Great electronics project Kickstarter for 3D printers built around an Adafruit RGB LCD Shield and Arduino library! — ViKi LCD:

ViKi is an easy to use LCD control panel interface designed for 3D printers and CNC machines but can also be used for other micro controller projects. It allows your 3D printer to operate without a PC always connected and provides visual indication of things like temperature and peripheral activity. It can also be used on most micro controller / Arduino projects that require a display and control interface. Give that project of yours a professional looking panel!

ViKi stands for Visual Kinetic control Interface. 

Viki LCD is based on AdaFruit’s RGB LCD Shield and is compatible with the same Arduino library that is uses. Lincomatic also has the faster LIQUIDTWI2 LCD library with support for ViKi.

Currently Viki LCD works nicely with the latest Repetier firmware and Lincomatic’s fork of Marlin. If you can help with other firmware please contact me. It will work with most 3D printer controllers that has at least 128kb of programming space, tested with Azteeg X3, Azteeg X1 v1.5, RAMPS, Sanginololu with 1284P and PrintrBoard. Should work with RAMBo, Gen7 with 1284P and other controllers as it just needs the i2c pins and 2 pins for the encoder to get basic control.  If you have ATmega644P on your controller, there is a pledge reward with an MCU upgrade.

Features:

• 20×4 Character LCD (nice and bright, good viewing angles)
• I2C communications (less wires)
• microSD slot with card detect
• Rotary Encoder with center button
• Pause/Reset Button
• 4 way Navigation Buttons
• 3 addressable LEDs, 1 SD card LED
• Dimmable backlight using PWM pin
• Arduino compatible library by adafruit and Lincomatic’s LIQUIDTWI2
• Poly-carbonate graphic overlay to protect LCD
• Built-in shift register. 5v and 3.3v compatible

Read more.

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!