On Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 1:04 AM, Joseph Bento wrote: > You let the magic smoke out! Welcome to the world of electronics! Haha, can't wait! > I just took a glimpse at the datasheet for the HD44780. The 44780 is > a LCD controller chip - not the LCD assembly itself. Was your supply > voltage (VCC) regulated to 5v? Any higher might explain the fireworks. Yes, powered from a regulated 5 v 300 mA wall adapter. > It's been literally years since I've used a parallel port. I don't > remember much of the Centronics spec, but seem to remember it works at > TTL logic levels. Were you powering your display directly from the > parallel port or an external power supply? (You did remember those > 0.1uf capacitors, right?) The LCD module was powered from the wall adapter. The ground pins of the port were connected to the ground of the adapter and the data lines to the LCD display. It was working perfectly fine for a few hours. Even had a 370 ohm resistor to limit current coming into the display and 1 k ohm resistors on the data lines... > Joe -- solarwind -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist