There's some sort of bug with this LCD and using the serial interface for creating custom characters. Tried serLCD as well as writing my own both using SoftwareSerial and HardwareSerial. Some patterns become corrupted but not all of them. Switching to the 4bit interface and using LiquidCrystal works fine.

Just a helpful note to anyone who might run into this later: I connected the serial lcd to my arduino and wrote a sketch to cycle through the brightness settings on the backlight. Somehow in my infinite wisdom I managed to turn the backlight off where it would NOT come back on. I tried the 0x7C followed by 0x9D to set to full brightness with still no luck. I finally realized to look through the firmware and noticed there is another command that turns the backlight on and off (with no mention in sparkfun's quickstart guide). You still send the 0x7C but you follow it with 0x01 (0x02 turns it off!). I just thought I'd share that with anyone who might be puzzled as I was.

What size mounting screws work with this? Looks like 4-40 are too big? I'm about to enlarge the holes, but I'd thought I'd ask what others use.

I have ported LiquidCrystal library for use with the serial LCD you can look at my code here. Still working on finishing all the documentation. But putting up for now hopefully someone will find it usefull.
http://arduino.cc/playground/Code/SerLCD
-Thanks

I have a problem. my serial LCD display put the only one character on each line. The symptom is every one character is sent to new line. If I send the word "new". w e How do I solve this,anybody help me.

I recently got one of these and I've noticed that the screen for me seems to be perpetually scrolling to the left, regardless of the position I direct the cursor, almost like the buffer on the SerialLCD is overrunning for some reason? I've used the second tutorial on the quickstart guide, and the RPM and TEMP lines will scroll right to left, disappear for a few refreshes and then appear again to scroll right to left. Has someone else experienced this?

EDIT: Nevermind, powercycling the Arduino and LCD fixed the issue. Seemed to be a first boot issue.

Hi! Does anyone know how to create a menu with 4 buttons?¿? Any good web or something¿? thnks

I've created a new splash screen for the Serial LCD, now I want to save it to the Serial LCD memory. So, exactly how do I write a "control-j" to the Serial LCD. I've put in the required line to transmit special character 124, but I can figure out how to format the "control-j" line of code. I've Googled this for about an hour and can't find an explanation or sample code anywhere. Here's my code...

void setup() {
  sLCD.begin(9600);            //Set serial baud rate with LCD
  sLCD.write(0XFE);            // = Decimal 254.  This line of code MUST preceed the next line      
  sLCD.write(0X01);            //Clears the screen.  (See SerLCD 2.5 Data Sheet, page 2, Section 3.3)
  sLCD.write(0xFE);            // = Decimal 254.  This line of code MUST preceed the next line 
  sLCD.write(134);             //Places cursor on Row 0, Col 6 (See Data Sheet, page 3)       
  sLCD.print("NEW");
  sLCD.write(0xFE);            // = Decimal 254.  This line of code MUST preceed the next line 
  sLCD.write(193);             //Places cursor on Row 1, Col 1 (See Data Sheet, page 3) 
 sLCD.print("SPLASH_SCREEN");
  sLCD.write(0X7c);            // = Decimal 124.  This line of code MUST preceed the next line 
  sLCD.write("< control >j");     /*If you copy & paste this code, remove the spaces in front of an behind "control".
                                  I had to add the spaces so that the inequality symbols and "control" would show up 
                                  This should save Splash Screen to LCD memory (but it doesn't)
                                  Multiple Errors are generated if quotation marks are omitted.*/
}

Instead of getting "NEW" on the first line and "SPLASH_SCREEN" on the second line, I get "ntrol>NEW" on the first line and "SPLASH_SCREENco" on the second line. Naturally you might leave off the quotation marks from around "< control > j", but that just generates multiple errors. Any suggestions?

More Please!

I can't understand, why adding just some cheap sub-1$ MCU to an LCD mandates doubling the price? I feel, it's a ripoff for Arduino guys ;) Besides, converting UART to some commands isn't exactly a rocket-scientist job.

15 $ would be a fair price, considering raw HD44780 LCD modules are in 2-3 $ price range.

i have a few questions:
do you need to solder headers to connect that cable?
do you only need 3 wires(+,-,UART)?
can you just send data to the thing without having to worry about cursor posisions and that weird stuff? (Serial.println("stuff4line1");?
if it does do that, and you go over 4 lines, does it clear the screen or shift up all the text?

Jack;
would you kindly share where do you find enclosures with LCD display windows? I've to build a few, LCD-enabled pieces of equipment, and actually carving a nice window out of a plastic enclosure has been my biggest headache.

It appears that this device does not have the standard mounting hole pattern for the 16X2 displays. Some handheld enclosures with a built in display window depend on the standard hole pattern. That makes this display unsuitable if you intend on using it with such an enclosure. If Sparkfun makes this unit maybe a design change to fix this issue could make this LCD usable in a wider range of applications. I am using the 3.3 volt version with your serial backpack and this works great. If Sparkfun is planning on offering the 3.3 volt unit in an itegrated package please maintain the mounting dimensions of the original display.