LCD/VFD Controller with USB Interface

The LCD/VFD controller project is based on HD44870 where the control command is compatible with Matrix-Orbital’s LCD module.

The controller is based on a PIC16F873 MCU and in the design, there is no external power needed since the whole device is operating in Bus-Power mode. The USB bus controller used in the circuit utilizes a FTDI FT232BM chip. It has support for industry-standard LCD interface such as the Hitachi HD44780 or any 14/16” pin interface while the configuration can fit for 16×2, 20×2, 20×4, 40×2 LCD/VFD modules.

The flow control of data is not supported since the hardware uses 19200-baud RS232 input with 96 bytes of receive buffer. There are standard software commands available such as clear screen, cursor movement, and others. The LCD/VFD can be configured through commands as it supports custom characters. The Splash screen can be changed to whatever output is desired. The keypad has 4×4 dimensions and the software can be used to configure the LCD contrast along with the brightness and the setting of the contrast has the option to be saved.

The horizontal bar graph and thin & thick bar vertical graph are being initialized during startup.

Rest of the project