Let's talk about LCD Keypads: everyone loves them and everyone can find a use for them but they seem to be limited to the Arduino field. What about the Raspberry Pi? Our friends over at Adafruit have come up a really nice LCD Keypad Kit for the Raspberry Pi that can be easily assembled and start being used as soon as you are done soldering it together! With this kit you will be able to easily control a 16x2 character White on Blue LCD, three backlight pins, and five different buttons using only two I²C pins from the Raspberry Pi.

The LCD Keypad for Raspberry Pi consists of a 16x2, white character, blue backlight LCD with a keypad consisting of 5 keys — select, up, right, down and left. To save the digital IO pins, the keypad utilizes the resourcefulness of the MCP23017 I/O expander IC which uses only two I²C pins and in return provides 16 general purpose pins.

Since this is a kit some soldering and assembly will be required before use but once complete you will have a fully functioning LCD Keypad that can be plugged into your Raspberry Pi and start being used right away.

Note: This is the blue and white LCD Keypad kit so you will need to break off a piece of 16 pin header from the stick in the kit and leave the two rightmost pads empty.

• 1x LCD Keyboard PCB
• 1x 16x2 White on Blue LCD
• 1x MCP23017 IC
• 1x Rubber Bumper
• 1x 13x2 GPIO Header - Male
• 1x 13x2 GPIO Header - Female
• 1x 10k Trim Potentiometer
• 1x 330 Ohm 1/4W 5% Resistor
• 2x 220 Ohm 1/4W 5% Resistor
• 2x 36-pin Breakaway Header - Male
• 5x Tactile Switch Pushbutton

• Datasheet (MCP23017)
• Assembly Guide