So, I got to the Temperature Sensor project and every thing was going fine. Then I loaded the program to the chip, and the LCD started displaying what I can only assume are Japanese characters. So I figured it was my code being wrong at some place. Then I loaded the NerdKit code that I was supposed to load from, and it continued to display the strange characters. Hoping it wasn't something wrong with my wiring, I attempted to reload the first bit of code the kit says to load. Now the LCD only displays black boxes on lines 1 and 3. I have no idea why this is happening, and I've spent hours trying to decipher the data sheet to try and find out what is going on. Unfortunately, I've only ever coded for PC's, and can't make heads or tails of all the terminollogy and acronyms on the data sheet. Any help is apreciated.

Hi Ziger,

Lets see a picture of your setup on the breadboard first. Is your programming switch in the right place? Are you able to flash the program on your nerdkit successfully ?

-Dan

I would almost bet the data leads are a little mixed up... Just guessing.

I had every thing working up until the tempsensor program was loaded. After that, every thing started failing. I'll get pictures of my set up, but be warned, it's not nearly as clean as the pictures in the manual.

I found the problem. One of my wires did not have enough metal exposed and had jumped out of it's slot, but looked like it had settled back into another one. Every thing works now. Thank you for the direction and encouragement.

I am having a similar problem with my LCD displaying Japanese figures. I previously had the "musicbox1" code loaded and it worked fine. Now I'm trying the motor control code. The only thing I changed in the code was changing the push button input from PB4 to PD5.

Ziger, could you be more specific about which wire was wrong in yours? I looked over my wires and they seem ok.

When you moved your push button, what did you do with the LCD wire that was connected to PD5?

When in trouble/doubt always revert back to the "initialload" project to see what you get!

Ralph

It's been a while since I had to pack up my kit due to multiple moves in rapid succession. Unfortunately I can't look back and say for certain which wire was misplaced, but I can remember that it was the farthest wire on the side of the capacitor opposite the mosfet. So verify all your wires around pins 4,5 and 6 are snug and fit into the breadboard.

I'm sorry I can't be more help.