Adafruit LCD w/ Keypad First Test
I finally installed the script to run Adafruit LCD w/ Keypad Kit. Mine is the RGB version, so I get all the colors. It was rather scary trying to enter the unknown. I did it with some trepidation. Obviously, I backed up my system!
Turns out there's no trouble at all.
I'm not running Occidentalis, so I have to do things the hard way, which isn't hard at all. I opened up the file /etc/modules and there's only one entry on it. I simply added these two lines at the end (per instruction)
i2c-bcm2708
i2c-dev
And that's it. Reboot for it to take effect, and install some programs. Again, this is all mentioned in the helpful instructions.
- sudo apt-get install python-smbus
- sudo apt-get install i2c-tools
By the way, I make sure that I don't already have the package. But it's not necessary. The installation will install the latest package version if necessary, but that's about it. Also, i2c-tools install a set of program into /usr/sbin.
Next, I went and installed the source code from github. It turns out that I already have git on my computer. So, all I have to do is clone it from the directory.
- git clone https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-Raspberry-Pi-Python-Code.git
And that's it. Very quickly done. Next, install update Python to allow GPIO programming:
- sudo apt-get install python-dev
- sudo apt-get install python-rpi.gpio
Thankfully the python demo script auto-detect my device. At first, I wasn't sure that the program is running. Then I remembered that the LCD is contrast sensitive. I pulled out my trusty Swiss Army Knife. Popped out philips screwdriver, and adjusted the contrast. I was elated when I see the lettering, and downright happy when the text and the color changes per button presses!
Oh, yeah! I guess I'm a hardware engineer, now! Well, I guess I should learn Python programming so I can do cool stuff with it!
