LCD 16x2 Characters - Green Yellow Back Light

Description: This is a basic 16 character by 2 line display with black text on a yellow background. Utilizes the extremely common HD44780 parallel interface chipset

Specifications:

• Compatible with Arduino Liquid Crystal Library
• LCD Display Mode: STN, Positive, Transflective
• Viewing Angle: 6:00
• Driving Method: 1/16 duty, 1/5 bias
• Back Light: Yellow-Green LED backlight
• Text Color: Black
• Outline Dimension: 80 x 36 x 15.8 MAX
• Character Res: 16 x 2
• Driver Voltage: 5 VDC

Documents:

• Arduino Tutorial
• Datasheet Download
• Digital Thermometer with Arduino and 16x2 LCD Display

Another diagram:

Hook everything up EXACTLY like in this picture from the Arduino page:
http://arduino.cc/en/uploads/Tutorial/lcd_schem.png

Now load the "Scroll" Example from Arduinos LiquidCrystal Library.
Change these two lines

lcd.begin(16, 2);
lcd.setCursor(0,7);

to

lcd.begin(8, 2);
lcd.setCursor(0,0);

now upload it to your Arduino or Seeduino and watch your display fire up! You may have to adjust the potentiometer a little if you can't see anything.

As an alternative to the potentiometer you can connect the Vo pin of the LCD with any available PWM-output (I use pin 9) and add the following code in the setup() section:

pinMode(9, OUTPUT);
analogWrite(9, CONTRAST);

replace CONTRAST with the value of your choice. Values around 10-20 give a nice bright output. (thanks for above tutor from DedeHai)