Displays Hello World in LCD 16x2 Using Arduino ~ Arduino Geek

LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) is usually used as a simple display output on a microcontroller system. An LCD can display alphanumeric characters, different from the seven segments, which only displays numeric characters only (limited characters). One of LCD’s advantages is programmable to display any characters, so LCD is worth considering in your electronics project.

In the market, the most widely available and most affordable is a LCD 16x2 which means there is a 2 row display there are 16 columns for display 16 characters per line. So totally there are 32 characters can be displayed in LCD 16x2.

Displays Hello World in LCD 16x2 Experiment Using Arduino

In preparation, please wiring prototype circuit as follows. If you buy a LCD 16x2, you need a bit of soldering parts pinout that will be connected to an Arduino or protoboard.

LCD - Arduino Prototype Circuit:

Materials:

- Arduino Uno + USB cable type B
- LCD 16x2
- potentiometer/trimmer 10K
- resistor 10k
- jumper cabe male to male
- protoboard

LCD - Arduino Wiring Connections:

LCD 16 x 2 Pin	Arduino Pin
RS	12
Enable (E)	11
D4	5
D5	4
D6	3
D7	2
R/W	GND
VSS	GND
Vcc	5V
V0 =>potensiometer/trimmer wiper

LCD - Arduino Sketch Handler

After wiring of hardware is complete, upload Arduino sketch as follows:

#include <LiquidCrystal.h>

LiquidCrystal lcd(12, 11, 5, 4, 3, 2);

void setup() {
lcd.begin(16, 2);
lcd.print("hello, world!");
}

void loop() {
lcd.setCursor(0, 1);
lcd.print(millis() / 1000);
}

The essence of the sketch above is located in the 'LiquidCrystal.h' library. This is a built in library from official Arduino IDE (Integrated Development Environment), so you can use it immediately. If you are already declaring this library, you will have an object named 'lcd' that has some methods to handle your LCD hardware easier. Examples of the method can be called are:

lcd.begin (row, column); => To initialize LCD appropriate type (if you’re using LCD 16x2 for example, then the command is lcd.begin (16,2);

lcd.print (character); => To display characters on the LCD. Parameter 'character' must be on ‘string’ type

lcd.setCursor (row, column); => Set the location of the characters to be displayed based on the coordinates (row, column).

After you upload the sketch above, then watch the LCD display. Are there any characters display 'hello world'? If not, don’t worry, maybe you need to adjust the brightness of character with twisting potentiometer/trimmer connected to pin Vo. If now displayed, congratulations, you've managed to display characters on the LCD 16x2 from Arduino. Easy enough, right? With the 'LiquidCrystal' library of Arduino, it makes everything so much easier. You do not need to set one by one LCD memory address and fill it with characters that will be displayed. In the next article I will explain in more detail about how interfacing Arduino with LCD and how to handle it using Arduino sketch.

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