LCD mini click and Curiosity board

Andrew KirikEmbedded Programming, Microchip, Microcontrollers

Now that we know how to use at Microchip Code Configurator let’s explore it full potential.

Microchip Curiosity boards support mikroBUS socket. Let’s see how we can use it. As a first test we will use LCD mini click.

Plug LCD click board into Curiosity board and connect all to you USB port.

Open MPLAB X IDE, and go to File -> New Project.
– Microchip Embedded; Standalone Project
– Family: Mid-Range 8-bit MCUs (PIC10/12/16/MCP); Device: PIC16F1619
– Supported Debug Header: None
– Select Tools: Microchip Starter Kit -> Curiosity
– Select Compiler: XC8 (v…)
– Project name LCD1619
– Finish
– Click on MCC button
– Change Internal Clock to 8MHz
– On the left side go to Device Resources -> expand Mikro-E Clicks -> expand Display and double click on LDCMini

– Open ‘Pin Manager: Grid View’ and switch package to PDIP20

Now we need to figure out how to configure pins.
Description for LDC says: “It communicates with the target microcontroller over SPI interface and the following pins on the mikroBUS™ line: PWM, INT, RST, AN“. So we need to enable those pins.
If you look at the pinout diagram on LCD mini click page you will see those pins:
.
Now we need to know how they match on Curiosity board, so let’s open Curiosity Development Board Schematic and we will see:

that we need to connect:
LDCMini nCS -> RC6
LDCMini nCS2 -> RC2
LDCMini nRESET -> RA4
PIC MSSP SCK -> RB6
PIC MSSP SDI -> RB4 (PIC is a master so it’s MISO)
PIC MSSP SDO -> RC7 (PIC is a master so it’s MOSI)

– After that click on Generate button
– Go back to Projects page -> Source Files and open main.c
– Add following code right before main function:

static void lcd_writeString(uint8_t row, const char* string, const uint8_t strLen) 
{
    lcd_setAddr(row, 0);
    for (uint8_t i = 0; i < strLen; ++i) {
        if (string[i]) {
            lcd_writeChar(string[i]);
        }
    }
    lcd_returnHome();
}

- replace the empty while(1) loop inside main function with:

lcd_setContrast(0x20);
    while (1) {
        char line1[16] = "-- Jump Start --";
        lcd_writeString(0, line1, 16);
        char line2[16] = "   Programming  ";
        lcd_writeString(1, line2, 16);
    }

We are done!!!
Click on Make and Program Device Main Project, and you should see our hello message.

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