Problem With Electronic Brick LCD

Products & Technology Arduino & Seeeduino
#1

I am new to Ardunino but have got LED blink etc running.

However I am having problems with my recently purchased seeedstudio LCD Electonic brick. When I connect it the top row looks all black and there is nothing in the bottom row. When I download ‘Hello world’ the top row still looks all black unless it is viewed at an acute angle when ‘Hello World’ can be seen. Nothing can be seen in the second line. Is this a fault with the board? Curiously the message can be seen clearly when the brick is switched off by its own mini switch but of course it does not recieve any new messages or display the second line.

I have looked at the voltage on the ‘contrast’ line pin 3 and it appears to be solidly connected to ground.

I am a bit puzzled by the Electronic Brick Chassis pin out. The BUS 1, 2 and 3 pin outs appear to have the the guide key on the wrong edge in the documentation. I don’t understand why BUS 2 is used for the LCD since it includes analogue outputs. I have changed to BUS 1 and the addresses to LiquidCrystal lcd(2,3,4,5,6,7,8) but this has the same effect (described above) as using Bus 2 and the original coding.

#2

Pls refer to this

#3

Thanks Steve.

Well that wasn’t quite the answer I was looking for but it set me off comparing the code in the Electronic Brick Cook book with other sketches. It is missing the line lcd.begin(16, 2); and when that is inserted everything works as expected. I guess the Cook Book better be updated who does that?

Next I guess I better puzzle out why the instructions use the A channels on BUS 2 rather than the D channels on BUS 1 and why the pin outs appear to be wrong to me.