Assembly instructions addendum
Regarding the PCB to LCD Module interconnection, and alternate methods.
Recommended Method
The above photo shows the simplest recommended interconnection method.
The boards are stacked back to back as shown, and 10 wires are soldered straight through as show above.
I used insulated wires so they don't short out when flexed, and you can see a little bit of bend on the wires in this photo
Cable Interconnect
You can also interconnect the PCB to the LCD with a cable. Be careful not to reverse the connection left to right in the process.
The photo above shows one method that works. You can reverse this by soldering the connector to the back of the LCD module, but then you must also solder the connector to the opposite side of the PCB. Note: If you are using more than 1 inch or 2 of cable you will need to add a 10K resistor to ground on LCD pin7 (or micro pin5). This is because this line goes tri-state at times, and is susceptible to noise pickup. Later versions of the software (after 07-2008) use slower LCD control signals and thus are more tolerant of longer cabling.
Removable
In this example I have soldered a 10 pin header to the back of the PCB and a ten pin connector to the LCD module
Show below is a photo of the two plugged together.
If you look closely you will see that my female connector is actually two strips of 5 which I cut out of an IC socket.
NOTE: When you are experimenting with interconnects, you should know that the LCD module is only initialized once during power up. So if there is a missed connection during power up the LCD will not be set up properly and won't work at all even if the connection is restored later. You should, of course make any connection changes with power off, then 're-boot' after any change to the connections.
Back to my main web site