Arduino 20×4 Character LCD

Hello guys, today I am going to show you yet another display. It is a big 20×4 character LCD display which uses the I2C interface. Despite its large size the display is relatively inexpensive. It costs 6.74$ right now, you can get it here.

As you can see, I have already managed to find some time to test it. Since the display uses the I2C interface it is extremely easy to use it with Arduino. You only need to connect power and two more wires!  In addition to that, finding a library for this display was also very easy. I am using the very capable New LiquidCrystal library.

You may ask, why to use a simple character LCD display when you have some amazing TFT displays available? The reason is simple. I needed a big display that is very easy and fast to connect to Arduino. You sometimes want to test a sensor, or a circuit and you want a display for debugging. At such situations you want a big, easy to connect display with easy code usage.

So far, the only I2C display I was using was the OLED I2C display, which is great but tiny. It really make things more difficult when you have a tiny display to work with.

As you can see from the above image, the size difference is huge. The character LCD display is very big and we can display more text on it in comparison with the OLED display. That’s great!

As final thought, I think this is great display for Arduino. Since the price of it is really low, I think it is a must have display. It is perfect for quick prototyping. Also, this display is ideal for beginners to Arduino. Just connect 4 wires, install the library and you are ready to build some very cool projects with it! I love it!