Using the Hitachi HD44780 with the Arduino

The Hitachi HD44780 is an LCD driving chipset usually driving a 2 line by 16 character display. You can get many different screen sizes e.g. 16x4, 20x4, 80x1. Regardless of that, the chipset, and hence the driving software remains the same.

These type of displays are very low cost and can display any ASCII text that you want. In addition you can also generate your own characters. Using these it is possible to create a simple bar graph to display a graphical representation of voltage etc.

The rear view of a Hitachi HD44780 module:

Hitachi HD44780 4 bit mode

The HD44780 is capable of operating in 8 bit mode i.e. faster (but see below), but that means you need 11 microcontroller pins. It is a trade off between speed and number of microcontroller pins you have available. In fact speed is not really that important as the amount of data needed to drive the display is low and the timing of the HD44780 interface means there are lots of 37us delays needed anyway (after a command is written). The liquidCrystal library uses 100us to be on the safe side. Note One command: clear display takes 2ms.

The 4 bit mode is more appropriate for microcontrollers since you only need about 6 pins. Inside the HD44780 you still have 8 bit operation so for 4 bit mode you do two writes to get that 8 bit quantity inside the chip.

Connections to the Hitachi HD44780 in 4 bit mode.

The circuit is quite simple and here only 6 wires are used for the HD44780:

• RS - register select (Selects the data or instruction register inside the HD44780).
• E - enable (This loads the data into the HD44780) - on the falling edge.
• D4 - Part of upper nibble used in 4 bit mode.
• D5 - Part of upper nibble used in 4 bit mode.
• D6 - Part of upper nibble used in 4 bit mode.
• D7 - Part of upper nibble used in 4 bit mode.
• There is also a 10k pot across the supply and connected to Vo of the LCD.
• The backlight led has a 470R resistor connected to 5V and to pin A of the LCD.
• Pin K of the LCD is connected to GND.
• Add a decoupling capacitor across Vcc and GND (not shown in photos).

Connections to the Arduino are:

Photo of Arduino Connections

The following picture shows the HD44780 display connections operating in 4 bit mode:

Connections are as follows:

Software Library and versions

Arduino IDE Version

Version : 1.6.4

Hitachi HD44780 Liquid Crystal Library

The library used here is LquidCrystal 1.01 - you can easily install it from the Arduino IDE.

If you do not see the library as an entry when you click the menus:

Sketch-->Include Library

Then select manage libraries :

Sketch-->Include Library -->Manage Libraries...

Search for and install LiquidCrystal using the "Filter Your Search" form.

Hitachi HD44780 Example 1 : 4bit parallel mode

This is a simple example. Note how the main loop has no code since we only want to initialise and display the text without doing anything else.

Copy Sketch

#include <LiquidCrystal.h>

#define LCD_RS  5 // Register select
#define LCD_E   4 // Enable
#define LCD_D4  3
#define LCD_D5  2
#define LCD_D6  1
#define LCD_D7  0

// * LCD R/W pin to ground
// * 10K pot:
// * ends to +5V and ground
// * wiper to LCD VO pin (pin 3)
// A Anode Backlight R (~470R) to Vdd
// K kathode to GND, VSS = GND, Vdd = 5V.

// initialize the library with the numbers of the interface pins
LiquidCrystal lcd( LCD_RS, LCD_E, LCD_D4, LCD_D5, LCD_D6, LCD_D7);

void setup() {
  lcd.begin(16, 2); // set up the LCD's columns and rows
  lcd.print("How to Drive an");
  lcd.setCursor(0, 1);
  lcd.print("HD44780 16x2 LCD");
}

void loop() {

}

Hitachi HD44780 Common LiquidCrystal Commands

The Hitachi HD44780 has many commands, Here are the most useful: initialisation, xy location setting and print:

Class instantiation intialisation

LiquidCryslal< object> (pins...)

This instantiation process also intialises the pins in use

Public class functions

begin(16,2)

Tell the software what display you have - must be called before other commands.

setCursor(x,y)

Top left is (0,0)

print(data[ ,base]) - [] optional

This is an overloaded function that can print any of the three number types or a string. If you use a number char,byte,int or long) you can also choose which base it is converted into using three letter acronyms, BIN, DEC, OCT, or HEX.

One other function that is useful is the user generated character function:

createChar(uint8_t addr, uint8_t data[]);

This defines the data for use as user generated character.

Object Instantiation and function use

An object is created using the main class constructor (in this case LiquidCrystal) as follows (here the object created is labeled lcd):

LiquidCrystal lcd(LCD_RS,LCD_E,LCD_D4,LCD_D5,LCD_D6,LCD_D7);

Note: This is also used to initialise internal data structures with the pins in use.

Once created, you can access the class library functions with the instantiated object (lcd) followed by a period and then the public class function: So, to print out some text for the lcd object (above)you would type:

lcd.print("My text");

As noted above this function is overloaded to allow number output:

lcd.print((char)35,BIN);

Hitachi HD44780 LiquidCrystal Commands

Here's a full list of the LiquidCrystal public library commands for the Hitachi HD44780 :

public:
  LiquidCrystal(uint8_t rs, uint8_t enable,
uint8_t d0, uint8_t d1, uint8_t d2, uint8_t d3,
uint8_t d4, uint8_t d5, uint8_t d6, uint8_t d7);
  LiquidCrystal(uint8_t rs, uint8_t rw, uint8_t enable,
uint8_t d0, uint8_t d1, uint8_t d2, uint8_t d3,
uint8_t d4, uint8_t d5, uint8_t d6, uint8_t d7);
  LiquidCrystal(uint8_t rs, uint8_t rw, uint8_t enable,
uint8_t d0, uint8_t d1, uint8_t d2, uint8_t d3);
  LiquidCrystal(uint8_t rs, uint8_t enable,
uint8_t d0, uint8_t d1, uint8_t d2, uint8_t d3);

The above object creators (constructor prototypes) differ only in the number of
parameters. For example the first and second differ only in that the 1st one does
not have the rw variable, and both operate the 8 bit interface. Then next two
again only differ in the rw variable and operate the 4 bit interface.

All these constructors are guided in code to call the "init" function below (look
for a magic number in the library source code that indicates when rw is not to
be used (it is 255)).

  void init(uint8_t fourbitmode, uint8_t rs, uint8_t rw, uint8_t enable,
    uint8_t d0, uint8_t d1, uint8_t d2, uint8_t d3,
    uint8_t d4, uint8_t d5, uint8_t d6, uint8_t d7);

The following function allows the underlying functions to know how big your
display is and whether a large font is in use.

  void begin(uint8_t cols, uint8_t rows, uint8_t charsize = LCD_5x8DOTS);

The following fuctions are self-evident, taking no arguments:

  void clear();
  void home();

  void noDisplay();
  void display();
  void noBlink();
  void blink();
  void noCursor();
  void cursor();
  void scrollDisplayLeft();
  void scrollDisplayRight();
  void leftToRight();
  void rightToLeft();
  void autoscroll();
  void noAutoscroll();

The y position of the display is often strange for larger displays as two
HD44780's are used so the start address for each row needs to be set (in some
cases).

  void setRowOffsets(int row1, int row2, int row3, int row4);
  void createChar(uint8_t, uint8_t[]);
  void setCursor(uint8_t, uint8_t);
  virtual size_t write(uint8_t);

This one is a little different as it uses the print class. That is one good thing
about OOP. In this case the serial print class allows you to re-write the "write"
function that actually accesses the hardware. So instead of directing the serial 
data to the serial port you can re-direct the data to the LCD but retain all the 
number formatting code!

  using Print::write;

Arduino Code Operation

While reviewing the operation of the LCD code I found this interesting snippet:

void LiquidCrystal::write4bits(uint8_t value) {
  for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++) {
    pinMode(_data_pins[i], OUTPUT);
    digitalWrite(_data_pins[i], (value >> i) & 0x01);
  }
  pulseEnable();
} 

There's nothing wrong with the code but it has to do a lot of manipulation to make the operation generic. It shows how that to make code generalised and easy to use there is a sacrifice in performance. There are two interesting parts to this operation

1. pin mode setting.
2. data manipulation to output.

First of all the pin mode is set every time that a write is made to the LCD. This would ensure that if other code accidentally set the pin direction wrongly then this would override it. Usually a port is dedicated to one operation so pin modes should be set in the "setup" routine. The way it is done here is "safe" but gives a big performance hit at each lcd write operation..

Secondly to manipulate each data bit to direct it to the output takes a few operations involving selecting the pin and then shifting the value right. It's clever and works in all cases but again there is a performance hit. By using the hardware in a straight forward way then you can avoid this coding i.e. use the lower 4 bits of an output port and and you only need a few bit manipulation operations: a lower four bit and mask:

port_val &= 0xf0; // Clear the lower bits

port_val |= low_nibble & 0x0f; // Setup the low output nibble

op_port = port_val; // Send the new data to the port.

For arduino operation, performance is not as important as speed and ease of coding and it allows users to mix and match code to get it working but you should be aware that underneath all the magic there can be a lot going on and you could re-write it (or re-wire the hardware) for better performance.

Hitachi HD44780 Example 2 : Time since last reset.

The following example uses the print command to continuously output an updated time display every 99ms.

Copy Sketch

#include <LiquidCrystal.h>

#define LCD_RS  5 // Register select
#define LCD_E   4 // Enable
#define LCD_D4  3 
#define LCD_D5  2 
#define LCD_D6  1 
#define LCD_D7  0
 
// * LCD R/W pin to ground
// * 10K pot:
// * ends to +5V and ground
// * wiper to LCD VO pin (pin 3)
// A Anode Backlight R (~470R) to Vdd 
// K kathode to GND, VSS = GND, Vdd = 5V.

// initialize the library with the numbers of the interface pins
LiquidCrystal lcd( LCD_RS, LCD_E, LCD_D4, LCD_D5, LCD_D6, LCD_D7);

void setup() {
  
  lcd.begin(16, 2); // set up the LCD's columns and rows
  lcd.clear(); 
  lcd.print("Time:"); 
  lcd.setCursor(0,1);
  lcd.print("Time from reset."); 
}

long countTime = 0;
long oldTime = 0;

void loop() {
  
   delay(1);
   countTime += 1;

   if (millis()-oldTime>99) { // update every 99ms
      lcd.setCursor(5,0);
      lcd.print(countTime,DEC);
      oldTime=millis();
   }
}

Hitachi HD44780 Example 3 : Custom Character bar

The user defined characters will be updated to give a graphical display - a moving bar that represents increments of 1/4 of a second. You could represent any analogue quantity with this code..

Each character is 5 pixels wide and there are 16 characters to a row so there are a total of 16x5 = 80 pixels across the display. You can use this information to display a horizontal bar graph.

Note: You can use as many pixels as you want as the bar drawing routine uses x,y (LCD coordinates) to start from, and then just a number representing the number of pixels to draw to the right.

Copy Sketch

#include <LiquidCrystal.h>

#define LCD_RS  5 // Register select
#define LCD_E   4 // Enable
#define LCD_D4  3
#define LCD_D5  2
#define LCD_D6  1
#define LCD_D7  0

byte cc[8]; // Custom Character

// * LCD R/W pin to ground
// * 10K pot:
// * ends to +5V and ground
// * wiper to LCD VO pin (pin 3)
// A Anode Backlight R (~470R) to Vdd
// K kathode to GND, VSS = GND, Vdd = 5V.

// initialize the library with the numbers of the interface pins
LiquidCrystal lcd( LCD_RS, LCD_E, LCD_D4, LCD_D5, LCD_D6, LCD_D7);

// 0 is the full block character
// 1 has left bar filled
// 2 has 2 left bars filled
// ...
// 4 has 4 left bars filled.
void createBarChars(void) {
  byte mask = 0x10;
  byte current=0;
  for (int cgchar=1; cgchar<=4; cgchar++) {
    current |= mask;
    mask=mask>>1;
    for (int i=0; i<8; i++) cc[i]=current;
    lcd.createChar(cgchar, cc);
  }
  for (int i=0; i<8; i++) cc[i]=0x1f; // Create full block.
  lcd.createChar(0, cc);
}

void drawBar(byte x, byte y, byte pixels) {
  int i;
  byte blocks = pixels / 5; // 5 pixels wide per character.
  byte rem    = pixels % 5;
  for (i=0;i<blocks;i++) {
     lcd.setCursor(x+i,y);
     lcd.write(byte(0));
  }
  lcd.setCursor(x+i,y);
  if (rem!=0) {
      lcd.write(rem);
  }
}

void setup() {

  lcd.begin(16, 2); // set up the LCD's columns and rows
  lcd.clear();
  lcd.print("Time:");

  createBarChars();
}

long countTime = 0;
long oldTime = 0;

void loop() {
static int idxcg = 0;

   delay(1);
   countTime += 1;

   if (millis()-oldTime>99) { // update every 99ms
      lcd.setCursor(5,0);
      lcd.print(countTime,DEC);
      oldTime=millis();

      if ((countTime/250)%80==0) { // Clear Bar Area.
        lcd.setCursor(0,1);
        lcd.print("                ");
      }
      drawBar(0,1,(countTime/250)%80);   // parameter update is quarter seconds.
   }
}