Raspberry Pi LESSON 34: Create Mobile Raspberry Pi Projects with Keypad and LCD

Announcing the Most Awesome Raspberry Pi Lessons of All Times! This time we RUMBLE!

In this class series, we will be using the most excellent Sunfounder Ultimate Raspberry Pi kit, available here: (Affiliate Link)

In this video lesson I will show you how the 16 button keypad works, and how to use it with the Raspberry Pi. We are moving towards portable Raspberry Pi projects. To do this we will need a device for input, which will be the keypad, and a device for output, which will be the LCD1602 LCD. We will use the Libraries developed in earlier lessons, and show how to prompt a user for input on the LCD, and then provide that input through the keypad. Enjoy!

If you want to grab those cool little straight jumper wires I am using to keep my breadboard builds neat and clean you can snag a box of them here:

If you guys are interested in the oscilloscope I am using, you can pick one up here (affiliate link):

You guys get your hardware ordered so you can follow along at home!

You will also need a Raspberry Pi. I suggest the Raspberry Pi 4. If you do not already have one, this is the most suitable gear I could find:

The Raspberry Pi's are sort of pricy right now, so you can look on ebay or elsewhere to see if there are any deals. You will need a SD card. If you do not already have one, this is a good one:

I like using a wireless keyboard and mouse to have fewer wires. You can certainly use your USB keyboard and mouse, but if you want a nice wireless one, this one works on the pi. We demonstrate this by using a button switch to control a LED.

You guys can help me out over at Patreon, and that will help me keep my gear updated, and help me keep this quality content coming:

#LCD
#KEYPAD
#RASPBERRYPI

[arguedas]

I love that river view it’s so confortable and peaceful.

[tntragan]

Getting busy alarming my house. Thanks for the inspiration.

[stephenlightkep]

Thanks Paul. I am starting to catch your mistakes, shame I cant catch mine before I hit run. That was a great lesson.

[SUGUNDANMM]

Love your teaching in raspberry pi tutorials.Learnt a lot about it.Thanks Paul

[arguedas]

Wonderful teaching Paul, I sincerely enjoy every single lesson of this Raspberry pi tutorial.Blessings to you.

[davidschnider]

having fun, Paul... thanks.. getting REAL ... and practical... God bless.

[richardvanworkum]

Double chest bump. I had to reference your most excellent Python lesson on threading to learn threading. (What it was and how to do it.) After applying what I learned from the video to the mobile alarm project, I was able to get a user input thread and main program running at the same time. User input can with password turn alarm on, off or change password. The main program is just a counter at this point in the project. Thanks, Paul, for this challenging homework assignment.

[wilsonlittle]

Thank you for the lessons. I was not familiar with Python Threads, but I was determined to complete the homework. So, I completed your Python Tutorial lessons (up to the Visual Python), then revisited the assignment. I have a program that works using threads, but also in the process, I created and utilized objects for a large number of components (switch, led, buzzer, keypad). I'm ready to review the next lesson to compare our approaches. I expect to learn a lot. Thanks for all of the great training....

[LorenBurdette]

Got HW to work but not sure what threading is so, I'm sure it's not the right (ideal) answer. I did find myself needing to add several sleep(1) statements to keep my keypad reads from slamming into each other and recording incorrect input. Thank you for the great lesson.

[beebee_]

Thank you, sir for your wonderful video series and consistency! Please, do you plan on making a repeat of these series but this time for RPi using C++ and WringPi?

[scottwait]

Good lesdon, Paul. The rest of the project sounds cool

[larryplatzek]

Great lesson as usual! was locked out of my google accounts but have it fixed now!

[zenholistichealing]

With no Raspberry PI's available in South Africa and ridiculous import costs, can you please do a video on how to use an Android Tv Box and appropriate screen? Thanks

[WilliamBurlingame]

I had trouble getting Paul's example code to run without errors. Then I tried the lesson 25 code and it had the same errors (smbus2 not found). I had a corrupted micro SD card. Fortunately, I have backups. I save my PythonApps folder to an RPi based NAS. I also saved the library files Paul built. I was able to restore all my apps I built for the lessons and now all works well. This unit gets restarted more often than usual. I can now start working on the homework assignment.

[toolzshed]

Hi Mr Paul! Got that Ice Coffee ready?

[danrichardson]

Yikes!! A lot to digest here. I may have to suspend silly cat videos for a bit.
Thank you for an excellent video.

[keithlohmeyer]

Give me an F for following directions but I think an A for execution.
Thanks Paul for another great lesson!