First of all, I am pretty new to beginner electronics and Arduino. I've completed a few small projects like getting an LED to light up (making sure to use a resistor, I learned the hard way...very loud POP! when the LED burned out!). I also completed one of the beginner projects where you pinch a temperature sensor and you can watch the LEDs progressively light up or turn off as the temperature rises and falls.
This time around I am attempting a more ambitious project. I am trying to create a water level sensor for our dog's water bowl. We do pretty good about keeping on top of it, but this was an excuse to get back into Arduino again after a few years break.
I am using an older Arduino UNO board by Osoyoo. I believe it is an "R2"?. I will be providing a picture and if it is allowed, a small video clip here in a minute.
I have not added the water sensor yet. I decided I wanted to first get the 32 character LCD output working (the one with 16 chars x 2 rows?)
I followed the following tutorial I found at random on Geek Pub during a google search:
I tried to very carefully follow the tutorial step by step.
I have some questions besides the obvious one: How can power the LCD so it can receive and output something...anything?
Secondary questions are: How do I verify the Potentiometer is working? Must I have one? If I don't have one what will happen? Alternatives to using one?
In my ignorance, I used the little "hex tool" provided to modify the Potentiometer and turned it all the way to the right to see what would happen...and it started smoking. I hope to God I didn't damage the LCD screen. Luckily I have a spare.
Here is the code (basically the code that is available in the tutorial):
// include the library code:
#include <LiquidCrystal.h>;
//initialise the library with the numbers of the interface pins
LiquidCrystal lcd(12, 11, 5, 4, 3, 2);
void setup() {
// set up the LCD's number of columns and rows:
lcd.begin(16, 2);
// Print a message to the LCD.
lcd.print("The Geek Pub!");
}
void loop() {
// set the cursor to column 0, line 1
lcd.setCursor(0, 1);
// print the number of seconds since reset:
lcd.print(millis() / 1000);
}
