Displaying contents of multiple Arduino boards on a single LCD 16x2 or 20x4

Other Hardware 3rd Party Boards
1

Well other than running threads globally I hv some general query , which I am not getting easily

Suppose I want to display various information from multiple Arduino boards on different locations of a single LCD with 16x2 or 20x4

How can we make it possible ??

Available online info shows multiple LCD on a single Arduino with addressing at back only !!!

Please Guide !!!!!!!!!!!!!

2

I have 13 ESP32's around the house and in the yard. They all send info to my RaspberryPi running MQTT Broker. I then, using the RPi, store the data in a Db and display the data on various displays and on my website. Also Node-Red can be used as a command/control center.

3
  1. You can use a Mega connected to the LCD. The Mega has three additional UARTs for connection with other devices.
  2. You can use RS485 and let the Arduino that has the LCD poll other devices.
  3. You can use an Arduino that can act as a webserver for multiple connections; LCD connected to that. I'm not sure which Arduino/ESP can handle multiple concurrent connections. The other devices can connect as web clients.
1 Like
4

Ya that is vast and with Raspberry unit too

I want to apply a simple LCD and few single core boards

5

Moving the goal posts, should have made that requirement known up front. Anyways, good luck.

6

Oh in these ways . . have to check on it

Please have me a proper link regarding that

7

Suppose a single arduino mini or nano is working as humidity sensor
Another one is working as proximity sensor
Third one is for a battery level indicator
Next one for a clock time with date in short
One more for IR Sensor

And here all the pins for boards are engaged due to some reason and only 2 pins for I2C left here for LCD Display

Now how to get them on single track to show multiple values from multiple device on a single display

That's all I really wanna do

8

A IR sensor + battery level + clock + I2C display + humidity + proximity sensor + IR sensor on a single Arduino board is no problem, assuming that the proximity sensor has a I2C bus.

One Arduino board : Good :white_check_mark:
Multiple Arduino boards : Often a bad idea :x:
Your project with multiple Arduino boards : You just entered the clown mode :clown_face:

(I rewrote this post after reading the last update)

9

But this time I need this clown mode only that because Yes its a very imp matter that i am planing to for . .

Above are examples only . . Its important to merge multiple information from boards and display it on single unit

As its a single core MCU and i need more than 10 say 16 maximum
I cant switch the system to Raspberry pi things

But Ya I can add a separate MCU to drive LCD but need to merge all the info on that MCU to make it display on single LCD

Please Guide me that way !!!!!!!

10

What type arduino boards are you using?
How far apart are the boards?
The major problem is getting the data into a single board, once that is done the display is fairly trivial.

11

Please tell why you need multiple boards.
Are you planning universal blocks that connect and disconnect ? The I2C bus is not plug and play. Then you would need serial communication. The block with the display should have its own Arduino board as others already wrote.

We are still trying to understand why you want to make it so hard for yourself to aim for something that might not be possible and does not seem to solve a problem.

12

Ya boards are like just one after other and likewise . . ..

ya we can go for 20x4 no issue and separate mega is there

Boards i cab use any of them like uno nano mini etc

but for now basically nano
& I am planing to buy more of them but after getting confirmed about possibilities about what i want here to get functioned

13

All the ESP32's I have, 13 of them, use WiFi to transfer their data to a central unit. From there the central unit sends the info to the ESP'32 that have displays. MQTT Broker can be ran on a PC. Node-Red can be ran on a PC.

Seems hardware selection is an important consideration.

14

Ya definitely :blush:

Actually in some of the cases it can do only a single task at a time and the other task after the previous or next one

The problem here is ONE AT A TIME thing

In those cases I cant go for a single chip . . I need to but atmega32u ICs more and more

Sorry I am not able to recall examples but yes a music player example is enough to do that

Is it possible to play 2 or 3 or 4 or more audio wave files at a single time with a single nano uno mega mini or micro ??

If Yess then no need to have so many boards

Its a best example what i think !!!!

15

Ya ya its a big thing but i need everything handy and compact with few extra boards added.

Not with I.O.T. or big displays

Just short and sweet and everything loaded and built in

16

Good luck.

17

Can you help me as per the explanations in #14 Sir ??

18

I use ESP32's. They multitask. Sorry, I've been no help and will be no help. I'm out.

19

How far apart will the boards be???????? That is a very important consideration.

As for the example of playing multiple wave files simultaneously, that could be done with multiple DFPlayer boards on a single arduino.

20

Ya in #12 I mentioned its just placed
tfghfth
one after the other say 1 cm distance between 2 boards

And what about the song info from multiple DF player if I want to have on single display