lec 5

Question 1

what benefit is provided with the addition of a display on Arduino

Answer 1

microcontroller does not need to be connected to a computer to display data

Question 2

what is a 16 by 2 segment LCD

Answer 2

16 columns and 2 rows, capable

of displaying a maximum of 32 characters

Question 3

how many modes can LCD be controlled by and what are they called

Answer 3

2 modes: 4-bit and 8-bit

Question 4

how many pins are required for an 8-bit display

and what pins are used

Answer 4

10 pins on digital I/O port

pins D0 through to D7

Question 5

how many pins are required for an 4-bit display

and what pins are used

Answer 5

6 pins on digital I/O port

pins D4 to D7

Question 6

what is it called when data is sent in two parts

Answer 6

nibbles

Question 7

what is Vss and Vdd

Answer 7

two power supply lines for the LCD that will need to have +5volts and ground
applied to them respectively

Question 8

what is ‘Backlight Anode & Backlight Cathode’

Answer 8

Inside the display there is a LED to provide illumination of the characters. The cathode needs
to be grounded and the anode connected via an external 220 ohm limiting current resistor to
+5 volts

Question 9

what is VE

Answer 9

Allows control over the contrast of the display, using a voltage between zero and +5 volts.

Question 10

what is RS

Answer 10

Controls where in the memory of the LCD driver you are writing data to.

Question 11

what is RW

Answer 11

Tells LCD driver whether you are writing data to the display, or reading data from it. Use +5
volts to read and ground to write to the display

Question 12

what is E

Answer 12

pin enables data to be written to the registers

Question 13

what does the function myLCD.clear() mean

Answer 13

All data and text is removed from the display.

Question 14

what does the function myLCD.home() mean

Answer 14

Moves the cursor to the upper left hand corner of the display (position 0,0). Any print, or write
instructions will result in characters being printed from this location.

Question 15

what does the function

myLCD.setCursor(column,row) mean

Answer 15

Moves the cursor to the position specified on the display. Any print or write instructions will result
in characters being printed from this new location.

Question 16

what does the function myLCD.Cursor() mean

Answer 16

Displays a visible cursor in the form of an underscore to identify where the next character will be
printed on the display

Question 17

what does the function myLCD.noCursor() mean

Answer 17

Removes the cursor from the display.

Question 18

what does the function myLCD.blink() mean

Answer 18

Creates a block-style cursor that blinks on and off at 2Hz.

Question 19

what does the function myLCD.display() mean

Answer 19

Makes all characters and cursors stored in the memory of the LCD driver visible on the display.

Question 20

what does the function myLCD.noDisplay() mean

Answer 20

Makes all characters and cursors on the display invisible. It does not remove any information from
the LCD driver’s memory.

Question 21

what does the function myLCD.scrollDisplayLeft() mean

Answer 21

Scrolls all the contents of the display on both rows, including characters and the cursor, one space
to the left. After 40 executions of this instruction the text loops and reappears at the start on the
right-hand side of the display. Continued use of this function results in the text looping around
again and again.

Question 22

what does the function myLCD.scrollDisplayRight() mean

Answer 22

This function behaves the same as myLCD.scrollDisplayLeft(), except that it moves one space
to the right. Looping of text occurs after 40 executions of the instruction.

Question 23

what does the function myLCD.autoscroll() mean

Answer 23

Takes a string of text and scrolls it from right to left in increments of the character count of the
string. For example, if you have a word that is 3 characters long, it will shift the word 3 spaces to
the left with each step.

Question 24

what does the function myLCD.noAutoscroll() mean

Answer 24

turns autoscrolling off

Question 25

what does the function myLCD.rightToLeft() mean

Answer 25

Sets the direction that text is printed on the display from right to left.

Question 26

what does the function myLCD.leftToRight(),mean

Answer 26

Sets the direction that text is printed on the display from left to right (default)

Question 27

what does the function myLCD.createChar() mean

Answer 27

This function enables you to create your own custom characters. 2 parameters need to be passed
to the function, a numerical value to which the new character will be referred to and the array of
data holding the binary information to create the new character.