LCD FeatherWing

The LCD FeatherWing is a low-power, CircuitPython-compatible, I²C-driven display that works with Adafruit’s Feather line of development boards. It uses the BU9796 segment LCD controller to drive a custom liquid crystal display glass with 48 segments, including:

• Five indicator icons: Bell, Wifi, Moon, Arrows and Battery
• Five 7-segment digits, plus a sign indicator
• Four decimal points, one between each pair of digits
• AM and PM indicators, plus a colon for displaying the time

What's in the bag?

The LCD FeatherWing comes mostly assembled, but does require some basic through-hole soldering. The wing comes in three parts:

• One LCD FeatherWing board with all surface mount parts assembled.
  
• One 16-pin segment LCD, which you'll solder onto the wing.
  
• One 36-pin header strip, which you'll break into a 12 and a 16 pin strip to serve as the Feather headers.
  

More Details

Segment LCDs are a kind of an old school technology that doesn't get a lot of love in maker projects. They have a striking, high-contrast look with great daylight readability, and they are staggeringly low power as display tech goes. But they are somewhat difficult to drive, requiring AC signals on all pins and multiple bias voltages. The LCD FeatherWing simplifies the use of LCD technology in Feather-oriented projects, letting you drive an LCD by writing characters and symbols over the familiar I²C protocol with easy-to-use CircuitPython library.

Unlike a segment LED display which consumes dozens of milliamperes, this LCD FeatherWing consumes mere microamperes of power, even as the display remains on and showing useful data. When paired with judicious use of deep sleep, you can use this wing to make battery powered projects that last months instead of hours or days.

With five digits plus a sign indicator, four decimal points and a colon, it's optimized for displaying all kinds of data, from sensor readings like temperature to the time of day or a countdown clock. Its diverse set of indicators include icons for wifi connection and data transfer, battery status, alarm and sleep mode.