For those that are concerned about your lcdkeypad, but would like to use backlight control, you can use my hd44780 library.
It contains API functions to control a backlight circuit.
When the library is configured for backlight control, it will test the backlight circuit and if the backlight circuit is broken, it will automatically use safe methods to control the backlight.
The library has API functions to control the backlight that supports on/off and dimming. However, if you have a broken backlight circuit, the library will automatically protect the AVR by disallowing dimming and will revert to safe on/off control i.e. all pwm values other than 0 will be on, and 0 will be off and the library will never drive the output pin HIGH to turn on the backlight.
The library is called "hd44780" and is available in the IDE library manager.
Here is a link to the git hub page: GitHub - duinoWitchery/hd44780: Extensible hd44780 LCD library
The i/o class is called hd44780_pinIO
While not a direct drop in replacement for the LiquidCrystal library, it is API function compatible.
It includes an example sketch to test the keypad backlight circuit ( LCDKeypadCheck ) if you want to test or verify if your keypad has the backlight circuit issue.
hd44780_pinIO also quite a bit faster than the stock LiquidCrystal library and supports some additional capabilities.
See the github page for a list of the supported API functions.
--- bill