the first time I built this circuit, it functioned perfectly (the code is a simple lcd.clear(); lcd.setCursor(0,1); lcd.print("hello world") so I don't think there's any problems there.) however, while messing around with it, the text on the display disappeared. I decided to rebuild the circuit but to no avail - the text still does not display, however, the backlight continues to work. does anyone have any tips for troubleshooting the problem? is it possible I fried it by misaligning the pot? thanks! i'm very new to electronics, a software developer at heart...
I gave up on that style of 1602 display and went to the kind with the I2C backpack and onboard contrast pot and never looked back. I never did get the parallel nibble version to work.
Are you getting a row of rectangles on the top? Thats the self test. Adjust the contrast pot to get that first. Just power will give that display, so get that up and then worry about text.
Ok, so it turns out that the potentiometer was the issue - it wasn't pushed into the breadboard properly. However, ifI do push it in properly, all I see is a series of white boxes on the top row of the screen. I know that the code isn't the issue so what else could be ?