Newbie ? Using Serial monitor / UNO Tx&Rx pins

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) Software Interfacing
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Hello All, I hope to use this forum frequently to aid in my self learning of uC and programming in general.

Please advise:

  1. How do i use the Serial Monitor to send commands ?
  2. What Kind of commands do I send, where do I get this list ?
  3. And these commands are then transmitted to the Tx pin, right?

With these questions, I hope to connect the serLCD 16x2 directly to the Tx pin and use the serial monitor to send one command at a time to get a feel for controllin an serLCD ? What do you guys think ? I have not tried it yet on my own as I'm waiting for the serLCD to show up.

Thks

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  1. How do i use the Serial Monitor to send commands ?

You don't. You use the Serial Monitor to send data. That data may mean something to the Arduino, or not.

  1. What Kind of commands do I send, where do I get this list ?

You don't send commands.You send data that the Arduino may interpret as a command. You get the list from the Arduino sketch.

  1. And these commands are then transmitted to the Tx pin, right?

The data is, yes.

I hope to connect the serLCD 16x2 directly to the Tx pin and use the serial monitor to send one command at a time to get a feel for controllin an serLCD ?

You can't so that. If the serLCD is connected to the TX/RX pins, the PC can't connect. If the PC is connected, the serLCD can't use the same pins.

You could connect the PC to the TX/RX pins, and use NewSoftSerial to connect to other pins that the serLCD is connected to. Then Serial.read from the TX/RX pins, and use the NewSoftSerial instance to talk to the serLCD.