Hey everyone,
First of all thank you for time here. Let me try to explain some of the questions you have.
Using A0 to control the contrast is something I have used many times and have no problems with, so saying it won't work is, I'm sorry to say so, just plain wrong. Doing it this way makes you able to control the contrast via software instead of hardware. However, the reason it says 20 is because I was testing it out and I do not ha e the control I want in this application just yet. But as you can clearly see, I have no issues what so ever with writing to the lcd in the setup routine and it will stay on the screen for as long as I leave the Arduino turned on. That is also why I am so perplexed with this.
In regards to the power, I use a LM7805 to regulate my input voltage of 12 V down to 5V to power the Arduino and the lcd. I have installed a 220 nF capacitor between the input and ground on the LM7805.
Again, I have measured the voltage supplied to the lcd (app. 4.7V) so I wanna power it more directly from the 7805 as right now it's via a homemade PCB, but it still makes me wonder why it works fine if just within the setup routine.
The intentional text basically just says "This is written in the loop" the "Exp" is just a remnant from what I wrote in the setup.
I can easily do a milis() and print it to the second line but I am away with work so I won't be able to implement it before next Monday. The time it took just seemed so arbitrarily as I did nothing new and it just fails after those app. 10 seconds.