This is an old revision of the document!
Jim Henry wrote a superb guide about LCD soldering which is not only interesting for beginners - thanks Jim!
http://www.midibox.org/users/jim_henry/building_a_midibox_lcd_cable.pdf
The soldered connections to the LCD are somewhat fragile. The one pictured in my guide broke after a few weeks of use. (I just have all the boards loose as I try different configurations so I am hard on the connections.) I suggest folding the ribbon cable back onto itself about 1/2“ from the soldered connections and securing the ribbon cable to the LCD's PCB to provide some mechanical support for the soldered points. I just taped the ribbon cable to the opposite edge of the PCB. I'll update the guide once I get some hours accumulated on this additional step to verify that it protects the soldered connections. Jim Henry
Additional hints: So long as the operating system (MIOS) hasn't been uploaded via MIDI, the LCD won't be initialized and shows black bars at the upper line. If you don't see these bars, adjust the contrast pot. The highest contrast can be achieved with V0=0V (you can adjust this voltage with the trimpot P2).
A message should appear on screen once MIOS is up and running.
Note: if you've connected a second LCD (e.g. for MIDIboxSEQ or MIDIboxLC) to the core, it won't be initialized so long the appr. application (which supports this option) hasn't been uploaded.