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Showing posts from February, 2013

Using a 16x2 LCD with i2c on the Raspberry Pi

I got a Raspberry Pi for Christmas, and have been playing with it ever since. For one project, I needed to display a couple of lines of text. I ordered a 16 Character x 2 Line LCD display based on an hd44780 compatible controller. From what I had read, I wanted one with an i2c i/o expander. By using i2c, the lcd can be controlled using just 4 GPIO pins from the Raspberry Pi instead of 8. I ended up ordering the SainSmart IIC LCD1602 Display  from amazon for just $12. When I received the LCD, I hooked it up to my Pi and tried using it with a tutorial I found on the raspberry pi blog. The tutorial I was following mentioned that some of the i2c expansion 'backpack' boards connected the i2c chip's pins to the lcd's pins in a different way than others, and that the code has to be modified to use it with other versions.  When I couldn't get it working, I looked through the 'documentation' sainsmart offered for download on their website and in the product de

Hello World

Recently, I've found myself wanting to share the occasional information related to my work and hobbies. Thus, a new blog.