Is my LCD not getting enough power?

Projects Programming
1

I have one simple question: does my LCD get enough power with 5 volts, I tried it with 5v and the second line of text won't even light up, I then tried it on 9v and got the same thing, is 9v too much and I fried the bottom row or is my hookup incorrect? I used the average hookup: 12, 11, 5, 4, 3, 2 pins

2

I just went through this mine is hooked up like this

The circuit:

  • LCD RS pin to digital pin 12
  • LCD Enable pin to digital pin 11
  • LCD D4 pin to digital pin 5
  • LCD D5 pin to digital pin 4
  • LCD D6 pin to digital pin 3
  • LCD D7 pin to digital pin 2
  • LCD R/W pin to ground
  • LCD VSS pin to ground
  • LCD VCC pin to 5V

Make sure all grounds on the LCD are the same ground as your arduino because using different grounds will cause the LCD to do crazy things. I would suggest just trying to upload the hello world example sketch to test if it works. It works great with 5v. Give it a google the last two pins on the LCD will be for power and ground they will light up your backlighting.

3

Mike44449:
I have one simple question: does my LCD get enough power with 5 volts, I tried it with 5v and the second line of text won't even light up, I then tried it on 9v and got the same thing, is 9v too much and I fried the bottom row or is my hookup incorrect? I used the average hookup: 12, 11, 5, 4, 3, 2 pins

make ensure you have build contrast adjustment circuit properly

http://oomlout.com/LCDD/LCDD-Guide.pdf

build circuit as shown in PDF file

4

Mike44449:
I have one simple question: does my LCD get enough power with 5 volts, I tried it with 5v and the second line of text won't even light up, I then tried it on 9v and got the same thing, is 9v too much and I fried the bottom row or is my hookup incorrect? I used the average hookup: 12, 11, 5, 4, 3, 2 pins

How are you selecting the Second line?

On Most HD44780 controllers the first line is 40 characters wide, the second line starts at character position 40. If you have a 16x2 lcd and clear the screen, write 35 characters to the screen you will only see the first 16, the rest of the 29 characters are off screen. Look at this code:

#include <LiquidCrystal.h>

LiquidCrystal lcd(12,11,5,4,3,2);

void setup(){
 lcd.begin(16,2);// define a 16 col, 2 line display.  Row (0..1), Col (0..15)
 lcd.setCursor(1,0); // set cursor to Row 1, col 0  
 lcd.print("hello Line 2");
}

void loop(){
}

Chuck.