electroFUN LTD: I2C LCD extra IO

Need more pins to control your LCD? Does your project need some extra IOs? The I2CLCDextraIO can control standard character LCDs using just 2 pins through a standard I2C bus. This board has been developed with character LCDs in mind as a means to reduce the pin count required to drive them.
We agree that LCDs are a great for projects, they are very common, and fantastic at reporting back visually. However, they need 6, 7 or 10, 11 pins to control them, plus an additional pin for the backlight. For some applications it is not easy to find those additional pins and hence they are never fitted in. We developed this backpack (I2CLCDextraIO) for such projects.

By freeing up to 9 pins when connecting an LCD it is possible to use them on almost any pin constraint application.

The I2C address of the I2CLCDextraIO can be configured, allowing you to add up to 8 LCDs on the same I2C bus.
For Arduino users we have created a library that is backward compatible with all your current sketches.

Downloads available here.
Its never been so easy to control a LCD, just connect it to the I2C bus and use the "LCD library" as you would do with the current LiquidCrystal library in the Arduino IDE.

Additionally, for projects requiring additional IO pins the I2CLCDextraIO can be used as an IO expander. As before, there can be up to 8 connected to the I2C bus.

You can get the I2C LCD extra IO in 2 assembly options:

bare board - only the bare board will be sent.
fully assembled I2CLCDextraIO - a fully assembled board with I2C headers fitted.

Click here to see full board specs.

General description

AVR line

Our AVR line is an open-source Arduino-compatible project. We have thought of a line of small development boards that are fully compatible with the Arduino development environment. These boards are ideal for projects; with a small footprint but with the same performance as regular Arduinos.

The idea here is to make available the Eagle files you would need to make your own board variants and if you don't want to go through the hassle you can always order them from us.

We would also like to hear and see where these designs have gone into or any derivative work made from them. So please, keep us posted and we will share it with the community.

Licensing

While Arduino is a protected trademark, the name of our AVR line can be used freely and has an unrestricted license to use.

These boards have been inspired by the Creative-Commons 2.5 licensed Arduino reference design (please refer to the schematic file for attribution information). Boards are licensed for any use ( hobbyist, commercial, non-profit, etc.) under Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA). None of the board names are registered, but we encourage you to use it in any case and provide credit to the source.

CC3.0 requires you to maintain attribution to the people before you on the schematic, board files and any derivative work you do with them. You don't need to give attribution on the physical proucts that you might make with these files, but we would appreciate it.