This tutorial will show you how to solder together a shield for an LCD with a 8x2 header.

Parts

Aside from the parts offered available from Adafruit, you will need to source the LCD yourself.  Parallel LCDs come in a couple different sizes, from 16 characters, 1 line (16x1) to 24 characters, 4 lines (24x4).

In this tutorial I use the 16x2 Picvue from Jameco because that’s what I had in my box of stuff, but you can easily adapt it for any other LCD. The wiring may differ a little bit but that will be covered.