PIC16F/18F Slicker Board
The PIC16F/18F Slicker board is specifically designed to help students to master the required skills in the area of embedded systems. The kit is designed in such way that all the possible features of the microcontroller will be easily used by the students. The kit supports in system programming (ISP) which is done through USB port.
Microchip’s PIC (PIC16F877A), PIC16F/18F Slicker Kit is proposed to smooth the progress of developing and debugging of various designs encompassing of High speed 8-bit Microcontrollers.
LCD (Liquid Crystal Display)
Liquid Crystal Display also called as LCD is very helpful in providing user interface as well as for debugging purpose. A liquid crystal display (LCD) is a flat panel display that uses the light modulating properties of liquid crystals (LCs). LCD Modules can present textual information to user.
Interfacing LCD
Fig. 1 shows how to interface the LCD to microcontroller. The 2×16 character LCD interface card with supports both modes 4-bit and 8-bit interface, and also facility to adjust contrast through trim pot. In 8-bit interface 11 lines needed to create 8-bit interface; 8 data bits (D0 – D7), three control lines, address bit (RS), read/write bit (R/W) and control signal (E).
nterfacing LCD with PIC16F877A
We now want to display a text in PIC16F/18F Slicker Board by using LCD module. In PIC16F/18F Slicker Board contains the LCD connections in a single header.
The PIC16F/18F Slicker board has eleven numbers of LCD connections, connected with I/O Port lines (PORTE.0 – PORTE.3 && PORTD.0 – PORTD.7) to make LCD display.
Source Code
The Interfacing LCD with PIC16F877A program is very simple and straight forward, which display a text in 2 X 16 LCD modules. Some delay is occurring when a single command / data is executed.
C Program to display a text in LCD using PIC16F877A
To compile the above C code you need the Mplab software & Hi-Tech C Compiler. They must be properly set up and a project with correct settings must be created in order to compile the code. To compile the above code, the C file must be added to the project.
In Mplab, you want to develop or debug the project without any hardware setup. You must compile the code for generating HEX file. In debugging Mode, you want to check the port output without microcontroller Board.
The PICKIT2 software is used to download the hex file into your microcontroller through USB port.
Read more: How to Interface LCD with PIC16F877A Slicker