Arduino Uno 1602 LCD Display

Breadboard Setup

List of required components:

Pcs.	Name	Description
1	LCD	1602 LCD Module (with pin header)
1	POT	Potentiometer
1	R1	Resistor 220Ω

Circuit Schemstics

Connections on the breadboard and Arduino:

• Red wires to positive 5V, black wires to ground 0V
• LCD VSS terminal #1 → Ground 0V
• LCD VDD terminal #2 → Positive 5V
• LCD VO terminal #3 → POT OUT terminal #2
• LCD RS terminal #4 → Arduino D12 (digital output) terminal #12
• LCD RW terminal #5 → Ground 0V
• LCD E terminal #6 → Arduino D11 (digital output) terminal #11
• LCD D4 terminal #11 → Arduino D5 (digital output) terminal #5
• LCD D5 terminal #12 → Arduino D4 (digital output) terminal #4
• LCD D6 terminal #13 → Arduino D3 (digital output) terminal #3
• LCD D7 terminal #14 → Arduino D2 (digital output) terminal #2
• LCD A terminal #15 → R1 Resistor 220Ω terminal #1
• LCD K terminal #16 → Ground 0V
• POT IN terminal #1 → Positive 5V
• POT GND terminal #3 → Ground 0V
• R1 Resistor 220Ω terminal #2 → Positive 5V

Code

The Arduino development environment provide a LiquidCrystel library to control LCD screens. In the following example a variable lcd is initialized and the LCD screen dimensions configured before printing a text:

#include <LiquidCrystal.h> // library to control LCDs

/* Initialize the library with the pins connected to the LCD
 *
 * - Creates a variable of type LiquidCrystal called `lcd`
 * - Uses the register select pin RS and the enable signal pin E
 * - 4 pins used for data lines D4 up to D7
 */
LiquidCrystal lcd(12, 11, 5,  4,  3,  2 );
//                RS, E,  D4, D5, D6, D7

void setup() {
  // Configure the LCD screens dimensions (width/height)
  lcd.begin(16,2); // 16 characters by two lines
  // Print text to the screen
  lcd.print("...");
}

void loop() {}

The library provide multiple function to display and position content on the screen:

[…]

const int sec = 1000;

void loop() {
  delay(sec);
  // Clear the screen
  lcd.clear();
  // Position the LCD cursor at the 10th column, in the second row
  lcd.setCursor(10,1);
  // Set the display to scroll automatically, by pushing previous
  // characters one column to the left
  lcd.autoscroll();
  int i;
  // Display the numbers 0 up to 9
  for(i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
    lcd.print(i);
    delay(sec);
  }
}