This is a very popular LCD Keypad shield for Arduino and other variants. It includes a 2×16 LCD display and 6 momentary push buttons. Pins 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 are used to interface with the LCD. Just one Analog Pin 0 is used to read the five pushbuttons. The LCD shield supports contrast adjustment and back-lit on/off functions. It also exposes five analog pins for easy analog sensor plugging and display. An on board power LED is also provided.

This design is great since easily lets you keep connecting sensors to the rest of the pins, and use it for monitoring or menu selection with the push buttons even for gaming. Often project applications require testing or debugging. Displaying information right away help on most occasions when a computer is not at reach. If you are planning to build something not attached to a computer and you need to check what is going on when you place it on position, this addition will prove very valuable to make sure the program is running well.

The used LCD pins are not exposed on top side of the board leaving only the unused ones. This way, conflict with LCD pins on top of the board will not happen anymore.

The buttons are connected to only one analog input pin through resistors to give a different voltage for each button, thus saving on input/output pins. Reading the buttons is easy and example code is shown below

Pin Connections

Pin                 Function

Analog 0 Buttons (select, up, right, down and left)

Digital 4         DB4

Digital 5         DB5

Digital 6     DB6

Digital 7     DB7

Digital 8         RS (Data or Signal Display Selection)

Digital 9         Enable

Features :

• The LCD Keypad shield is developed for Arduino compatible boards, to provide a user-friendly interface that allows users to go through the menu, make selections etc.
• It consists of a 1602 white character blue backlight LCD.
• The keypad consists of 6 keys select, up, right, down, left and reset.
• To save the digital IO pins, the keypad interface only uses one ADC channel.
• The key value is read out through a 5 stage voltage divider.

Specifications:

• Operating Voltage: 5V
• 5 Push buttons to supply a custom menu control panel
• RST button for resetting arduino program
• Integrate a potentiometer for adjusting the backlight
• Pin used:

            D4-D7    -> LCD Data transmission

            D8       -> Register Select

            D9       -> Enable pin

            D10      -> Backlight control

• APC&BT pin header for connecting wireless devices, directly compatible with:
• APC220 Radio Communication Module
• Expanded available I/O pins
• Expanded Analog Pinout with standard configuration for fast sensor extension
• Dimension: 80 x 58 mm (3.15x 2.28 in)

Package Includes :

• 1 x 1602 LCD Keypad Shield Blue Backlight