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How to connect an arduino board with an LCD screen

This short tutorial will show you how to connect a 2 x 16 lines Hitachi HD44780 to a Arduino Uno board.

To start this project, you need to gather the following hardware:

A breadboard (prototyping board)
An arduino Uno or mega
A 10 kOhm potentiometer
wires
A LCD screen "Hitachi HD44780''

The arduino board has a very good library to handle the LCD screen with no effort at all.

The LCD screen is a 2 lines x 16 columns display. It got 16 pins that can be configurate in 2modes (4 bits or 8 bits: meaning we can make it by wiring only 4 bits or 8 bits). We work with 4 bits.

The arduino and LCD are connected as follow:

LCD --> Arduino

VSS --> GND
VDD --> 5V
Vo --> Output of the potentiometer
RS --> +5V
R/W --> GND
E --> 11
DB4 --> 5
DB5 --> 4
DB6 --> 3
DB7 --> 2

Vo: allows us to change the screen brightness.
R/W: select the writing or reading mode on the LCD screen.
RS: Controls where we are wrinting in the LCD register
E: Active the register in writing mode
DB4 -DB7: are the pins used to transfert the data

The pins on the LCD screen go from left to right from VSS to DB7 as noticed on the following schematic.

Program

To make all of this work, you need to download the Arduino IDE on: Arduino.cc

Once done, go to: File --> Examples --> LiquidCrystal , and the program will open in a new window. Upload the program to the arduino. You should see ''Hello world'' showing up on the screen. you can change it for whatever you want in the program in the sentence "lcd.print ("text to print").

I hope you enjoyed the article and that you are ready to do it at home. If you have any questions, you can leave comments right below.

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