Solving problems with bad LCD contacts

[avandalen]

See here:
http://www.avdweb.nl/arduino/hardware-interfacing/nokia-5110-lcd.html

I have changed the PCD8544 library a bit and made it more robust to bad LCD contacts. Maybe someone can implement this?

The LCD is connected to the PCB by means of a conductive rubber strip; this sometimes causes contact problems and a black screen. Restoring the connection doesn't help; the LCD must be re-initialized by manually restarting the Arduino. This is inconvenient.

The LCD application can be made more robust by initializing the LCD repeatedly. This allows disconnecting and reconnecting the LCD during operation. The disadvantage is that the LCD flickers slightly during initialization, but if this happens just every 2 seconds, it is not bothersome.

I have changed the PCD8544 library to add this functionality. Maybe the flickering can be reduced by improving the library further.

[tdicola]

Thanks for raising the potential issue--the site you linked to has a great explanation and info about the display in general. Since the library is really just a set of functions I think it could be problematic to try to add logic to refresh every few seconds. What could fix potential issues for some folks might cause unwanted flickering for others. I'll close this issue for now, but because it's documented here we can point folks to this issue if they run into flakiness with the connection and want to add periodic reinitialization to their use of the library. Thanks!