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[on:]

This is a continuation (with no reference to) my old post, which I have resolved (mostly) however I have a strange problem that won't go away.
Sorry, I tried to delete my previous message, but it didn't work as I intended.

firstly, this LCD is the hitachi driven one, and is 16x1
This means it should display 16 character messages with ease, right?

The code to display the text is lcd.print("Hello, World!");
It half works. on the LCD I have "Hello, W", it's missing the "orld!" part.

I am just confused as to why it's wrong like that?
The code that fixes it (and is burtally inefficient is:

Code:

void setup() {
  // set up the LCD's number of rows and columns:
  lcd.begin(16, 2);
  // Print a message to the LCD.
  lcd.print("hello, w");
  lcd.setCursor(0, 1);
  lcd.print("orld!");
}

anyone know what I am doing wrong?
Why must I setCursor to elsewhere when I haven't even exceeded my  16 character limit

[Reply #1 on:]

What happens if you tell it has a 1 line display rather than the 2 lines in the sketch ?

Code:

lcd.begin(16, 1);

[Reply #2 on:]

Ahh, I thought of that too.

when happens when I do that is the contrast jumps up extremely high (it was fine when I had the 16,2) and the first 8 "blocks" (where the letters are) are the ONLY ones that turn black, but still the same thing, only the first 8 characters displayed (faintly due to the contrast).

[Reply #3 on:]

What if you adjust the contrast so its clear when set to 1 line ?

[Reply #4 on:]

Still the same. Only the first 8 characters are displayed. It's almost as this display is 2 lines of 8 characters each arranged in a horizontal position.
 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _    _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _|
  DISPLAY 1 ^       DISPLAY 2 ^

Above is what I mean.

[Reply #5 on:]

Sounds like an oddball LCD that doesn't quite get on with the arduino and/or it's library.  There are a huge number of different displays made by umpteen different manufacturers over a period of several decades, they don't all work as they should with the arduino.  

There are several libraries other than the standard liquidcrystal, have you tried any of them ?  

This is one :

http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Code/LCD4BitLibrary

[Reply #6 on:]

I'm not sure if this will help you at all, but here is what my LCD looks like and the picture of the display showing 8 characters:


http://img34.imageshack.us/i/picture16sm.jpg/

http://img28.imageshack.us/i/picture13p.jpg/

I will post more alter, but I have to go to work now.
Thanks!

[Reply #7 on:]

many, perhaps most 16x1 displays are better described as 8x2 displays.

see:http://web.alfredstate.edu/weimandn/lcd/lcd_addressing/lcd_addressing_index.html

[Reply #8 on:]

if you use this version of the LiquidCrystal library and an lcd.begin(8,2) statement it will wrap "line1" onto "line 2" so that all 16 characters show up on one line.

http://healthriskappraisal.org/LiquidCrystal440.zip

[Reply #9 on:]

Sorry for a newbie question, but how would I make that into a library?
Many thanks!

[Reply #10 on:]

there is probably good description somewhere on the site.

what I do on my Mac is to navigate to a folder inside the Arduino application:
Arduino.app/Contents/Resources/Java/libraries
That folder holds libraries. in this case you add the downloaded folder LiquidCrystal440.

in your sketch, instead of #include <LiquidCrystal.h> write #include <LiquidCrystal440.h> from then on it is identical syntax
LiquidCrystal lcd(rs,rw,en,d0,d1,d2,d3) etc.

[Reply #11 on:]

Thank you! That's wonderful!
The LCD440 code worked like a charm.