no text on LCD

[Martin Peters]

Dj:

I could be barking up the wrong tree here, and confess to having little knowledge of the 4 x 20 LCD. But from looking at your two attached photos a possible cure might be that you need to connect LCD pin #5 to ground?

Good luck.

[Dj tempo]

yup, pin 5 is deffo connected to ground, its on the back of the lcd,
one question i must ask is: should the crystal be making a square wave?
(im running a 4 MHZ with 2x33pf caps) the signal measured between the 2 crystal legs pin 15-16 is more like a saw tooth waveform but with about 5 ms of flat at 0v, im assuming the problem is within my code.

im just getting frustrated now.

[skimask]

one question i must ask is: should the crystal be making a square wave?
(im running a 4 MHZ with 2x33pf caps) the signal measured between the 2 crystal legs pin 15-16 is more like a saw tooth waveform but with about 5 ms of flat at 0v, im assuming the problem is within my code.

That's roughly about the normal for a crystal output. The 'amplifiers' inside the PIC take care of squaring off the edges and generating the clock signal. But are you sure it's 5ms of flat around 0v? and not possibly 5ns?
If you've got that 'rounded off sawtooth' looking waveform, you're in good shape....get it....good shape....Ha! Ok, I'm done...