Custom LCD Characters

[wmeade]

I would like to create a custom LCD character to display on my 4x20 LCD. This was rather easy in PBP, but appears to be more complicated in PICC. I searched the forum and found one message that pertained to my question but it was using functions that are not in the LCD.C, which is what I am using. Should I be using a different driver or will the LCD.C work for loading a custom character into the CG_RAM on the Display? Thanks in advance........

[Mark]

Read the datasheet for the LCD controller that you are using. It is pretty simple to implement you just have to know what to do.

Here is one I wrote a while back. I think you should be able to the the 'lcd_send_byte' from LCD.C with this.

[wmeade]

Thanks for the quick response mark. I was able to load and display my custome cursor.
Below is how I loaded it and then displayed it for anyone that may be doing the same thing using LCD.C.

// Load Custome Cursor Into LCD CG RAM

lcd_send_byte(0,0x40); // (0 = command mode) write to LCD CG Ram location 0
lcd_send_byte(1,0x08); // (1 = display mode) load cursor line 1 of 8
lcd_send_byte(1,0x0C); // (1 = display mode) load cursor line 2 of 8
lcd_send_byte(1,0x0E); // (1 = display mode) load cursor line 3 of 8
lcd_send_byte(1,0x0F); // (1 = display mode) load cursor line 4 of 8
lcd_send_byte(1,0x0E); // (1 = display mode) load cursor line 5 of 8
lcd_send_byte(1,0x0C); // (1 = display mode) load cursor line 6 of 8
lcd_send_byte(1,0x08); // (1 = display mode) load cursor line 7 of 8
lcd_send_byte(1,0x00); // (1 = display mode) load cursor line 8 of 8


// Display Custome Cursor on LCD from LCD CG RAM Location 0

lcd_send_byte(1,0); // (1 = display mode) (0 = CG RAM location)

[Bryan]

Where did you put this code in your main program to get it to load and display your custom cursor? I tried doing this right after lcd_init() in main but it doesn't display anything - Does this need to be inside the lcd_init() function?

[Mark]

These only store the data in the LCD. Take a look at the datasheet. You access the custom characters with a code (0-7 in this case).

[Bryan]

Thanks for the help Mark! When I tried this out, I needed to clear the display after calling the Store_Custom_Char() function before I was able to get anything to output. Do you know why this is? Also, you were right \0 doesn't work correctly so I may just store the 2 custom characters that I need for my project in positions 1 and 2 since they work fine.

[Mark]

You can make the 0 char work but probably not in a printf().

[CharlieGill]

If you encode your custom characters using binary constants it makes it easier to visualize what the character looks like.
0b0000100
0b0001110
0b0010101
0b0000100
0b0000100
0b0000100
0b0000000

Charlie

[Mark]

I added the code formating to my orginal post. I think they stand out pretty well