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From what I've seen of articles and videos online, everyone seems to be using the 3.3V GPIO pin. I have an LCD screen which requires a 5V power supply and I wondered whether it would be safe to use the Raspberry Pi's 5V GPIO pin? If you can't use it, what is it there for?

I have a 16x2 KS0066 (apparently compatible with HD44780) LCD screen Picture of LCD screen

Mark Ingram
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There is a brilliant tutorial at Adafruit how to connect a 16x2 LCD to the Raspberry Pi using the 6 I/O pins.

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As this is just a small LCD screen and you said in your comments it only uses 1.2mA you will be perfectly fine to use the +5V GPIO Pin to power the LCD .

When you want to use more peripherals though you would have to look into using an I2C interface instead.

tlhIngan
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Piotr Kula
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Go for it! You should, of course, look at the schematic and note their is a 1A fuse on the supply; depending on your USB peripherals you will be limited to between 200 - 500mA. If this is not enough, you could power the Raspberry Pi via the 5V pin.

Community
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Alex Chamberlain
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It should be fine. The backlight is the main power user, and it's typically only 20mA in addition to the 1mA that the LCD part uses.

John La Rooy
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