LCD Keypad Shield includes 2x16 character LCD with blue black light

Hello, I have 2x16 character LCD with blue black light
and 5 programmable buttons RED board.
Question is: Is this a HITACHI HD4470 LCD Display controller and can I use
a 4x20 character LCD with the same LCD Controller and use the GHIElectronics.NETMF code?

Is there also a drawing about the LCD Keypad Shield V2.0?

Thanks.

I didn’t understand your question but the display on our display&keypad shield uses a standard hitachi interface and here is the schematics http://www.tinyclr.com/downloads/Domino/DFRobot/LCDKeypad%20Shield%20SCH.pdf

You can see the source code on the website too http://www.tinyclr.com/downloads/Shield/FEZ_Shield_KeypadLCD_Red.cs

Hi Eddie,

Chimpanzee’s response says to me that, if you wanted to, you could replace the 2x16 with a 4x20 if you wanted to - the control lines would be no different. Obfviously you’re going to void any warranty if you start waving a soldering iron at the shield :slight_smile:

You would more than likely need to alter the code though, since the handling of the 4x20 characters is much different to a 2x16 is.

One other thing to be careful of is the physical size; I don’t have a 2x16 but I imagine they are much smaller than the 4x20’s. You might need to have the LCD floating so it doesn’t overlap the buttons!

Actually, the driver code GHI supplies should work with just about any Hitachi based LCD display driver. The one and two line LCDs already have the internal memory structure to support up to a 2x20 display. A quick glance at a few data sheets reveals that 4 line LCDs share the basic interface. I have found in the past that the biggest difference between various displays is often minute timing differences between manufacturers. I also also several 4 line LCDs with a serial interface for under $50 USD.

On the subject of LCDs I was needing an easier way to display more data than the LCD shield could directly display so this weekend I wrote a LCDLIveText class that gives one a virtual X-Column by Y-Row display with the ability to scroll the LCD ‘view’ around inside the virtual display area. I need to clean things up a bit then I’ll post it with a sample project.

Hallo Cimpanzee, Brett and Jeff_Birt,

Thanks for your comments.
I have some experience with PCB boards, from Sparkfun.com I have a prototype PCB Boards so I can mount here a 4x20 character LCD Display from Hitachi to get more data information on
the LCD Display. My idea (New Project) is to make a new i/o PCB board on top of FEZDomono like a shield, for inputs I like use LM358 dual op-amp and for the outputs ULN2001 for power buffer output and PC817 as opto pulse outputs. And also a new LCD display board on the top of these two boards. And a 24Vdc DC/DC converter power supply board.FEZDomino board has everything on board, it’s a nice power full Microcontroller with USB, SDcard etc. and VERY GOOD dev. software.