3 Pin HD44780 LCD for Arduino - Works of Rowan Simms

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Topics Login NAVIGATION Home Arduino glFusion Solutions Adding an LCD display to Arduino projects can add real value but the cost of doing so can be significant. Not a financial cost - you can pick up 16 (characters) x 2 (rows) LCD for as little as 3.50. The cost is the pin count it can take to drive them. Using the built-in LiquidCrystal Display library it can take as many as 6 pins! That does not leave much for your sensors, motors and other components. iTunes U Training Downloads SUBSCRIBE New Articles New Comments New Forum Posts New Downloads POPULAR TAGS

Welcome to Works of Rowan Simms Wednesday, September 04 2013 @ 07:10 PM EST

3 Pin HD44780 LCD for Arduino

Monday, April 09 2012 @ 02:15 AM EST Contributed by: Rowan

There are many projects that discuss using alternatives - such as a much more expensive Serial LCD (10 up). Other projects discuss using two-wire interfaces, increasing the complexity of your code. The simplest way to drive the HD44780 style LCDs, in my opinion, is to use a 74HC595 shift register, taking the pin count down to 3. Stephen Hobley has adjusted the LiquidCrystal Library so it works brilliantly with the 595 Shift Register. I have further extended this library, made it compatible with Arduino 1.x and re-assigned some of the shift register pinouts to make it easier to prototype. This is now a Google hosted code project to allow for great collaboration.

Component List 1 x 74HC595 Shift Register 1 x BC547 NPN (or MOFSET or similar NPN) 1 x 10k Trimmer Potentiometer Hookup wire api arduino
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You can download the latest code from LiquidCrystal595 Arduino Library . It is feature complete and should be a drop-in replacement for any project you already have. Alternatively you can download directly from the Google Project here.

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The components needed are commonly available from all electronics stores and should cost no more than 1 if bought individually - you can get this down to half that if you buy in bulk.

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Breadboard to Shield I recommend connecting all this up on a breadboard to have a play around with this approach. Once you are satisfied you can create your own easy prototyping shield to make future prototyping super easy - connect power, three wires from the Arduino and you are done. Details on shield creation are in this article: Hookup a 16-pin HD44780 LCD to an Arduino in 6 seconds

The LCD has 16 pins - we use 12 of them. 1. GND Ground 9. Connecting the 2. Vcc 5v 10. 16 pins of the 3. Vo Contrast (via Pot) 11. LCD display to 4. RS ShiftReg pin 7 12. the shift register 5. R/W Ground 13. does take quite a 6. E ShiftReg pin 15 14. bit of cabling 7. D0 no connection 15. because we use 8. D1 no connection 16. nearly every pin, NPN plus allowing the the contrast to be set on the display and enable the Arduino to control the on/off of the backlight.

D2 D3 D4 D5 D6 D7 LED+ LED-

no connection no connection ShiftReg pin 4 ShiftReg pin 3 ShiftReg pin 2] ShiftReg pin 1] 5v ShiftReg pin 5 via

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Now that everything is connected up, using Stephen's library is very easy, here is the "hello world" style beginners sketch:
/* * * * * * * * *

3-pin Arduino interface for HD44780 LCDs via 74HC595 Shift Register by Rowan Simms code@rowansimms.com License: Creative Commons - Attribution. Full Documentation and Description: http://rowansimms.com/article.php/lcd-hookup-in-seconds This sketch allows Arduinos to use a shift register to control an LCD, allowing a reduction in pins it requires from 6 to 3 while still retaining full control including backlight on/off.

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3 Pin HD44780 LCD for Arduino - Works of Rowan Simms

http://rowansimms.com/article.php/lcd-hookup-in-seconds

* This requires the use of the LiquidCrystal595 library * available at: http://code.google.com/p/arduino-lcd-3pin/ */ #include <LiquidCrystal595.h> LiquidCrystal595 lcd(7,8,9); void setup() { lcd.begin(16,2); lcd.clear(); lcd.setCursor(0,0); lcd.print("Wow. 3 pins!"); lcd.setCursor(0,1); lcd.print("Fabulous"); } void loop() { // not used. } // include the library // datapin, latchpin, clockpin

// 16 characters, 2 rows

You should now be basking in the glorious glow of your LCD. If you are going to use LCDs on a regular basis, I suggest you save yourself the hassle of wiring this up each and every time. I created a great little board, some would say a shield, that saves all this hookup work - simply connect power and the three Arduino pins to the board and you are set. To create your own, have a look at Hookup a 16-pin HD44780 LCD to an Arduino in 6 seconds. Big thanks go to Stephen Hobley for his great work on the original library, to the Arduino team for such a great product and Fritzing Project for making designing and sharing electrical circuits just so easy. Tag: arduino tutorial shield code

WHAT'S RELATED http://www.instructable... here More by Rowan More from Arduino Trackback Trackback URL for this entry: http://rowansimms.com/trackback.php/lcd-hookup-in-seconds Here's what others have to say about '3 Pin HD44780 LCD for Arduino ': Hookup an LCD to an Arduino in 6 seconds with 3, not 6 pins - Arduino for ProjectsArduino for Projects [...] without any soldering. That layout, more code and wiring explanations are available from http://rowansimms.com/article.php/lcd-hookupin-secondsThats it. Enjoy your sub-6-second hookups! Major Components in Project 1 x 74HC595 Shift [...] [read more] Tracked on Saturday, April 20 2013 @ 03:15 PM EST 0 comments

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