LCD Hitachi HD44780 (2420STEL YGBN)

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) Hardware Interfacing
1

I am totally new to this so please bear with me.

I've been experimenting with Arduino and I recently got a LCD Hitachi HD44780 (2420STEL YGBN) from ebay.

I followed the instructions and connected Arduino to the LCS using jumper wires. I got this from a site but I am not allowed to post URL's because this is my first post to this forum. The connections were simple.

Arduino LCD Desc
2 4 RS
3 5 RW
4 6 Enable
5 3 Contrast (could be simply grounded, but I chose to manually adjust contrast using the analogWrite function)
9 11 Data 4
10 12 Data 5
11 13 Data 6
12 14 Data 7

I also connected the power/ground for both backlight and display. Nothing comes up in the LCD after I power up Arduino and upload the sketch. No sign of life.

So I look at the cheat sheet that came with the LCD and it says "...connector holes are not plated through. Be sure to solder on both sides of the circuit board"

But I don't want to solder yet because I am just experimenting.

I tried connecting using a female header pin (without soldering it to the board) and still same results, LCD doesn't work.

  • Is my only way out to solder?
  • Will soldering the header on to the board and then using jumper wires a solution?
  • If I use a header then I am not sure how to solder it on both sides of the board. Common sense tells me that you can only solder the pins coming out of the header to the back of the circuit board. Am I correct?

Thanks for any input on this.

2

Try it like this.

http://www.skpang.co.uk/content/view/29/42/

You can use the linked demo sketch, but the same wiring works fine with the standard LiquidCrystal library.

3

I looked at the photo at the web site that pluggy pointed out but I am still not clear on how to do this without soldering.

I see that somehow the LCD is connected to the breadboard. Couldn't figure out how it is being done by looking at the photo.
Do you just use header pins to connect.
I tried that and it didn't bring up the LCD.

Now I am using the standard Hello World example that came with Arduino and the following circuit:

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
  • 10K resistor:
  • ends to +5V and ground
  • wiper to LCD VO pin (pin 3)

I can read close to 5v on the top of the header pins both for backlight and display but nothing on the LCD.

Any other ideas? Thanks.