SimulIDE LCD Shield

I figgered out how to work the LCD Shield in SimulIDE. It's neat and it is wired differently from the DFRobot LCD Shield.

AdvancedProtip3 hours575

Things used in this project

Software apps and online services

SimulIDE electronic simulator

Story

This shows how the LCD Shield is wired in the SimulIDE electronic simulator program. It is an HD44780 LCD screen with 1602 sixteen characters printed per line and 2 lines of text and symbols.

Four display data lines with Register Select RS on pin11 of the Arduino. Enable is connected to pin10 of the Arduino. R/W Ready/Wait is not connected - we call this the hardware busy indication.

Reset button that restarts your sketch. Up, down, right, left and select buttons wired to input A0. Your code uses analog voltage level to read which button you have pressed. Same on the hardware shield modules like the DFRobot.

Not the DFRobot LCD Shield

Nope! There is no standard and all the pins can work. More info, details and sketches in project LCD1602 DFRobot Shield. We have to change the connections used by the sketches for each display.

LiquidCrystal Library

Your Arduino program comes with a library of extra code that gives you commands and example sketches. Menu File->Examples->LiquidCrystal. Open the first example sketch Autoscroll.

Scroll down and look for the line #include <LiquidCrystal.h>. This adds code from a library that adds commands you can use. It has default wire connections that we have to change.

Move Virtual Wires

Register Select RS goes to pin 11 of our Arduino. Enable is connected to pin 10. Carefully change the values. Compile the sketch to make sure we didn't delete the wrong stuff.

Export Compiled Binary

We can upload our sketch to the SimulIDE program a number of ways. The easiest is to generate a file called the hex file. This is also called machine code and is the way the processor knows its program.

Menu Sketch->Export compiled Binary creates a file with a .hex extension in the sketch folder. Different Arduino IDE may have other options.

Open SimulIDE

We have some projects using SimulIDE electronic simulator. Download a version, donations are welcome. It is a portable application and you run it from the simulide.exe file in the folder.

Search components and find Uno and LcdShield. Pull each onto the blank circuit.

Attach Shield

Move the shield over the Uno board. Right click directly on the display module. Attach.

Load Firmware

Right click again and you should see a much more extended menu of options. We want Load firmware to locate the hex file we generated with the Arduino IDE program.

Your screen should look somewhat like this.

On/Off and Pause

See the red On/Off button at the top? There's a pause button, too.

Next Steps

Go through the remainder of the examples in LiquidCrystal library. Remember you have to change the connection information in each sketch to work with this differently wired display module.

As a safety feature SimulIDE will turn off power when you change connections or software. Check the On/Off and pause buttons.

Learn C/C++ and assembly programming with Arduino Embedded Engineering LCD DevBoard. Once again, change the constructor inputs.

SimulIDEshieldLCDdemo

/* modified  SimulIDE lcd shield has rs to pin11 and en to pin10.
  LiquidCrystal Library - Autoscroll

 Demonstrates the use a 16x2 LCD display.  The LiquidCrystal
 library works with all LCD displays that are compatible with the
 Hitachi HD44780 driver. There are many of them out there, and you
 can usually tell them by the 16-pin interface.

 This sketch demonstrates the use of the autoscroll()
 and noAutoscroll() functions to make new text scroll or not.

 The circuit:
 * LCD RS pin to digital pin 12
 * LCD Enable pin to digital pin 11
 * LCD D4 pin to digital pin 5
 * LCD D5 pin to digital pin 4
 * LCD D6 pin to digital pin 3
 * LCD D7 pin to digital pin 2
 * LCD R/W pin to ground
 * 10K resistor:
 * ends to +5V and ground
 * wiper to LCD VO pin (pin 3)

 Library originally added 18 Apr 2008
 by David A. Mellis
 library modified 5 Jul 2009
 by Limor Fried (http://www.ladyada.net)
 example added 9 Jul 2009
 by Tom Igoe
 modified 22 Nov 2010
 by Tom Igoe
 modified 7 Nov 2016
 by Arturo Guadalupi

 This example code is in the public domain.

 http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/LiquidCrystalAutoscroll

*/

// include the library code:
#include <LiquidCrystal.h>

// initialize the library by associating any needed LCD interface pin
//  modified  SimulIDE lcd shield has rs to pin11 and en to pin10.  
const int rs = 11, en = 10, d4 = 5, d5 = 4, d6 = 3, d7 = 2;
LiquidCrystal lcd(rs, en, d4, d5, d6, d7);

void setup() {
  // set up the LCD's number of columns and rows:
  lcd.begin(16, 2);
}

void loop() {
  // set the cursor to (0,0):
  lcd.setCursor(0, 0);
  // print from 0 to 9:
  for (int thisChar = 0; thisChar < 10; thisChar++) {
    lcd.print(thisChar);
    delay(500);
  }

  // set the cursor to (16,1):
  lcd.setCursor(16, 1);
  // set the display to automatically scroll:
  lcd.autoscroll();
  // print from 0 to 9:
  for (int thisChar = 0; thisChar < 10; thisChar++) {
    lcd.print(thisChar);
    delay(500);
  }
  // turn off automatic scrolling
  lcd.noAutoscroll();

  // clear screen for the next loop:
  lcd.clear();
}

SimulIDE LCD Shield