Apply power and ground (a current limited lab supply is best set for
20mA. Tough
to burn stuff up at a low setting. If the display has backlight, it
will take a lot more
current - but the backlight is usually on a different set of pins.).
Most of these
displays will initialize the first row to all black characters and
the second row
to blank characters. This is a good first check. If you do not see
anything, look
for a contrast adjustment. Your display probably needs a contrast adjust. In
which case, connect a 5k pot from the contrast pin to ground. In many cases,
you can just short the pin to ground. But, your mileage may vary. ;-)

What would be helpful is the model # for the display to really answer your
question.

cheers,
eric

At 8:28 PM -0700 2/7/03, Joe Smith wrote:
>I have come across a character LCD with an HD44780 controller, but I am not
>sure if it works on not. Is there an easy way to test it without wiring it
>up to a PIC and running some test code?
>
>Thanks
>
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