On the PCB layout, please add a thermal to the ground pin for the user connectors to make it easier to hand solder. Please change the firmware to make it more difficult for a random serial stream to stumble upon a configuration sequence. Maybe pick a non-printable prefix character like ESC instead of the vertical bar. Please make the brightness values more user friendly, like 1, 2, 3, etc. Maybe have an option to make the display scroll when it gets full, instead of resetting the cursor to home and overwriting. All-in-all, a fun little platform. Thanks for using a PIC on this one! I think I may try my hand at writing some new firmware for it. Cheers!</p> Doogie urn:uuid:915d9c52-f7b6-53ef-db78-62dda3530876 2009-12-18T11:14:21-07:00 <p>I received mine just yesterday and hooked it up. It definitely works, but it occasionally &ldquo;wigs out&rdquo; in various ways. I set my own splash screen, which worked fine the first couple of times. The third time I powered it on I got a screen with one line of white blocks and one blank line. It has lost the baud rate setting on me several times. Sometimes I get reverse video garbage characters for some reason.</p> Scotty urn:uuid:0875d56c-ad71-3e1a-4ef9-f4fffa3abdf6 2009-12-08T23:05:16-07:00 <p>does anyone know if reversed polarity will kill this? That&rsquo;s the only reason I can think of as to why mine will not work! I&rsquo;ve tried everything!</p> Striker121 urn:uuid:e501f1a4-968c-8026-774e-18a786c3cf2c 2009-11-22T18:18:58-07:00 <p>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?</p> Jimb0 urn:uuid:38c81be3-9589-b411-7727-89479a10e8ff 2009-11-12T09:47:41-07:00 <p>Hi there,<br/> Hmm, we&rsquo;d be happy to help. Can you send us an email detailing your setup? If characters aren&rsquo;t being received/printed correctly, my first suggestion is usually to try other &lsquo;standard&rsquo; (2400, 4800, 9600, etc.) baud rates.<br/> -techsupport at sparkfun dot com</p> Tycho Vhargon urn:uuid:1eb26815-3d8d-db27-b485-d99e6e572412 2009-11-11T16:57:18-07:00 <p>I&rsquo;m using this with an ioBridge. All the commands I send end up looking like |||SO=&ldquo;whatever&rdquo;. It happens with everything I write, including the clear screen commands and such. Any tips?</p>