A Nokia 3310 LCD Screen is a graphical monochrome 84×84 pixel LCD screen, controlled by the Philips (NXP) PCD8544 IC. You can get them for very cheap. I picked a few up from eBay for about £3.00 each.

Click an image to enlarge

The displays are very easy to use. They are interfaced with the SPI bus at 3.3 volts. This means with a simple potential divider, you can control them from a PC parallel port. On this page, I will use the Velleman K8055. It is probably simpler to use a parallel port but my new box doesn’t have one – such is progress!

Pin	Signal	Description	Direction
1	VDD	Logic Power Supply: VDD to GND – 2.7 to 3.3 V	Power
2	SCLK	Serial Clock: Input for the clock signal – 0.0 to 4.0 Mbits/s	Input
3	SDIN	Serial Data In: Input for the data line	Input
4	D/C	Mode Select: Selects either Data or Command/Address	Input
5	/SCE	Serial Chip Enable: The enable pin allows data to be clocked in – The signal is active LOW.	Input
6	GND	Ground	Power
7	VOUT	LCD Voltage: Add external 1-10 uF electrolytic capacitor from VOUT to GND	Power
8	/RES	Reset: Reset the device. Must be applied to initialise display. The signal is active LOW.	Input

Connections

To interface the Nokia 3310 LCD to the Velleman K8055 requires some pull up resistors to compliment the open collector outputs. The diagram below shows how I set up the interfacing. The setup is pretty standard. I have used $100K\Omega$ resistors so that the pull ups draw less current. I am running the entire circuit from the K8055‘s DACs (with $1.5K\Omega$ source resistance). We need low current!

Talking to the Display

As I got here, I had some problems with my computer which I have not yet resolved. This will be while now, as I will be busy.

Faulty Display

The only Nokia 3310 LCD I had to play about with is faulty. I have tried extensively to get the display to work based on my own code to no avail. In a diagnostics attempt, I was unable to make the display function with a device known to drive this type of LCD. I therefore assume that the screen is faulty. When I get the chance to purchase another screen, I will do so.