Seeed Grove-LCD RGB Backlight User manual

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Grove - LCD RGB Backlight
Version：1.0
Release date：9/20/2015
Wiki: http://www.seeedstudio.com/wiki/Grove_-_LCD_RGB_Backlight
Bazaar: http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/Grove-LCD-RGB-Backlight-p-1643.html

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Document Revision History
Revision
Date
Author
Description
1.0
Sep 21, 2015
Victor.He
Create file

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Contents
Document Revision History···································································································2
1. Introduction ···················································································································2
2. Specification···················································································································3
3. Demonstration ···············································································································4
3.1 Hardware Installation········································································································ 4
3.2 Download Code and Upload ····························································································· 4
3.3 Change Color of Backlight·································································································5
3.4 With Raspberry Pi ············································································································· 5
3.4.1 Run The Program······································································································· 6
4. Related Projects ·············································································································8
4.1 Pringles Can antenna with a LinkIt ONE············································································ 8
4.2 A Smart home monitoring equipment by BBG ·································································9
5. Share Your Awesome Projects with Us ········································································10
6. Resources ·····················································································································11

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Disclaimer
For physical injuries and possessions loss caused by those reasons which are not related to product quality,
such as operating without following manual guide, natural disasters or force majeure, we take no
responsibility for that.
Under the supervision of Seeed Technology Inc., this manual has been compiled and published which
covered the latest product description and specification. The content of this manual is subject to change
without notice.
Copyright
The design of this product (including software) and its accessories is under tutelage of laws. Any action to
violate relevant right of our product will be penalized through law. Please consciously observe relevant local
laws in the use of this product.

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1. Introduction
Done with tedious mono color backlight? This Grove enables you to set the color to whatever you like via
the simple and concise Grove interface. It takes I2C as communication method with your microcontroller.
So number of pins required for data exchange and backlight control shrinks from ~10 to 2, relieving IOs for
other challenging tasks. Besides, Grove - LCD RGB Backlight supports user-defined characters. Want to get
a love heart or some other foreign characters? Just take advantage of this feature and design it!
This product is a replacement of Grove - Serial LCD. If you are looking for primitive 16x2 LCD modules, we
have green yellow backlight version and blue backlight version on sale also.

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2. Specification
Input Voltage
5V
Operating Current
<60mA
CGROM
10880 bit
CGRAM
64*8 bit
Colorful RGB Backlight
Built-in English and Japanese fonts
I2C communication, uses only two IOs
Automatic power-on reset
Suli-compatible Library

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3. Demonstration
This demonstration will show you how to use Grove - LCD RGB Backlight, we need a Seeeduino V3.0 else.
3.1 Hardware Installation
Hardware installation is very easy, because there's an I2C Grove in Seeeduino, so what we need to do is
connect it to I2C Grove via a Grove cable.
3.2 Download Code and Upload
You can download the demo code in Github, click here, then extract it to anywhere.
If you have some problem with this step, please refer to Getting Start with Seeeduino
there is a Hello World example in the library, open it, and upload to Seeeduino V3.0.
Then you can see "Hello world" on the first row, and second row will print the number of second since
reset.

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3.3 Change Color of Backlight
One of Grove - LCD RGB Backlight's most important feature is: you can change the color backlight, and it's
a very simple thing, just use the following function:
void setRGB(int r,int g,int b);
Then let's try a Red backlight.
Modify the code about color into:
const int colorR =255;
const int colorG =0;
const int colorB =0;
Upload the code again, woo, see the backlight turn to Red? Then why not try another color? Whatever you
like.
3.4 With Raspberry Pi
This example will change backlight color and display text. You should connect to GrovePi+ with it like the
following picture.

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# Grovepi + grove RGB LCD module
# Example for using the Grove I2C color LCD
from grove_rgb_lcd import *
while(True):
setText("Hello world\nLCD test")
setRGB(0,128,64)
for c in range(0,255):
setRGB(c,255-c,0)
time.sleep(0.01)
setRGB(0,255,0)
setText("Bye bye, this should wrap")
time.sleep(1.5)
3.4.1 Run The Program
Find the path to the file(According to your own path)
cd GrovePi/Software/Python/grove_rgb_lcd/

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Run program:
sudo python example.py