DIY calculator with Arduino and an LCD display

The need of vintage calculators has drastically declined after the invention of Smartphone. People don’t show any enthusiasm, when it comes to buying calculator, whether it is basic or scientific. The craze for even electronic ones has become out of fashion, as everyone prefers using their Smartphone. So, while remembering our childhood, this post by Aleksandar Tomić, is a tribute to our basic calculator with Arduino. He has explained to use an LCD display in combination with a keypad and an Arduino to make a calculator.

All you need is Arduino-based board, LCD 160A liquid crystal display, button keypad, Breadboard, Potentiometer, Resistor and Jumper wires. You will also need LiquidCrystal.h and Keypad.h libraries installed in the Arduino IDE. A cleared LCD screen and key input from the keypad forms numbers out of keys entered by the user. The first number is stored as soon as the user presses an operation button and the acquisition of the second number continues.

This project is undoubtedly simple, made with an Arduino and also explicates how to use a keypad for acquiring characters to form a whole number out of individually entered characters. It defines the process to control an LCD by connecting it to an Arduino and then to combine both of them into a functional calculator. As Arduino is limited in terms of big numbers and floating point, therefore keep the expectation low as it will not give any higher precision unless you are using an Arduino Due.

A complex calculator is also possible to make that handles bigger numbers and has a longer floating point is possible with a library, BigNumber.h, actually C++ class. They are designed to handle big numbers that allow the calculations until you run out of memory.

For the keypad library and complete details about the making of the calculator, check out the following link and judge your possibilities.