Serial enabled LCD backpack

The Serial Enabled LCD Backpack (SerLCD) is a product made by Sparkfun that allows control of a parallel based LCD over a single-wire serial interface. The SerLCD backpack takes care of all the HD44780 commands allowing seamless integration with any digital device that can communicate via a TTL serial line. The device is designed to handle a wide range of TTL serial baud rates, and currently supports 16 or 20 character wide screens with 2 or 4 lines of display.

Serial Enabled LCD Backpack (SerLCD)
A version 2 backpack.
General Information
Manufacturer	SparkFun Electronics
Average Price	$17
Specifications
Input Voltage	5 V
Max Input Voltage	5.5 V
Current Draw	3 mA w/o backlight 60mA w/ backlight
Clock Speed	8 MHz
Number of Positions	16
Measurements
Length	1.75 inches
Width	0.56 inches

Communication

Communication with SerLCD requires 5V TTL serial at a default baud rate of 9600bps with 8 bits of data, 1 start bit, 1 stop bit, and no parity (8-N-1). You can adjust the baud to any standard rate between 2400 and 38400bps. The power, ground and RX pins are all broken out to a 3.5mm pitch screw terminal.

Pinout

1. Ground (VSS)
2. +5V (VDD)
3. Contrast adjustment (V0)
4. High/Low Register select signal (RS)
5. High/Low Read/Write signal (R/W)
6. High/Low Enable signal (E)
7. High/Low bus line (DB0)
8. High/Low bus line (DB1)
9. High/Low bus line (DB2)
10. High/Low bus line (DB3)
11. High/Low bus line (DB4)
12. High/Low bus line (DB5)
13. High/Low bus line (DB6)
14. High/Low bus line (DB7)
15. +4.2V for LED (A)
16. Power supply for BKL 0V (K)

Features

• New PIC 16F688 utilizes onboard UART for greater communication accuracy
• Adjustable baud rates of 2400, 4800, 9600 (default), 14400, 19200 and 38400
• Operational Backspace
• Greater processing speed at 10MHz
• Incoming buffer stores up to 80 characters
• Backlight transistor can handle up to 1A
• Pulse width modulation of backlight allows direct control of backlight brightness and current consumption
• Potentiometer to control contrast
• All surface mount design allows a backpack that is half the size of the original
• Faster boot-up time
• Boot-up display can be turned on/off via firmware
• User definable splash screen

Arduino

SerLCD works seamlessly with the Arduino with the option of using the default serial transmission port, or by creating a SoftwareSerial port.

See also

• HD44780
• Projects containing Serial enabled LCD backpack

External links

• SparkFun SerLCD v2.5 Datasheet