The serial LCD board interfaces any HD44780-based LCD (this is the vast majority of LCD’s you will encounter), with a three-wire serial interface, consisting of +5 volts, ground, and serial data. The board uses a programmed PIC chip, created by Maryland EE professor Peter Anderson, to convert serial commands, e.g. Serial.print(“Modern Device”), into LCD text.

Peter Anderson’s command set is very robust and complete, with commands to control the backlight and address 8 custom characters that are available for user interfaces.
I programmed a custom character generator, for doing the slightly confusing math necessary to generate custom characters, which is also available below.

I guess there needs to be a caveat in here. The kit will accommodate the vast majority of LCD’s. There are a number of pinouts, which are thankfully very rare, that require remapping the pins. Mostly this involves the backlight pins, which for some reason are (rarely) found on the pin 1 end of the data pins instead of the pin 14 end, which is vastly more common, and is the way that the kit is laid out. It is a good idea to confirm the pinout of your LCD with the pinout listed in the instructions before plugging it in. If you can’t get the datasheet however to the display however, just plug it in and try it, the overwhelming odds are that it will work fine.

This kit includes all the parts needed to build the LCD serial board, including two different backlight resistors, which can vary from display to display. The kit also includes a handy three conductor cable to hook up the display to the driver board.

The programmed PIC chip alone is available, for chip replacement or those wanting to build their own boards.

Specifications

• three-wire interface (5V, GND and serial data)
• 1×16 & 2×8 headers to interface the overwhelming majority of LCDs
• robust command set, including software control
• three unused pins are brought out to pads, and are under software control as general purpose
  input/output

Ordering Options

We stocked some other baud rates on the LCD117 chip, so there are a few different option in the pull-down menu. For most users 9600 baud is a good default choice, 19200 baud chips will save some time on the sending (Arduino) side so might be useful for sketches that need a tight loop. 2400 baud chips will be useful for PICAXE and some Basic Stamp users.

Package Contents

• 1   LCD 117 Serial to LCD printed circuit board
  
• 1   LCD 107 / 117 programmed 18 pin PIC chip (Default: 9600)
  
• 1   TIP120 NPN transistor
• 1   400x diode for reverse polarity protection
• 1   .1 ufd (104) 25 volt monolithic ceramic capacitor
• 1   10 k ohm 1/4 watt resistor (brown-blk-orange)
• 1   330 ohm 1/4 watt resistor (orange-orange-brown)
• 1   5 k ohm trimpot for LCD contrast control
• 1   27 ohm 1/4 watt resistor (red-violet-black) (optional use)
  
• 1   15 ohm 1/4 watt resistor (brown-green-black) (optional use)
• 2   momentary switches
• 1   16 position male header pins
• 1   16 position female header pins
• 1   2 x 8 position female header pins
• 1   3 position right-angle male header pins
• 1   12" three conductor cable with two female ends (servo style cable)
  

Buying Options

• LCD117 Kit (w/ LCD Screen)
  includes LCD117 Kit, and LCD Character Display
  
• LCD117 Assembled (w/ LCD Screen Option)
  includes LCD117 Assembled and Tested, and LCD Character Display
  

Resources

• LCD117 Command Summary, pdf
• LCD117 command summary, MS Word
• LCD117 LCD Kit Instructions
• LCD Demo for the Arduino 1.0
• LCD Demo for the Arduino v. 023
• LCD Custom Character Generator