I just picked up a Uno R3 clone starter kit so I'm not sure if anyone here can help but my question is rather basic. I can communicate with the board via LInux & I understand the wiring but I can't figure out how the 16x2 LCD can connect to a breadboard without soldering. The little LCD display looks just like the ones I see in the tutorials where it's laying on a breadboard but nowhere do i see how any of the LCD points can make any physical connection to the breadboard. There are little holes in each point on the LCD display but what am I missing?
You are missing a "header strip". You solder the short pins into the little holes on your LCD module and insert the long pins into the breadboard.
This link has a picture that shows two header strips along with a 'Teensy' microprocessor board.
Don
Thanks, now things make more sense. I couldn't find any mention of soldering in all the tutorials I viewed so i thought I was missing something simple. My next stupid question is do you leave the plastic brace on the header strip when soldering or do you remove the metal pins from the plastic first?
You leave the plastic on.
Don
leftyg:
or do you remove the metal pins from the plastic first?
And what do you imagine you would do next if you did that?
Paul__B:
And what do you imagine you would do next if you did that?
You want to get a laugh. I did get a header strip in my kit but the pins were not straight, they were at 90 degree angles so i took every pin out of the plastic header inserted them into the lcd points & put the plastic header on the other side of the board. Then I tried to plug it into the breadboard. Anyways I finally got everything soldered pretty neatly & working but since my header strip had 90 degree pins my display sits straight up when its plugged into the breadboard so everything displays upside down.
Thanks to all for the help
Why didn't you just straighten out the pins?
It's too late now but you could have hung the 90 degree strip over the edge of the pc board and soldered the pins to the board without running them through the holes.
Don
floresta:
Why didn't you just straighten out the pins?It's too late now but you could have hung the 90 degree strip over the edge of the pc board and soldered the pins to the board without running them through the holes.
Don
I didn't realize it was going to be upside down until after i plugged it in & had the display working. I didn't notice anything on the board like "This side up" that would tell me how the display was going to be oriented or which row would be line 0 or 1. I would think they make a 90 degree female adapter that I could plug mine in to that would make it sit flat on the breadboard. Is there a good site that has a lot of the hardware accessories like plastic mounts for the uno board or adapters like the one I need?
Surely there are some printed legends on the pcb. Perhaps a model number.
This would give a pretty good clue as to the orientation.
Most modules have the 16x1 pins at the top left of the display.
They also come in the "bottom header" version. 16x1 at bottom left.
So you can guess pretty easily. i.e. headers are normally on the left.
Having said that, there are lots of different variants but they are less common.
The backlight pins are not always 15,16. I have some with backlight on 0,1. And the anode and cathode may be swapped too.
David.
It might seem obvious to those who are familiar with LCD displays but for someone like myself who didn't even know that a header strip needed to be soldered on to the board before using it, nothing is obvious.