Adding a display to a Raspberry Pi is a piece of cake

Raspberry Pi fans can now easily add a display to their devices thanks to three new Adafruit Pi Plate kits, which are available at leading electronics distributor Newark element14.

The kits enable a display to be added to the Raspberry Pi without the usual wiring difficulties; they can control a 16x2 Character LCD using only the two I2C pins on the Raspberry Pi, and I2C-based sensors and RTS can also share the same bus.

Each kit includes a blue and white monochrome LCD, an RGB Negative LCD, or a Positive LCD.


“LCDs typically require quite a few digital pins – six to control the LCD and then another to control the backlight for a total of seven pins,” comments Limor Fried, a.k.a Lady Ada, founder of Adafruit Industries. “The Pi Plate kits are a slick, easy way to add a display using just the pins on the Pi, and avoid the typical wiring hassles.”

In addition to the Pi Plates, a new tiny Adafruit breadboard is also available from Newark element14, which makes it easy to create prototypes using the Pi.  

Adafruit is an innovative online electronics educator/e-tailer and Newark element14 is their premier Raspberry Pi partner. As such, Newark element14 offers a wide selection of Adafruit Raspberry Pi accessories and is the first supplier to receive their new Pi products.

Newark element14 first introduced engineers, programmers and electronics enthusiasts to the credit-card size Raspberry Pi computer on Feb. 29, 2012. Since then, the distributor and its sister companies around the globe have sold more than 500,000 units.

Newark’s element14 Community serves as a global hub for exclusive trainings, technical information and discussions about Raspberry Pi projects.

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