Adafruit RGB 16x2 LCD and Keypad Kit for Raspberry Pi

by Adafruit

This Adafruit Pi Plate makes it a doddle to add a 16x2 character display (with RGB backlight) to your Raspberry Pi!

  • 16x2 Character LCD
  • Available in both positive and negative versions (see below)
  • RGB backlight
  • 5 buttons (4-way direction pad, and one select) provide programmable inputs 
  • Contrast control
  • Extra-tall 26-pin GPIO header so the plate sits above USB and Ethernet jacks.
  • Uses only two pins (I2C) on the Raspberry Pi GPIO leaving the rest available for your doomsday device *ahem* project!
  • Can be used with other I2C bus devices

Please make sure you have selected the correct variant (either positive or negative) before checking out your order.

Compatible with Revision 1 and Revision 2 Raspberry Pi's

The nice folks at Adafruit have put together a handy product tutorial page for assembly instructions before purchasing and some Python code to help you easily talk to the LCD and buttons You can also easily query the 5 keypad buttons to get input through the library, so you get extra buttons without using any more pins. The buttons are automatically de-bounced inside the library.

(At this time, the code and plate can control the RGB backlight of our character LCDs by turning each LED on or off. This means you can display the following colors: Red, Yellow, Green, Teal, Blue, Violet, White and all off. There is no support for PWM control of the backlight at this time, so if you need to have more granular control of the RGB backlight to display a larger range of colors then this plate can't do that because the I2C expander does not have PWM output.)

167 customer reviews

2 years ago
Easy, looks great, Simple and good for cooling if you want a silent passive version of cooling. May get hot, I haven't felt it get like that yet but other than that I say buy one! Great choice of colours as well.
by Zachary about Aluminium Heatsink Case for Raspberry Pi 4 via REVIEWS.io
2 years ago
Brilliant case/heatsink. A little fiddly to assemble but nothing too difficult to do. When you use an extender on the GPIO pins, the extended pins match the height of the case. That's a neat design feature. The heatsink/case converts the fragile-looking Pi card into a robust brick without the loss of any connections. I tested it by running my Pi very nearly flat out for over an hour rendering the BBC's live Wimbledon tennis stream. The temperature reported by the OS rose to around 82C and stayed there. I was also pleased to see how quickly the temperature went down when I turned the stream off despite the elevated thermal mass of the board.
by Mr R about Aluminium Heatsink Case for Raspberry Pi 4 via REVIEWS.io
2 years ago
Brilliant passive cooling for the Pi with a spare set of heatsink pads as well, keeps the Pi4 8GB running at 54°C when pushing out to 2 HDMI monitors both running 1080 streams, easy to fit as welltects t
by Mark about Aluminium Heatsink Case for Raspberry Pi 4 via REVIEWS.io
2 years ago
A very strong case with enough metal to accept a variety of fasteners, I've half a dozen in use around the house. It runs a bit hot while streaming U/HD to TV so I bodged a 20mm length of 60mm dia. cardboard tube (as a stand-off) topped with a thin 60mm 5v fan* the Pi now maintains 30 degrees C. with the airflow exiting along the ribs. *powered by the 3v pins it's almost silent.
by S about Aluminium Heatsink Case for Raspberry Pi 4 via REVIEWS.io
2 years ago
For any people who are tech savvy or like their hands being safe, l recommend this product with 100% for those people. I bought this product for a build l was doing for a MAME emulator PI. Works like a charm, and this case helps cool it really well. I do love the people who made this product as they also made it stylish and in other colours. So, to wrap this all up, yes. Please buy this if you enjoy not having a overheated Pi.
by Austin about Aluminium Heatsink Case for Raspberry Pi 4 via REVIEWS.io
2 years ago
Very well-designed and manufactured. Fits accurately to the RPi4, providing an armoured casing and a good heatsink. Is warm even when the RPi is not working hard showing good thermal conduction, i.e is efficiently conducting heat away as demonstrated by monitoring the core temperature. Expecting it to provide a long-term and efficient cooling function for an always-on device.
by Philip about Aluminium Heatsink Case for Raspberry Pi 4 via REVIEWS.io
2 years ago
Blimey, like a slab of solid aluminum, very impressed, passive cooling seems to make so much more sense to me! If you are not using the GPIO pins you'd be wise to run a bit of insulation tape over them or use a dedicated cover.
by Phil about Aluminium Heatsink Case for Raspberry Pi 4 via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Very cool to the touch, came with two sets of heat sink tabs. Solidly built. ❤️ the colour of Tanzanite Purple. Went together awesomely, came with Allen key but I used my ifixit tools. Looks sweet as 😍 A decent weight to it as well 👌
by Pierre about Aluminium Heatsink Case for Raspberry Pi 4 via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Having invested in an 8GB Raspberry Pi 4B I wanted to keep it cool without the background hum of a fan. The Aluminium Heatsink Case was an ideal solution at a good price and rapid delivery = happy customer!
by Victor about Aluminium Heatsink Case for Raspberry Pi 4 via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Great little case. My Pi stays nice and cool and it doesn't rattle and whir like the old one with a fan did. Brilliant that it actually accommodates the camera cable too. Looks pretty stylish too.
by Anonymous about Aluminium Heatsink Case for Raspberry Pi 4 via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
An essential piece of kit for heavy cpu load processes eg gaming, video editing etc. Fitted this easily to pi 4b with 8gb ram. Temperatures now range in mid to top 40C whereas without the heat sink they were pushing 70C+, although is still within spec for the pi. Was able to fit an audio dac on the gp10 pins using an extender header. All good. See photo of kit. I used some modified plastic tube from cotton buds as spacers for the audio dac board which sits above the heatsink case to make it more stable - perfect fit !
by Christopher about Aluminium Heatsink Case for Raspberry Pi 4 via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Need to use the provided thermal pads to make contact with the heatsink, dissipates some heat but system does still heat up a lot. If you intend to use a reasonably heavy load you will require a fan.
by Eoin about Aluminium Heatsink Case for Raspberry Pi 4 via REVIEWS.io
4 years ago
Supplies my pi with decent amount of cooling but still gets hot by itself. Can only imagine what it'd be by itself. The case is stylish and compact so looks good tucked away as long as it gets air flow, otherwise it gets too hot.
by Christopher about Aluminium Heatsink Case for Raspberry Pi 4 via REVIEWS.io
4 years ago
Nice solid case - it does get warm - meaning its doing its job :-) - Little fingers might be taken back by the amount of heat it produces. Gpio pins very accessible - as per the norm turn the pi off before attracting wires the internal header cable for camera / screen not so accessible if you want to reseat I think you would need to remove case and reassemble. would I buy another one ? Yes 100%
by Dave about Aluminium Heatsink Case for Raspberry Pi 4 via REVIEWS.io
4 years ago
ATTENTION: Out there are some heatthinks exactly with the same exterior aspect as this one with the 3 thermal contact points unaligned with the target components. THIS ONE, besides an outstanding performance, HAS THE CORRECT CONTACT POINTS, ALL ALIGNED WITH THE TARGET COMPONENTS.
by Miguel about Aluminium Heatsink Case for Raspberry Pi 4 via REVIEWS.io

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