• Interfacing With People

Is an inevitable part in almost all embedded projects and this article is about interfacing a 16×2 LCD with. Many guys find it hard to interface LCD module with the 8051 but the fact is that if you learn it properly, its a very easy job and by knowing it you can easily design embedded projects like digital voltmeter / ammeter, digital clock, home automation displays, status indicator display, display for music players etc etc.

Interfacing With People

The steps involved in interfacing an LCD with 8051 1. Define function for sending command to the LCD using 8051 a. Mod-4: Interfacing with 8051.

Thoroughly going through this article will make you able to display any text (including the extended characters) on any part of the 16×2 display screen. In order to understand the interfacing first you have to know about the 16×2 LCD module. 16×2 LCD module.

16×2 LCD module is a very common type of LCD module that is used in 8051 based embedded projects. It consists of 16 rows and 2 columns of 5×7 or 5×8 LCD dot matrices. The module were are talking about here is type number JHD162A which is a very popular one.

It is available in a 16 pin package with back light,contrast adjustment function and each dot matrix has 5×8 dot resolution. The pin numbers, their name and corresponding functions are shown in the table below. Pin No: Name Function 1 VSS This pin must be connected to the ground 2 VCC Positive supply voltage pin (5V DC) 3 VEE Contrast adjustment 4 RS Register selection 5 R/W Read or write 6 E Enable 7 DB0 Data 8 DB1 Data 9 DB2 Data 10 DB3 Data 11 DB4 Data 12 DB5 Data 13 DB6 Data 14 DB7 Data 15 LED+ Back light LED+ 16 LED- Back light LED- VEE pin is meant for adjusting the contrast of the LCD display and the contrast can be adjusted by varying the voltage at this pin. This is done by connecting one end of a POT to the Vcc (5V), other end to the Ground and connecting the center terminal (wiper) of of the POT to the VEE pin. See the circuit diagram for better understanding.

The JHD162A has two built in registers namely data register and command register. Data register is for placing the data to be displayed, and the command register is to place the commands. The 16×2 LCD module has a set of commands each meant for doing a particular job with the display. We will discuss in detail about the commands later. High logic at the RS pin will select the data register and Low logic at the RS pin will select the command register. If we make the RS pin high and the put a data in the 8 bit data line (DB0 to DB7), the LCD module will recognize it as a data to be displayed.

If we make RS pin low and put a data on the data line, the module will recognize it as a command. R/W pin is meant for selecting between read and write modes. High level at this pin enables read mode and low level at this pin enables write mode. E pin is for enabling the module. Youdao desktop dictionary. A high to low transition at this pin will enable the module.

DB0 to DB7 are the data pins. The data to be displayed and the command instructions are placed on these pins. LED+ is the anode of the back light LED and this pin must be connected to Vcc through a suitable series current limiting resistor. LED- is the cathode of the back light LED and this pin must be connected to ground. 16×2 LCD module commands.

16×2 LCD module has a set of preset command instructions. Each command will make the module to do a particular task. The commonly used commands and their function are given in the table below. Command Function 0F LCD ON, Cursor ON, Cursor blinking ON 01 Clear screen 02 Return home 04 Decrement cursor 06 Increment cursor 0E Display ON,Cursor blinking OFF 80 Force cursor to the beginning of 1 st line C0 Force cursor to the beginning of 2 nd line 38 Use 2 lines and 5×7 matrix 83 Cursor line 1 position 3 3C Activate second line 08 Display OFF, Cursor OFF C1 Jump to second line, position1 OC Display ON, Cursor OFF C1 Jump to second line, position1 C2 Jump to second line, position2 LCD initialization.

The steps that has to be done for initializing the LCD display is given below and these steps are common for almost all applications. Send 38H to the 8 bit data line for initialization.

Send 0FH for making LCD ON, cursor ON and cursor blinking ON. Send 06H for incrementing cursor position.

Send 01H for clearing the display and return the cursor. Sending data to the LCD. The steps for sending data to the LCD module is given below. I have already said that the LCD module has pins namely RS, R/W and E.

It is the logic state of these pins that make the module to determine whether a given data input is a command or data to be displayed. Make R/W low. Make RS=0 if data byte is a command and make RS=1 if the data byte is a data to be displayed.

Place data byte on the data register. Pulse E from high to low. Repeat above steps for sending another data. Circuit diagram. Interfacing 16×2 LCD module to 8051 The circuit diagram given above shows how to interface a 16×2 LCD module with AT89S1 microcontroller. Capacitor C3, resistor R3 and push button switch S1 forms the reset circuitry.

Ceramic capacitors C1,C2 and crystal X1 is related to the clock circuitry which produces the system clock frequency. P1.0 to P1.7 pins of the microcontroller is connected to the DB0 to DB7 pins of the module respectively and through this route the data goes to the LCD module. P3.3, P3.4 and P3.5 are connected to the E, R/W, RS pins of the microcontroller and through this route the control signals are transffered to the LCD module. Resistor R1 limits the current through the back light LED and so do the back light intensity. POT R2 is used for adjusting the contrast of the display. Program for interfacing LCD to 8051 microcontroller is shown below.

LCD Module to 8051 – 4 Bit Mode As shown in the circuit diagram, port 0 of the controller is used for interfacing it with LCD module. In 4 bit mode only 4 lines D4-D7, along with RS, R/W and E pins are used. This will save us 4 pins of our controller which we might employ it for other purpose. Here we only need to write to the LCD module. So the R/W pin can be ground it as shown in the schematic diagram.

In this way the total number of pins can be reduced to 6. In 4 Bit mode the data bytes are split into two four bits and are transferred in the form of a nibble. The data transmission to a LCD is performed by assigning logic states to the control pins RS and E. The reset circuit, oscillator circuit and power supply need to be provided for the proper working of the circuit.