I rewired it and changed the pins in the code a few times to see if any of the pins had something wrong with them.
Here it is with the wiring according to the code. Not sure if it's clear from the picture, but here I wired it as so:
RS = 11
R/W = GND
E = 10
DB0-DB3 = skipped
DB4 = 5
DB5 = 4
DB6 = 3
DB7 = 2
It should match my code. Same result as before.
This should work, but now you're missing even more pixels than before. Something has got to be wrong with this display.
Was it dropped, or wired incorrectly at one point, or accidentally shorted because it was sitting on something metal, or maybe you zapped it with ESD? At this point it definitely seems like something wrong with the display.
That "missing" is the "!" in "Hello, World!"... so the data is getting to the LCD, but the LCD is not fully functioning.
Remove power. Remove the LCD. Take a picture of the under-side of the LCD. We are looking for breaks or scrapes or missing black blobs, etc.
ESD could be it, if anything, because I have carpet flooring in my room and I wasn't particularly careful about how I'm touching any of the electronics that I'm using...
Here is the underside of the LCD. I don't see any deep or otherwise obvious scratches. I looked at it under my desk light in case there were some very thin scratches or cracks, but I couldn't spot anything. There are a few black dots though, I'm not sure if those are something to be concerned about.
LCD looks great! I suspect the breadboard. Do you have jumper wires that can connect directly from the pins on the LCD to the Arduino? (F-M)
I wanted to see the black blobs over U2 and U1... they look perfect.
Check the solder joints on the pins, some of them look faulty in the photos.
Found some F-M wires. Only wired VCC, VDD, V0, LED+, LED-. Only half of the screen shows up again and there are even more missing pixels. I also just tried it on a brand new breadboard that I've never used, and unsurprisingly the left side is still blank.
I found some other LCD screens as well, I just need to solder some pins into them and I can try them later. I think this LCD might be toast. I probably need to be more careful with electronics and that will prevent this issue from happening in the future. If you have any tips regarding how to handle these boards and devices please let me know lol, I'm new to electronics.
Also, do you think it is worth taking it apart to see if there is anything I can try to fix? Maybe re-solder suspicious looking connections? In case someone has the same issue and doesn't have another LCD I might find the solution.
Thank you for your help!!
Yah, I'm thinking that LCD display is fried too. The best advice for handling electronics is to wear a static bracelet and have it connected to a good ground point (The ground on an electrical socket usually works, but other large metal objects can also work). Barring that, just make sure to touch an unpainted part of something metal pretty often, especially every time you get up and sit back down again.
I lived in Chicago for a while and the static electricity up there during the winter was tremendous. I couldn't even touch my cat without shocking them. Down here in Florida static is usually not a problem, but this winter I have been getting shocked pretty regularly even down here.
Some circuits have built-in ESD protection, but many of them do not. Your board and all the solder connections look fine. I think this was just a case of ESD failure, and you will have to try again with a new display. Just keep touching some big piece of metal pretty often. The rest of your setup looks fine; wood and plastic.
Alright, makes sense. Thank you so much for the help!
Looking at it from the top down it seems fine, it's probably just the angle of the photo.
Thank you for your help as well!!
