LED Brightness Control with Arduino

The LCD (16×2) to display the LED brightness. Shortly, in this project we’ll control an LED brightness using a potentiometer.

The LED brightness will be displayed on the LCD screen using a progress bar.

Introducing the LCD:

The simplest and inexpensive way to display information is with an LCD (liquid crystal display).

Circuit Diagram:

These are found in everyday electronics devices such as vending machines, calculators, parking meters, printers, and so on.

These are ideal for displaying text or small icons. The figure below shows a 16×2 LCD front and pin details.

This LCD has 2 rows, and each row can display 16 characters. It also has LED backlight to adjust the contrast between the characters and the background.

The next table shows a brief description of each pin of the LCD display.

Sr. No	Pin No.	Pin Name	Pin Type	Pin Description	Pin Connection
1	Pin 1	Ground	Source Pin	This is a ground pin of LCD	Connected to the ground of the MCU/ Power source
2	Pin 2	VCC	Source Pin	This is the supply voltage pin of LCD	Connected to the supply pin of Power source
3	Pin 3	V0/VEE	Control Pin	Adjusts the contrast of the LCD.	Connected to a variable POT that can source 0-5V
4	Pin 4	Register Select	Control Pin	Toggles between Command/Data Register	Connected to a MCU pin and gets either 0 or 1. 0 -> Command Mode 1-> Data Mode
5	Pin 5	Read/Write	Control Pin	Toggles the LCD between Read/Write Operation	Connected to a MCU pin and gets either 0 or 1. 0 -> Write Operation 1-> Read Operation
6	Pin 6	Enable	Control Pin	Must be held high to perform Read/Write Operation	Connected to MCU and always held high.
7	Pin 7-14	Data Bits (0-7)	Data/Command Pin	Pins used to send Command or data to the LCD.	In 4-Wire Mode Only 4 pins (0-3) is connected to MCU In 8-Wire Mode All 8 pins(0-7) are connected to MCU
8	Pin 15	LED Positive	LED Pin	Normal LED like operation to illuminate the LCD	Connected to +5V
9	Pin 16	LED Negative	LED Pin	Normal LED like operation to illuminate the LCD connected with GND.	Connected to ground

LED Brightness control Code:
Copy the following code and upload it to your Arduino board.

The code is well commented so that you can easily understand how it works, and modify it to include in your own projects.

include LiquidCrystal lcd(12, 11, 5, 4, 3, 2);
int potPin = A0; int ledPin = 6;
int potValue = potentiometer
int brightness = 0;
int i = 0;

pBar[8] =
{
B11111,
B11111,
B11111,
B11111,
B11111,
B11111,
B11111,
};

void setup()

{
OUTPUT pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
rows: lcd.begin(16, 2);
LCD lcd.print(" LED Brightness");
lcd.createChar(0, pBar);
}
void loop() 
{
lcd.clear();

lcd.print(" LED Brightness");
lcd.setCursor(0,1);
potValue = analogRead(potPin);

brightness=map(potValue, 0, 1024, 0, 255);
bightness analogWrite(ledPin, brightness);
pBari=map(brightness, 0, 255, 0, 17);
bar for (i=0; i<pBari; i++)
{
lcd.setCursor(i, 1); lcd.write(byte(0));
}
delay(750);
}