20×2 LCD DIY guide

The wire has to be soldered to the 20×2 rows display like this…

In order that nothing can go wrong I indicate all colors. Pin1 black and ground, Pin2 red, Pin3 grey, Pin4 green-brown, Pin5 blue, Pin6 brown, Pin7 yellow-brown, Pin8 green, Pin9 yellow-white, Pin10 pink, Pin11 grey-brown, Pin12 violet, Pin13 green-white, Pin14 yellow, Pin15 blue-red, Pin16 white. The allocation is in the theory the same as with a normal single-line allocation, however the pins are count different – Pin 1 ist marked, Pin 2 the opposite side, in the next row under pin 1 is pin 3, next to pin 3 is pin 4 and so on.

To understand it here is a large picture with the descriptions of the pins from left to right… Pin2 red, Pin4 green-brown, Pin6 brown, Pin8 green, Pin10 pink, Pin12 violet, Pin14 purple, Pin16 white;

And here is a large picture with the descriptions of the pins from left to right… Pin15 blue-red (is also marked), Pin13 green-white, Pin11 grey-brown, Pin9 yellow-white, Pin7 yellow brown, Pin5 blue, Pin3 grey, Pin1 black and ground.

And here is a picture of the finished display with controller plate, power connector and parallelport connector, whereby the frame of the 20×2 display is chromium-plated, which affects the picture unfortunately somewhat differently.

if you connect everything to the pc an power it on, the first and third row of the display will already light up which means that it does not get a signal from the pc yet but is already powerd on. On the next page of the guide I described which software you are able to use, to control the display. The LCD-Displays in the fanshop have a slightly blue/purple background and are because of that a really beautiful decoration at or in the pc which can for example be mounted in a 5 1/4 inch slot, or it can just be put on the table with a small acrylic stand. If you have enough space above the number block in your keyboard it would look great if you put it there and is, with the right software a really useful implement to show many different kinds of data like free disc space, up and download speed or the total amount of the downloaded data, any temperature, CPU-Speed, rounds per minute of the fans, free Windows ressources, music-titles, level indicators, Spielstände bei LAN-Games, a magnificent clock and many more different things . Owing to ever more extensive functions in the software almost no wish remains open.

This is what the 20×2 display with green/yellow LED-background lighting from the fanshop
looks like with low background lighting and low contrast:

This is what the 20×2 display with green/yellow LED-background lighting from the fanshop
looks like with very high background lighting and high contrast:

Here you can see the first tests with an older LCD and some tools …

Here you can download GLCD and LCD Software …

Here is the newer LCD software guide in German …