Dane.Kouttron
Getting an Unknown LCD Kicking
A powertip pc1602V LCD was lying around, scrounged from a neighbor's old discarded dell printer. Its 16*2, and lacks a backllight, but that will be addressed..... [backlight mod!]
Why?
I needed an lcd for another project and didnt want to: A spend an exhorbatant amount of money on digikey, B wait for allelectronics to mail one over (ground-ship)
- this type of LCD
- Working bascom AVR (demo) + programmer (parallel programmer works fine)
-some other microcontroller/ programmer thing (with at least 7 IO) (or you could use a shift register)
Datasheet (based on HD44780)
| Step 1. |
first off i thought i took more pictures, but alas my camera creates a bunch of corrupted images every so often. The LCD has a 14 pin connection with no marked chips. without power it looks like it could even be graphical (no boxes for characters). So i went with the assumption that its similar to an HD74880 (parallel lcd) |
 |
| Step 2. |
Use the above datasheet i made (because i couldnt find one on the net) and it tells you which line's which. oh and heres a blurry pic of the back of the LCD |  |
| Step 3. | break out some bascom. The greatest microcontroller IDE: Bascom avr. where else can you control an lcd with a one liner... LCD "yo momma" = the words yo moma on the lcd In this case i used it to say happy birthday to a friend |
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| Tips and tricks | Lcd Pinout | How to diagnose unknown pinout |
| This LCD has 16 pins | chances are (if your lcd is character based) your display has a backlight. or it has the pins for the backlight but no actual light component | |
| This lcd has 4 pins | you hit the motherload, and found a serial LCD. Pass go and collect 200 dollars. no seriously, if you cant find a datasheet, locate the ground and the power plane. try it at 3.3 V. if your getting nothing, try it at 5v, consult a spec sheet of another serial lcd from the same company if possible |
Dane.Kouttron
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Electrical & Electrical Power
631.978.1650
