Published June 12, 2016 © GPL3+

Twitter Feed Display Using Raspberry Pi And 20x4 LCD

Build a Twitter feed display using Raspberry Pi and a 20x4 LCD to get updates continuously without bothering to check your phone or PC.

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Twitter Feed Display Using Raspberry Pi And 20x4 LCD

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Raspberry Pi 2 Model B

SparkFun Standard LCD 20x4

Resistor 1k ohm

Jumper wires (generic)

Breadboard (generic)

Male Header 40 Position 1 Row (0.1")

Software apps and online services

Twitter

Hand tools and fabrication machines

Soldering iron (generic)

Story

In this project we will display your twitter feed on a 20x4 LCD display. It will help you monitor your twitter home timeline continuously as and when new tweets are posted.

As we are using a 20x4 LCD display, which can display 80 character at a time, and a tweet can typically by 140 characters long, we have to display the tweets in two pages.

Hardware setup

Let's first build the circuit. Once you have got everything in the component list, start by solder the header pin to the LCD display. Typically, you will get the LCD display without the pins soldered. Get a 16 pin single row male connector strip and solder it like this:

1 / 2 • Solder pin header to LCD

Now connect the LCD board and the Raspberry Pi GPIO pins using a bunch of jumper wires as per the schematic diagram.

LCD Pin 01 (GND) - connect to RPi Pin 06 (GND)

LCD Pin 02 (VCC) - connect to RPi Pin 02 (+5v)

LCD Pin 03 (V0) - connect to RPi Pin 06 (GND). Optionally you can route it through a 10K potentiometer to adjust contrast.

LCD Pin 04 (RS) - connect to RPi Pin 26 (GPIO 7)

LCD Pin 05 (RW) - connect to RPi Pin 06 (GND)

LCD Pin 06 (E) - connect to RPi Pin 24 (GPIO 8)

LCD Pin 07-10 (D0-D3) - Not used

LCD Pin 11 (D4) - connect to RPi Pin 22 (GPIO 25)

LCD Pin 12 (D5) - connect to RPi Pin 18 (GPIO 24)

LCD Pin 13 (D6) - connect to RPi Pin 16 (GPIO 23)

LCD Pin 14 (D7) - connect to RPi Pin 12 (GPIO 18)

LCD Pin 15 (A) - connect to RPi Pin 02 (+5v) via 560 Ohm

LCD Pin 16 (K) - connect to RPi Pin 06 (GND)

Voltage on LCD pins 15 and 16 determines the LCD backlight brightness. You can use a variable resistor to adjust brightness. But, make sure you do not connect it directly to 5v.

Twitter

To be able to access your own twitter feed programmatically, you first need to create a application.

Go to https://apps.twitter.com and create a new app. Once you have created an app you get the following four keys. Note these down as we will need them in our program.

Consumer Key (API Key)

Consumer Secret (API Secret)

Access Token

Access Token Secret

Software

We will write our program in Python. Assuming you are running the latest version of Raspbian, you will need to install the following libraries. SSH into your RPi and type the commands.

RPLCD library for controlling the LCD display:

$ sudo pip install RPLCD

python-twitter library:

$ sudo pip install python-twitter

Now, open a text editor using the command:

$ nano twitter-lcd-display.py

Paste the code from the code section and replace the keys with the ones from the twitter app you have created.

You can start the program using the command:

$ python twitter-lcd-display.py

To put it in background, so that it runs even if you sign out of your RPi, use the command:

$ nohup python twitter-lcd-display.py &

Code

twitter-lcd-display.py

import twitter
from RPLCD import CharLCD
import time
import HTMLParser

lcd = CharLCD(pin_rs=26, pin_e=24, pins_data=[22, 18, 16, 12])

api=twitter.Api(consumer_key='YOUR_CONSUMER_KEY',
	consumer_secret='YOUR_CONSUMER_SECRET',
	access_token_key='YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN_KEY',
	access_token_secret='YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET')

htmlParser = HTMLParser.HTMLParser()

try:
	while True:
		try:
			homeTimeline=api.GetHomeTimeline(count=1)
		except:
			lcd.clear()
			lcd.write_string(u'An Error occurred! Retrying')
			continue
		tweetUser = homeTimeline[0].user.screen_name
		tweetText = homeTimeline[0].text
		tweetText = htmlParser.unescape(tweetText) # convert HTML symbols like &amp;
		tweetText = tweetText.replace('\n',' ') # replace newlines with space
		
		# Break the tweet into two parts as the LCD screen can display 
		# only 80 characters at a time
		
		seg1_len = 80 - len(tweetUser) - 2 
		tweetText1 = tweetUser+": "+tweetText[:seg1_len]
		tweetText2 = tweetText[seg1_len:]
		lcd.clear()
		lcd.write_string(tweetText1)	
		if tweetText2:
			for i in range(7):
				time.sleep(8)
				lcd.clear()
				lcd.write_string(tweetText2)
				time.sleep(8)
				lcd.clear()
				lcd.write_string(tweetText1)
		else:
			time.sleep(60)
except KeyboardInterrupt:
	pass
finally:
	lcd.clear()
	lcd.write_string(u'Twitter feed stopped')

Credits

Samik Saha

1 project • 1 follower

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Twitter Feed Display Using Raspberry Pi And 20x4 LCD

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Software apps and online services

Hand tools and fabrication machines

Story

Hardware setup

Twitter

Software

Schematics

Connect 20x4 LCD to RPi

Code

twitter-lcd-display.py

Credits

Samik Saha

Comments

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Twitter Feed Display Using Raspberry Pi And 20x4 LCD

Twitter Feed Display Using Raspberry Pi And 20x4 LCD

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Software apps and online services

Hand tools and fabrication machines

Story

Hardware setup

Twitter

Software

Schematics

Connect 20x4 LCD to RPi

Code

twitter-lcd-display.py

Credits

Samik Saha

Comments

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