The LCD was working perfectly for about an hour but now the backlight is on and there are random characters being displayed no matter what my program (or any of the LCD examples) does. I haven't changed any of the wiring. The pot still works.
There is nothing else connected up to the Arduino.
If it is still displaying random characters then it isn't dead and they are pretty hard to kill. Re check your wiring and especially the wires connecting the display to the Arduino,, It's likely that one of the data lines isn't soldered or there is an accidental bridge between connectors/connections to the LCD itself. as long as you can display anything under program control then the data presented to the display isn't correct and you are reading the data that the LCD is told to do.
Thank you for your reply - I really appreciate it.
I didn't want to solder anything directly to the LCD yet so I was pushing longer bare jumper wires through the holes in the LCD into a breadboard (to keep the LCD from moving). I guess you are right in that something moved or shorted. I'll redo everything.
I'm sorry for not knowing this but what are the gold strips called? (where I'd solder the wires to)? Leads?
And push those into the breadboard, and then make connections on the adjacent connected holes. When I was ready to solder up my project I would solder the header into the project or put a female header on the project, that way I could use the LCD on some other project by just disconnecting it.
I'd call that the LCD interface. Not sure what else to call it. Even the data sheet doesn't explicity name the area, it just calls them pins when they are really through-holes for pins.
