Preface
Fig.1 – The thermometer with the green backlight
What I’m getting ready to explain below, is an original solution I adopted to backlight the thermometer’s project SP0003. Thanks to this, I solved quite easily the main difficulty that consists in generating an even illuminated background to the LCD display using some common LEDs.
At that time, I was also learning how to use the microcontrollers and I wished to make my first real project (and not only on a breadboard) with the PIC16F84A. I programmed the µC for changing the backlight’s brightness according to the room’s light intensity because it could be annoying in the dark, or insufficient in the opposite condition. I also thought that it could be nice switching the LCD backlight colour by pressing a push button.
To complete the project, I inserted a power supply to the thermometer capable of accepting a wide range of DC or AC voltage.