connect lcd module to raspberry pi manufacturer

If your display is equipped with an IC2 module, it’s not that difficult to connect an LCD display to a Raspberry Pi. Learn with this tutorial how to connect and to program an 1602 LCD with a Raspberry Pi.

There are many types of LCD displays. In this tutorial we are using the popular and affordable 1602 LCD. The LCD has an IC2 module soldered on it (see the pictures below). If your LCD is of the same type, but has a different size, it won’t be a problem to continue with this tutorial. You’ll just have to correct some parameters in the Python script. But if it is from a different type or it has no I2C module, you better look for another tutorial.Prepare the hardware

– First, you need to have a Raspberry Pi running on the latest version of Raspberry Pi OS. This version includes “Thonny”. We’ll use this user-friendly IDE to write our Python code. If you’re not familiar with Python or with Thonny or GPIO-pins, I suggest to have a look at our tutorials “How to write your first Python program on the Raspberry Pi” and/or “How to use the Raspberry Pi GPIO pins” to have a quick introduction.

In this tutorial we are using the popular and quite basic 16×2 or 1602 LCD. It can display 16 characters per line on 2 lines. Each character is made from a matrix with 5×7 dots. It is equipped with a backlight for easy reading. Besides sending text, thanks to specific commands, we can give instructions to the display, as to switch on/off the backlight for example.

The display we use in this tutorial is equipped with a I2C-module (black part on the picture below). I2C is a communication protocol which allows an easier connection between the display and the Raspberry Pi. Indeed, instead of having to wire all the pins on the top of the screen, we only have to connect the display with 4 wires to our Raspberry Pi.

Each I2C device has its own I2C address. Often this address is hard-wired in the device and will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. If you don’t know the address of your I2C device, connect the device to your Raspberry Pi (see the next step). Then, open a terminal window and enter following command :

The output should be a map with the addresses of all connected devices. If for example there is a ’27’ that appears, it means that the hexadecimal address of your device is ‘0x27’.

If you bought one of our kits, the hexadecimal address of the LCD is ‘0x27’. We will need the I2C address from the display to insert it in our Python code.

Be careful ! Before starting to connect wires on the GPIO pins of your Raspberry Pi, make sure you properly shut down the Pi and removed the power cable from the board!

To avoid extensive and complicated code writing, libraries are often used. For our LCD, we will also be using a library. We found the most appropriate library at GitHub from Dave Hylands . As these files from this quite specific library don’t come automatically with Python, we have to install them ourselves.

So, before writing the code, we’ll have to upload the files to our Raspberry Pi. You can download a ZIP-folder containing the 2 files to be installed here.

Download and unzip the files. If you did this operation on your computer, upload the files to your Raspberry Pi. And if you don’t know how to do that, have a look at our tutorial ‘How to transfer files between Raspberry Pi and PC‘. Make sure you upload them in the same folder as the new file we will create for our main code. And don’t change the filenames of the library of course.

And before running the script, it’s important to adjust the contrast of your LCD. If the contrast isn’t adjusted well, it’s possible you don’t see appearing anything. You can adjust it by turning with a small screwdriver at the blue potentiometer at the back of your LCD (see the pictures here above). Make sure the backlight of the display is on to see the result. If the LCD’s contrast is adjusted right, you can just see the darker rectangles for the characters appear.

Besides the commands we used in the last lines of our script, there are more possibilities to communicate with the LCD. If you want to learn more about, have a look at this Github webpage.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. It appears that the upgrade package overwrites the FBTFT drivers, in particular, the Raspberry Pi bootloader. This seems to solve the problem:

I just tested this, and it looks like the difference is how SPI is enabled. In the RPi 2 it’s enabled in raspi-config, not commented out in the blacklist file. I just updated the post so it should work now!

Looks like the only difference is in how SPI is enabled. In the new release of Raspbian, SPI is enabled in the raspi-config menu under advanced settings. In older versions of Raspbian, it is enabled by commenting out the line in the blacklist file

dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=ttyAMA0,115200 console=tty1 root=/dev/mmcblk0p6 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline rootwait fbtft_device.custom fbtft_device.name=waveshare32b fbtft_device.gpios=dc:22,reset:27 fbtft_device.bgr=1 fbtft_device.speed=48000000 fbcon=map:10 fbcon=font:ProFont6x11 logo.nologo dma.dmachans=0x7f35 console=tty1 consoleblank=0 fbtft_device.fps=50 fbtft_device.rotate=0

Unfortunately, their “driver” is an SD card image containing a complete installation of Raspbian which has been preconfigured to use their display. Which is fine if you’re setting up a brand new system that doesn’t need to be a specific distro, but if you’re trying to add the display to an existing Raspberry Pi, already configured the way you want it, with software installed and data present, or if you want to use a specific distro such as Octopi, then it’s not terribly helpful.

Hello..I tired to interface this lcd “https://www.crazypi.com/raspberry-pi-products/Raspberry-Pi-Accessories/32-TOUCH-DISPLAY-RASPBERRY-PI” to my Raspberry pi model B+.I got a DVD containing image for LCD in the package.I burned it to the SD card and plugged in the display.But my lcd is completly blank.But green inidcation led (ACT LED) in board is blinking.Why my LCD is Blank ?

Is your RED (POWER) LED on? I had the same problem. Green Led was blinking and screen was white. Then I noticed RED Led is off, indicating there’s something wrong with the power. I plugged into different port and it started

Yes, it may be that the screen isn’t supported. Newer screens might not have drivers yet. I do know it is possible to make your own driver but that’s above my level of knowledge :)

My Touchscreen is now working fine.The problem was for the ribbon cable on the back side of LCD.It was not connected properly.I just tighted the cable and it worked fine.Hope it will be useful tip.

Thank you for this great tutorial. I looked everywhere for this information. I have an eleduino 3.5 version A. I was able to get it working on my Pi 2 by following your tutorial and using flexfb as the screen type. I got the other settings from the image that came with the product. I did find that the ts_calibrate didn’t recognize the screen so I installed xinput-calibrator and it worked fine.

Just got my Pi2 running Wheezy, working with the Eleduino 3.5 LCD without running the OEMs image… kinda. I didn’t want to rebuild the application environment again, so was avoiding flashing the SD.

I tried the steps in this tutorial. It’s very clear and easy to follow, thank you. But it didn’t work for me, I tried setting my device to flexfb. Only got white screen.

Unzipped it and looked around. From a shell script inside i kinda figured out what it was doing. I didn’t like what I saw, so I manually made changes omitting the parts I didn’t like (it rm -r my /lib/modules directory… omitted that part) and copied 2 files and 1 directory from the OEMs archive to the file system of my Pi2.

[ 0.000000] Kernel command line: dma.dmachans=0x7f35 bcm2708_fb.fbwidth=656 bcm2708_fb.fbheight=416 bcm2709.boardrev=0xa21041 bcm2709.serial=0x631a4eae smsc95xx.macaddr=B8:27:EB:1A:4E:AE bcm2708_fb.fbswap=1 bcm2709.disk_led_gpio=47 bcm2709.disk_led_active_low=0 sdhci-bcm2708.emmc_clock_freq=250000000 vc_mem.mem_base=0x3dc00000 vc_mem.mem_size=0x3f000000 dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=ttyAMA0,115200 console=tty1 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline rootwait fbtft_device.custom fbtft_device.name=flexfb fbtft_device.gpios=dc:22,reset:27 fbtft_device.bgr=1 fbtft_device.speed=48000000 fbcon=map:10 fbcon=font:ProFont6x11 logo.nologo dma.dmachans=0x7f35 console=tty1 consoleblank=0 fbtft_device.fps=50 fbtft_device.rotate=0

thank you for your great tutorial, it got me on the right way. unfortunataly i only see some boot messages on the lcd and then it turns black. maybe you could give me a hint on how to get it working entirely.

i have a watterott display (https://github.com/watterott/RPi-Display) and changed the device-name to “rpi-display”. i use a rsapberrypi 2 and hae the latest raspian image installed.

Did you check to see if your device is supported yet? The device name should be specific for your screen, as listed in the fbtft file linked to in the beginning of the post

I too have a raspberry pi 2, and a waveshare spotpear 3.2 RPi lcd (v3) and I just can’t get it to work! I suspect I have a faulty LCD, but thought I’ll try this forum for help before I sent it back.

Soon as the pi is powered, the LCD lights up all white, with a few vertical pixels coloured at one of the edges, and nothing else. I don’t think that should happen – not at least before the BOIS has started up.

Anyway, point 1, says to change to dev/fb1 – I don’t have fb1. Only fb0 appears to be there. is that a clue what could be wrong? I have enabled SPI (is there a command to tell if its enabled?) I have also ran spidev to troubleshot (though I haven’t a clue what I means)

Any ideas what going wrong? I am using the latest “2015-02-16-raspbian-wheezy_zip”. Enabled SPI. done all the steps. Even changed mmcblk0p2 to mmcblk0p6 as suggested by Dabomber60 (but that freezes for me)

[ 0.000000] Linux version 3.18.5-v7+ (pi@raspi2) (gcc version 4.8.3 20140106 (prerelease) (crosstool-NG linaro-1.13.1-4.8-2014.01 – Linaro GCC 2013.11) ) #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Feb 6 23:06:57 CET 2015

It seems all appears to be working – just the LCD is still all white with a single line of coloured pixels on edge) and nothing else. Is there a way to output, like jeff G script, of touch points?

I had the same one, I finally found a driver for it here: http://www.waveshare.net/wiki/3.2inch_RPi_LCD_(B) you will need to translate the page, but unpack the driver then run sudo ./LCD-show/LCD32-show. It should reboot and all will be good with the screen :)

Can anyone let me know if the default OS image sent with the screen works with pi2 or just Pi B/B+ as i think my screen maybe broken but can’t confirm it yet as i have not had it working at all

My system: Raspberry Pi 2 Model B with Raspian Wheezy from Febuary 2015. LCD display of Sainsmart 3.2 http://www.conrad.de/ce/de/product/1283498/Raspberry-Pi-Display-Modul-Touch-Display-81-cm-32/?ref=home&rt=home&rb=1

dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=ttyAMA0,115200 console=tty1 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootfstype=ext4 cgroup_enable=memory elevator=deadline rootwait fbtft_device.custom fbtft_device.name=sainsmart32_spi fbtft_device.gpios=dc:24,reset:25 fbtft_device.bgr=1 fbtft_device.speed=48000000 fbcon=map:10 fbcon=font:ProFont6x11 logo.nologo dma.dmachans=0x7f35 console=tty1 consoleblank=0 fbtft_device.fps=50 fbtft_device.rotate=90

sainsmart32_spi width=320 height=240 buswidth=8 init=-1,0xCB,0x39,0x2C,0x00,0x34,0x02,-1,0xCF,0x00,0XC1,0X30,-1,0xE8,0x85,0x00,0x78,-1,0xEA,0x00,0x00,-1,0xED,0x64,0x03,0X12,0X81,-1,0xF7,0x20,-1,0xC0,0x23,-1,0xC1,0x10,-1,0xC5,0x3e,0x28,-1,0xC7,0x86,-1,0×36,0x28,-1,0x3A,0x55,-1,0xB1,0x00,0x18,-1,0xB6,0x08,0x82,0x27,-1,0xF2,0x00,-1,0×26,0x01,-1,0xE0,0x0F,0x31,0x2B,0x0C,0x0E,0x08,0x4E,0xF1,0x37,0x07,0x10,0x03,0x0E,0x09,0x00,-1,0XE1,0x00,0x0E,0x14,0x03,0x11,0x07,0x31,0xC1,0x48,0x08,0x0F,0x0C,0x31,0x36,0x0F,-1,0×11,-2,120,-1,0×29,-1,0x2c,-3

ads7846_device model=7846 cs=1 gpio_pendown=23 speed=2000000 keep_vref_on=1 swap_xy=1 pressure_max=255 x_plate_ohms=60 x_min=300 x_max=3800 y_min=700 y_max=3400

The LCD display shows the raspberry correctly. However, the touch screen input does not work. The mouse pointer can I move correctly with your finger, but I can not select things (function of the left mouse button).

Thank you so much for this great tutorial. I have my WaveShare SpotPear 3.2″ V4 working fine on my Raspberry Pi 2. If you are having problems with this specific hardware, skip step 5.

Can someone upload SD card image that works with RBP2 ? My idea is to use Eleduino TFT as additional screen and play movies via HDMI.. is it possible?

Do not follow this article when you don’t know what kind of LCD module. In my case, I follow all of this and my raspberry pi cannot boot anymore. I will try to recover, but I think I should format my SD card and reinstall OS.

Expecting this would builtin driver module within kernel and help with avoiding mistakenly overwriting anything. But with this is cause LCD screen to go blank white and no boot activity. Also noticed on HDMI it get stuck on Initial rainbow screen and stuck on that.

Also can you someone explain what exactly happen when do rpi-update? Want to understand what this step actualy doing and help me to debug any such situation and able to help others.

Does anyone tried splash boot screen with waveshare v4 LCD and Rpi2? I tried to follow some example from https://github.com/notro/fbtft/wiki/Bootsplash but no success.

Great tutorial thanks; got an X session working great 1st time. Has anybody managed to get Kodi/XMBC working on the LCD either Kodi standalone, Raspbmc or Xbian?

in the video you say to change the existing line to “snd-bcm2836” for the rasppi2 which isn’t listed in the written part of the instructions (part 4).. this should be added (I believe it caused me to have to re-image the OS again, the Pi wouldn’t boot to anything just using the written steps)

fbtft_device name=waveshare32b gpios=dc:22,reset:27 speed=48000000 width=320 height=240 buswidth=8 init=-1,0xCB,0x39,0x2C,0x00,0x34,0x02,-1,0xCF,0x00,0XC1,0X30,-1,0xE8,0x85,0x00,0x78,-1,0xEA,0x00,0x00,-1,0xED,0x64,0x03,0X12,0X81,-1,0xF7,0x20,-1,0xC0,0x23,-1,0xC1,0x10,-1,0xC5,0x3e,0x28,-1,0xC7,0x86,-1,0×36,0x28,-1,0x3A,0x55,-1,0xB1,0x00,0x18,-1,0xB6,0x08,0x82,0x27,-1,0xF2,0x00,-1,0×26,0x01,-1,0xE0,0x0F,0x31,0x2B,0x0C,0x0E,0x08,0x4E,0xF1,0x37,0x07,0x10,0x03,0x0E,0x09,0x00,-1,0XE1,0x00,0x0E,0x14,0x03,0x11,0x07,0x31,0xC1,0x48,0x08,0x0F,0x0C,0x31,0x36,0x0F,-1,0×11,-2,120,-1,0×29,-1,0x2c,-3

ads7846_device model=7846 cs=1 gpio_pendown=17 speed=1000000 keep_vref_on=1 swap_xy=0 pressure_max=255 x_plate_ohms=60 x_min=200 x_max=3900 y_min=200 y_max=3900

After following this tut to the letter on a brand new image of Raspian, I find that the touch driver does not function. Anyone experience the same? Basically all I did was image a current copy of rasping, did a apt-get upgrade, and then did this tutorial. Then the touch driver does not work, meaning the pointer does not respond.

The reason I did this was because on a production version of my system I added the 3.2 screen and it worked great except for the x-axis. So I wanted to see if there was something in my system that was interfering or if this is another error. Now with a raw rasping the driver does not work at all. I wonder if the touch pin has changed since the kernel is using BCM pins instead of GPIO pin numbers?

I have exactly the same problem. I also installed a new version of Raspbian, and the LCD part works fine (except all the windows are way too large), but the touch part doesn’t work at all… I’m using Waveshare Spotpear 3.2″ V4.

I remember that I plugged in the screen wrongly one time, before configuring any of the GPIO pins. Can this have damaged the screen? Still it’s weird that the display part works well and the touch part not at all.

I do not think that has anything to do with it. Other than power pins, the rest are communication. If it still works then you are good. No, there is something else. I do suspect it us related to the BCM pin numbering. The real question is… Why isnt the eeveloper responding? I have since abandoned this TFT because of his lack of response.

Touch actually goes through one of the SPI pins I think. Either the driver is toast with the required kernel update or the driver is using the wrong pin. It is very likely the this works well with previous raspian versions, but not with the new B+ and with the new kernel.

I am trying to use the sainsmart 2.8″ lcd sold through microcenter, using the sainsmart32_spi … seems to have the same pinouts, should I be able to get this to work? I am stuck at the white out screen on the lcd, doesn’t seem to recognize the module either.

Unfortunately I’ve tried that ( a few times actually) but the file still doesn’t exist. Thanks very much for the assistance anyway. I must be doing something wrong. My Raspian came from a Noobs installation, I’m wondering if I should try installing the OS from somewhere else. My LCD screen didn’t come with a CD or any docs so I’m completely in the dark here.

I have just found a way to get this file on my system! Apparently its part of the fbturbo installation. I found it here http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=45746&start=75 (under experimental enhanced x driver (rpifb).. Sorry if this is obvious to everyone but I am SUCH a noob at this!!

I have the waveshare 3.5 and what to use it only as a secondary screen by putting measurement data with a c program on the screen. Is there any solution?

Ok, what am I doing wrong. I am using a fresh install of the newest raspbian, on a Pi 2. After doing the first two steps and rebooting I get the rainbow screen, then the boot up process, and then my screen just goes black with a flashing cursor in the top left. I am not able to enter any commands or anything…like the pi is halting just after boot up. Any thoughts/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Well figured out that step 1 was causing my problems. I’m guessing it is shutting off my hdmi feed and trying to switch it over to the SPI, am I guessing right? If so, not sure how I’m suppose to complete the rest of the steps if my hdmi output gets turned off before the LCD is actually set up to work…that sounds kind of smartass-like, which is not my intention, just looking for some clarification on what is going on in that first step as I am fairly new to this stuff. Thanks.

Anyway, I was able to do the rest of the steps with no problem. LCD didn’t work, but I am using a Waveshare 3.5, which doesn’t look to be supported yet. Mostly I am trying to play around and see if I can get it working somehow. Anyone found a way to do this yet?

Here is a link to an updated image from waveshare. Upon install it got the display up and running, but I still do not have touch functionality. I’ve been playing around with it, but it has been to no avail…hopefully someone better at this stuff from me can get the touch working.

I am having an issue with getting the GUI back. Every time I use startx my pi just sits there for about two minutes saying “No protocol specified”, and then it just gives up. I went through this tutorial about four times now and am not certain why it is doing this. I have the exact same LCD as is in the tutotial (WaveShare 3.2b). any help would be great.

Hi I am making a project for school,using the raspberry pi b+ and waveshare spotpare 3.2b. Everything works except the touch input doesn’t work. Any help would be appreciated very much.

So complicated (and especially the line with myriad of hexadecimal values) that if you succed you’re a very Lucky person. Don’t do that except if you have time to kill.

Great write up – worked first time for me. The only difference is by modules blacklist file was empty so there was no change needed there. Maybe to do with me being on a newer rasbian?

Thanks for the tutorial. It works, but I get the boot/command line stuff on the HDMI monitor and the LCD only comes on when I do startx. Is there a way to get everything to appear on the LCD screen?

I am trying to get this same screen to work with the image of RetroPie 2.6 and it won’t work. I have followed all the steps and nothing, please help I an kinda a noob.

I have a Tontec 7 inch touchscreen with a Raspberry Pi 2 B. After following the instructions the touch screen is functioning but not properly… The only are that works is the upper left (and only a small area of that). I tried changing the width and height in the modules but it didnt change anything. Also the xy seems to be reversed, I changed the swap_xy to 1 but again no change on the screen.

Now the OS freezes at the emulation station loading screen, and if I connect my lcd it gives me a lot of error messages which I can only see on the 3.2 inch screen.

hi i have the same screen with a raspberry pi 2 im trying to run retro pie but it wont show ..however it shows all the commands …but i cant get it to show the gui …if u guys can make an image or something please i have been in this pain for two weeks already thank you

well ,,i follow all instructions and still kernel panic ,,,,may i request from mr. Circuitbasics@Gmail.Com that have a contact with manufacture and just ask for 2-3 links for image files for different versions of pi till all this f discussions are finished,,i cant understand 10 guys said we run it and 40 guys said kernel panic ,,as an expert i did 50 times imaging and follow all changes fro this forum and other forums and still cant run it ,,,so sth is wrong …..just asking the manufacture for simple f image ,,that`s it ,,,,simpleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

well i did it at last on pi 2,,after reading 100 pages and reimaging 50 times ,,i finally find the solution ,,,,there is a simple line forgotten to be attached in setup instruction,,,well i give u clue for prodigies ,,there is a step left between step 3 and 4,,,,and a simple change in step 5 according to your pi version ,,,that`s it ,,nothing else,,,,

Damn.. I thought I was kickin ass haha. I am using the SainSmart 3.2″.. the backlight is lit up and the pi was booting and everything just fine but on the final reboot it gets hung and says “nonblocking pool is initialized” ?? No idea what that means. But it’s def just frozen at this point.. on my main screen, and just the backlight is on the SainSmart.

This was an excellent tutorial. I have gotten an output to the screen, but no touchscreen usage . I have the Waveshare SpotPear 3.2 Inch LCD V4 screen, but using Raspberry PI 2 with wheezy. Any ideas?

Thanks a lot for this article. Very clear and easy . I am new in pi’s world and my 3.2″ screen is working fine. I rotate 90 º and works. I can use mouse and so on.Not problems.

I filed the steps to calibrate the screen but it did not work.I think because it did not find the TFT pin, because I think the touch problem is the assigned pin to control it changed.

I actually used the driver from here http://www.waveshare.com/wiki/3.2inch_RPi_LCD_(B) , from a new wheezy build, did nothing except enable SPI in config, install driver, and change mmcblk0p2 to mmcblk0p6 in cmdline.txt and it all worked, no drama.

Hi I managed to set up my touch screen ok but I now have the issue that everything desktop fits fine but the windows I open are all huge and I can’t remember how to change the size and cannot see the option in desktop preferences any idea what I have to do and is it at all possible to install kodi to run through the raspbian is as this would be a lot my useful than having to keep swapping os on every boot up many thanks in advanced hope you can help me

Hi, sorry I’m a REAL noob… I can’t manage changing 99-fbturbo.conf at the first step (fb0 to fb1), because the file is in read only mode (Raspbian july 2015). I can’t manage getting rights to change… Any idea? Thanks.

Advice to all who have the drivers from the (touch)screen manufacturer and cannot obtain those otherwise: you can skip everything and go to the update steps skipping the kernel and kernel modules update (as mentioned by the author) so that you don’t override the preinstalled drivers. I have a Waveshare 3.5″ RPi v3 (not the 3.2″ supported by notro’s drivers) and actually managed without any problems to get notro’s drivers make it work. However I am still reading about the xinput and xinput-calibrator to figure out how to include it as a kernel module so that I can compile my own kernel and add it there.

i have raspberry pi 2 with 3.2 inch rpi lcd v4 waveshare spotpear.i have done as per your instructions.the display is working but touch screen not working.error shows waveshare32b module not found as well as touch screen module not found messages.

Hey! i did this and rotated it… It loads console perfectly, but when it goes into startx, i get a black background with only the wastebin/trashcan… how do i get the taskbar(or whatever that bar is called)? and the raspberry background?

Unfortunately I have lost the Touch facility on my Waveshare 3.5″ LCD Touchscreen? Can you offer any reasons as to why? I copied the Raspbian image to my Raspberry Pi from the Waveshare website first of all. The Touchscreen displays but is not reactive with any touch

I have purchased a raspberry pi B+ total kit and waveshare 3.2 TFT display online. In the package i have been given a pre-loaded NOOBS installed SD card. I did not even start anything yet. What should i do what r the things needed and how to connect the display i really want to know. I need help as i don’t know anything. Does the above solution help or will u suggest something………………..

Hi great article thanks. I am trying to get a waveshare 7 inch LCD with capacitive touch running it works with the suppled image but if you upgrade it breaks the capacitive touch. I have a sense-hat and GPS which require the latest kernel and RASPIAN image and the install program for the screen replaces the /lib/modules directory and the kernel with older ones. I need to be able to install the touch drivers into a new clean OS can anyone give me some pointers? Thanks

I should add that the screen is plugged into the HDMI port and always works. The capacitive touch is driven from the USB port which also supplies power.

For anyone who have those unbranded cheap TFT touch modules and cannot get it to work with this guide, I had success on my 3.5″ with the following steps: http://pastebin.com/89qmFbPB

I have the WaveShare 3.5 (A) and cannot get it to work with the Kali Linux with TFT for Raspberry Pi. Have anybody gotten the A to work? (Not the B, theres instructions for the B already and dont work with A)

So I have the original image that came with my screen and it works fine with the LCD but my problem is that I want to use my LCD screen with other distros (at this time I am trying to use it with Kali Linux with TFT support by default https://www.offensive-security.com/kali-linux-vmware-arm-image-download/) What do I have to do to transfer the needed files from the original image that WORKS with the screen and use them with another image?

I originally bought this bundle http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013E0IJUK?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00 with an RPi LCD V3 and no extra documentation on the specifics on the chipset. I tried with the bftft drivers but since I have no idea what to call this screen I just suppose it isn’t supported.

After 4 lost days I just decided to get another screen, a Waveshare 3.2 (just like the one on this tutorial), I’ll follow these steps and see if it work for me.

I’ve followed your instructions and am only getting a white screen stil. I am using the Osoyoo 3.5 inch touchscreen from Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013E0IJVE?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00

I am using the same LCD and followed your tutorial. Have your tested the guide lately? Are you certain that it works? I see the boot messages on console but I get white screen as GUI starts.

Oct 16 17:38:48 spare kernel: [ 12.544859] graphics fb1: fb_ili9340 frame buffer, 320×240, 150 KiB video memory, 4 KiB DMA buffer memory, fps=50, spi0.0 at 48 MHz

After I rebooted in step 3, my raspberry pi won’t boot up again. It goes thru the process of booting and the text scrolls down and every thing says “ok”. Then instead of going to GUI it just guys to a black screen on my monitor with a blinking underscore in the top left corner. Anyway to get around this? or should I start over with a fresh disk image??

That is what happens to mine also.. So long story short —> THIS SITE NEEDS TO BE UPDATED OR SHUT DOWN <— There are a hundred people on here that have all lost everything on the pi drive, and spent all day (or more) working thru this tutorial 4 or 5 (dozen) times and nothing. Just have to reinstall the os over again and again.

Please check out my answer, it may help you if it works. I’m not in that case but I’m assuming that the desktop environment simply doesn’t automatically start running anymore… This can be changed in the raspi-setup

Try typing ‘startx’ if you problem isn’t solved (assuming you’re using Raspbian and LXDE), it should start the desktop environment you’re used to see. What you’re seeing is the Command Line Input interface (CLI), the most basic way to interact with a computer. Hope I helped you a little

I have tried to set up waveshare 32b on my Pi B using the latest Raspian download. I learned a lot in the process using Windows Putty, Nano etc. I have repeated the setup process several times from scratch and included the corrections for possible overwriting. My Waveshare SpotPear 3.2 inch RPi LCD V4 just shows a white screen. Any suggestions?

I’d suggest that you use the included installation disk to make a clean install on another SD card to see if the screen itself works fine or not, then try to repeat the process of installation after upgrading

There was no disk included. I asked for drivers and was given a download link to the image file. After down loading this I tried it and still got just a white screen. The HDMI monitor locks partway though the boot. I can still log in to pi using putty from my PC.

This process worked for me except for two things. The screen only shows 25* of any page so the most important buttons are inaccessible, and now the Wifi does not work and cannot be activated where it worked fine before the reboot. Any suggestions?

Hi, I am using raspberry pi 2 with raspbian jessie installed. I the waveshare spotpear 3.2 v4. The above instructions are not working. and after completing the steps there was no display from hdmi or lcd. One things to notify is.: the etc/modules files only had i2c-dev and not snd-bcm2835.

I am trying to get this to work with Retro Pie 3.3.1 and the Waveshare3.2″ v4 but I only get the terminal on the lcd and emulation station starts on hdmi. to get it working with retro pie i just replaced startx with emulationstation. how do i get this to work?

Sir, Your post has very useful to me. i am using Tinylcd. but i cant get display. i am performing all the steps in your post. i cant get touch controller information from the product website and also i am using RASPberryPi B+ model. could u please give me best solution to my work. Than you.

Hi, what if you dont know the make of your screen, i purchased via Ebay, and it is unbranded, the contact speaks barely any English and keeps linking me to a custom kernal download.

what if OS is not Raspbian, any other distro like Yocto project, etc.? Could you please specify process without “rpi-update” that makes driver installation process more generic, not dedicated to Raspbian.

I completed all steps except for the last one (I want it to boot to console). However, when I reboot, it never completes the boot process. I start in recovery mode and check the cmdline.txt file and it is exactly how it appears on this page. I copied the kernel info as well, but I am not sure if it correct as I cannot get to it to check. Any suggestions? I might just reinstall the OS and start over…

i installed android OS in raspberry pi 2. can i use same LCD touch screen set up for android installed raspberry pi 2 which you are used for raspbian.

Is it normal the white back light during the whole process of initializing (I suspect that during the transportation trere is a deffect)? The problem is that I missed the step #1 and I performed it at the end. Unfortunately I don’t have any monitor available right now – neither “normal”, neither LCD :))))). Is it possible turning back the system or the only option is reinstallation of the Raspbian?

I have KeDei 3.5 inch TFT version 4.0 by Osoyoo. (released after January 1 2016) how do i get it working with vanilla Raspbian Jessie (do not want to install the image sent by the seller)

I’m trying to use an original Raspberry Pi model B with a cheap 3.5 inch 320×480 LCD which allegedly was manufactured to work with the Pi and has the correct fittings to fit over the GPIO pins. The operating system is the latest, downloaded yesterday and installed with NOOBS. I can’t get past step 2 of this guidance. When I reboot after using raspi-config I can see text generated as the Pi boots, then the HDMI fed screen goes blank apart from a flashing cursor in the top left hand corner. The LCD just remains white with nothing else on it. I have missed out step 1 and rebooted after step 2 and the screen functions as I would expect. Does anyone have any ideas please?

now when it seem WaveShare release their own custom image or sources, same thing happens kernel panic. unfortunately this time around doing the same trick doesn’t save the day !

Thanks for the great tutorial. I do have a question. Once you install the drivers for the lcd are you effectively disabiling the hdmi port or is it still available to use and will the pi function with both displays. I have a pi 3

once you install the drivers it replaces the kernel by disabling hdmi output and enables it for LCD. i don’t think we have a solution to get em both working at the same time. ( you are encouraged to search for it )

Thanks for the guide, have been doing this with my son but once we leave raspi config and reboot all we get is a black screen with a flashing white horizontal line (dash). Can you help? I have looked in the comments at the end of the article but no one else appears to have this issue.

I have a raspberry pi 2 with waveshare screenn 3.5 inches. Isn’t it the same instructions. But it isnt working, all i get is a white screen, and the red led on the pi is on. The green LED isnot working.

i am sorry, but i am a naive , and i have this question, can we upload any file into it for the display? like have a software in which if i tap it gives back a feedback to the code?

My Rpi3 gets “ERROR: could not insert ‘spi_bcm2708’: No such device” after I enable SPI in the raspi-config.My Rpi3 is freezing on the rainbow screen after I reboot at the end of step 3. I’ve tried adding boot_delay=1 to config.txt.

if any interested, now i have a raspian image working on raspberry 3 with Waveshare 3.5, also with sdr support for dongles and FreqShow working perfectly on touch

I’m a proper novice, have no coding experience. A these tutorials and walk throughs are invaluable. So thank you in advance for all the help and support.

I tried following your tutorial but I got stuck right at the first step… I enter sudo nano /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/99-fbturbo.conf the whole screen is blank except for the command list at the bottom…

ads7846_device model=7846 cs=1 gpio_pendown=17 speed=1000000 keep_vref_on=1 swap_xy=0 pressure_max=255 x_plate_ohms=60 x_min=200 x_max=3900 y_min=200 y_max=3900

No matter what I do, I can’t get this to work. It works perfectly fine on my Pi2, but when I follow and use the guide on my Zero, I always end up with the activity LED blinking 8 times (corrupt SD/filesystem error).

I’d like to find the driver software for my 7″ LCD with touch (official Pi unit) so that I can use it in buildroot. I wanted to make sure this kernel is the one before I started digging further.

Every time I reboot after step 3 I get the rainbow screen of death (lost the kernel) and have to reimage my card and start over. Anybody had this happen and have a solution?

I started through your tutorial and completed step 3 and rebooted. After the Raspberry screen and some of the boot text on my HDMI monitor, I now have a black HDMI monitor and a white screen on my LCD. Does this mean that the bootloader was overwritten or something else is wrong? How am I supposed to enter in the proposed fixes to the bootloader, when I can’t get the RPi to boot? Do I have to interrupt the boot process at some point to reinstall the bootloader or what?

Its a script. Download and instead of running sudo ./LCD4-show run cat ./LCD4-show to simply display what it does without actually running it. The commands are fairly simple modifying a few files. I actually saved the LCD-show.tar.gz on my own server for faster future download but also for backup as it saved me tons of hours (if that’s a measuring unit for time :) )

I used this link though (smaller file ~ 50 KB, fast download) http://www.waveshare.com/w/upload/4/4b/LCD-show-161112.tar.gz and replaced LCD4-show with LCD32-show in the last line.

I’m using RasPi Zero with latest (as of last week) Jessie Raspbian. Did you run the script? If it didn’t work and you have modified other files in the process of making it work, I would recommend installing a fresh installed image on a new card and running the script. Can you suspect the screen being faulty or got “burned” in the process?

i bought a 3.5 inch tft lcd screen from banggood. and i have installed raspian jessie, the latest version, in my sd card. but when i power on my Pi, only a white backlit screen comes. there are no images or graphics whatsoever.

Of course. Raspbian Jessie does not come with the drivers needed to talk to the screen. See my previous comment (September 22, 2016 at 11:54 am) and follow it.

The owner of this article should including a WARNING in the header that if someone follows the steps, they will install a deprecated driver (which is only visible as tiny text on its gethub page here https://github.com/notro/rpi-firmware). This driver after install will break Raspberry Pi and the SD card will need to be reimaged, for some less experienced users, this could also mean lost work if they failed to backup their code or resources. On windows, it requires installing Linux reader software and it takes a long time to fix this f**kup which could easily have been avoided if the author had and sense of responsibility.

I am shocked to read the latest comments and see so many people fall for it, me included, and nothing is being done. I’ve list 3 days back tracking to where i suddenly lost everything…

I have done every thing right but the only major problem is that the screen is still white and my raspberrypi freezes after a line of code when booting up and I cant get in with SSH

Will your system work with my SainSmart 2.8″ 2.8 inch TFT LCD 240×320 Arduino DUE MEGA2560 R3 Raspberry Pi ? I would like to know before not be able to back out. Thanks, Lee

I know I will end up regretting this, but how do I change fb0 to fb1? I’m on the screen that has all the info, but no way to change it. Am I looking for a file? I have had my screen for MONTHS and I can’t do anything with my pi or the screen. I am >< close to smashing both. COMPLETE WASTE OF MONEY so far!!

so you have to use your computer’s arrow keys. then you overwrite the 0 with a 1 then you have to move your arrow so it’s on top of the ” and then delete the 0 that was there.

hello. I really appreciate your blog post. I have a raspberry pi 3 B. I have been unable to get my waveshare 3.2 screen to work.I am at a complete loss for what to do. I do step 2 I change fb0 to fb1 and then follow your directions I don’t get the prompt to reboot; however, I do it manually with sudo reboot. that works fine then I complete step three and that works just fine; however once I reboot from getting those drivers and when I attempt to reboot it is unsuccessful and then my whole raspberry pi will not restart. then when I power it back on it will just shut back off. I then have to redo noobs onto a new SD card I would GREATLY appreciate anyones help

I ‘m actually using a LCD Waveshare3.2” , I followed your steps to setup the lcd touchscreen for my rpi and it work but I have a problem with the resolution because if I open a repertory I do not see the whole contents on the screen .

hi! thank you for this post…. I was wondering if all the raspberry pi’s gpio are being held by this screen or do we have any of those availables for use??

it worked. but the resolution is for bigger screens. i got the menubar small, but the rest appears too big , and out of screen. the wastebasket icon is 1/6 of my 3.2″ screen. wich HAS the resolution capability too display the whole desktop. But i’m a PI newby and dunno how to adjust the screen resolution on this display. anybody?

hey Thanks for this good post …I have capacitive touchscreen which i brought from the link below..can you guide how i can configure the kernel modules…It will be very helpful for me…Thanks

hey Thanks for this good post …I have capacitive touchscreen which i brought from the link below..can you guide how i can configure the kernel modules…It will be very helpful for me…Thanks

I did a 5inch LCD for my raspberry pi. I dont use the touchscreen so i didnt have to install any drivers. It works out of the box but doesnt cover the whole screen unless you open the terminal and do:

HI I have my RPI running Pi Presents on a view sonic TD2230 Touchscreen. It all works fine, touching the click areas can navigate you thru my presentation, The problem arises when you use multitouch gestures like you would on a iPhone. Pinch or expand etc… and then all touch ability goes away. I can still control the presentation via a mouse, but I don’t get touch control back until I either relaunch Pi Presents, or if I unplug and plug the usb cable going to the touchscreen.

Could you provide me with a os image of open elec that you already built for the waveshare spotpear v4 3.2 inch touchscreen,because I cannot make sense of your website’s instructions?

Much of this is outdated on Raspbian Stretch where device tree overlays (see https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/device-tree.md) provide for most of the configuration automatically.

In the case of the WaveShare driver, their setup script from their “LCD_show” repository will copy a device-tree overlay to /boot/overlays/ that provides most of the module config etc via boot-time device-tree patch.

You still have to add a “dtoverlay” directive in config.txt to enable it, copy it in place, and make some cmdline changes, then configure X. so it’s not trivial. But it doesn’t need to be this in depth either.

After I did the step that “INSTALL THE FBTFT DRIVERS” and then reboot, my raspberry pi couldn’t boot successfully and the green light is always on, could you help me solve this problem? Thank you.

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This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.

Interfacing a Touchscreen LCD with a Raspberry Pi is very useful as this setup can be used to develop Raspberry Pi based stand-alone systems like Weather Monitoring Stations, Security Systems, and Camera Interfacing etc. Adding a Touchscreen to your Raspberry Pi opens up doors to a lot of projects as well as increases the portability of the system.

Having a nice LCD Display on your Raspberry Pi can allow us to make complex projects like a media center, personal computer, smart phone, tablet, etc.

There are different types of Touchscreen LCDs available in the market today for Raspberry Pi from different manufacturers with different screen sizes, resolutions, operable with stylus, etc.

In this project, we will see how to setup an LCD Touchscreen on Raspberry Pi. For this project, we have chosen a WaveShare SpotPear 3.2 inch RPi LCD V4 touchscreen type LCD display.

NOTE: We’ll show you how to setup WaveShare 3.2 inch LCD with Raspberry Pi using the official drivers and also the provided Raspbian image. We tried to install this using our own Raspbian Jessie and Drivers but there were some problems. We will definitely update how to install any type of LCD with Raspberry Pi very soon.

There are different manufacturers of Touchscreen LCD displays for Raspberry Pi like Adafruit, Newhaven Display, Haoyu, Freetronics, WaveShare, Watterott Electronics and many more but we thought Touchscreen LCD displays from WaveShare for Raspberry Pi are affordable, easy to use and comes with drivers and their own version of Raspbian OS (our thoughts and might differ with other users).

There are many variants of Touchscreen LCDs from WaveShare like 2.8 inch, 3.2 inch, 3.5 inch, 5 inch, 7 inch, 10.1 inch etc. For setting up an LCD Touchscreen with Raspberry Pi, we are going to use a 3.2 Inch WaveShare SpotPear LCD.

This particular LCD Display has a Resistive Touchscreen with a screen resolution of 320×240. It is interfaced to Raspberry Pi using SPI protocol. The LCD module has 3 user button that can be programmed to do additional functions.

The Wave Share 3.2 inch display can be directly plugged in to the Raspberry Pi on the GPIO Pins. It uses 26 Pins of the available 40 pins of the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO. Out of the 26 pins used, some do not have any connections (NC – No Connection).

First we will see the Pinout of the Raspberry Pi GPIO and then we will see the relevant pins required to connect LCD using SPI. The following image shows the pin out of Raspberry Pi’s GPIO Pins.

In these 40 pins, the connector on the back of the WaveShare 3.2 inch LCD has 26 pins (2 rows with 13 pins in each). The following table gives the list of pins we are going to need to interface the LCD with Raspberry Pi.

Now that we have seen the basic information about the WaveShare Touchscreen LCD module, we will proceed with the setup. There are two ways you can setup the LCD: 1. Use your own OS (Raspbian) and install the drivers or 2. Use the provided OS image file (it can also be downloaded) and do a fresh install of the OS.

If you want to test whether the LCD is working or not, you can go with the OS image provided by the manufacturer of the LCD. It is usually given in a CD or can be downloaded from the official website.

Write this image file on to the microSD card, insert it into Raspberry Pi and boot the Pi with LCD inserted on the Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi directly enable the Touchscreen LCD display.

But, if we want to use our Raspberry Pi with any OS of our choice, like Raspbian Jessie for example, first thing we need to do is download the drivers for the LCD Module from the website.

You can also download the image file from this site. There are two versions of drivers in the website. We have downloaded the first one (LCD-show-170703.tar.gz) and put it in the Desktop. Do not unzip or unrar it.

Assuming you have already setup the Raspberry Pi using the headless setup (no monitor or keyboard), we will proceed by copying the downloaded driver file in to the Raspberry Pi’s memory (microSD Card).

Download the WinSCP and install it. Once the installation is completed, open the WinSCP application. As soon as you open it, you will be asked to enter the details of the session. Select File Protocol as SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol) and enter the IP Address of the Raspberry Pi in the Host name field.

Enter those details as per your settings (if default settings are unchanged, username is pi and password is raspberry). After successful login, you will enter into the main screen of the WinSCP application.

The screen is divided in to two halves and the left side the host computer (in our case the Windows PC which we are using) and the right side is the SSH connection (Raspberry Pi).

On the left side, go to the folder where you have downloaded the LCD Driver file. In our case, it is located on the Desktop. On the right side, go to home/pi folder. Drag and drop the LCD Driver File from left side to right side.

You will get a message about file transfer and just press ok. The file is now transferred from my desktop to Raspberry Pi. You can now disconnect the Raspberry Pi from WinSCP (Session  Disconnect).

Now, open Putty and login in to Raspberry Pi. After logging in successfully, we need to extract the contents of the LCD Driver file. To see the list of files and directories, you can enter the following command and press enter.

Now, to extract the contents, enter the following command. This command will extract the contents of the file LCD-show-170703-tar-gz to the present folder.

A new folder with name “LCD-show” will be created in the process. We need to go in to that directory. For that type the following command and hit enter.

Now, since our WaveShare LCD Module is a 3.2 inch one, we need to install the drivers specific for this LCD Module. For that, enter the following commands one after the other.

After entering the above commands, the installation of the LCD Touchscreen drivers will be initialised and the Raspberry Pi will automatically reboot. If not, you reboot the Raspberry Pi and after booting up, the Raspberry Pi will directly display on the LCD.

LCD screens are useful and found in many parts of our life. At the train station, parking meter, vending machines communicating brief messages on how we interact with the machine they are connected to. LCD screens are a fun way to communicate information in Raspberry Pi Pico projects and other Raspberry Pi Projects. They have a big bright screen which can display text, numbers and characters across a 16 x 2 screen. The 16 refers to 16 characters across the screen, and the 2 represents the number of rows we have. We can get LCD screens with 20x2, 20x4 and many other configurations, but 16x2 is the most common.

In this tutorial, we will learn how to connect an LCD screen, an HD44780, to a Raspberry Pi Pico via the I2C interface using the attached I2C backpack, then we will install a MicroPython library via the Thonny editor and learn how to use it to write text to the display, control the cursor and the backlight.

2. Import four librariesof pre-written code. The first two are from the Machine library and they enable us to use I2C and GPIO pins. Next we import the sleep function from Time enabling us to pause the code. Finally we import the I2C library to interact with the LCD screen.from machine import I2C, Pin

3. Create an objecti2c to communicate with the LCD screen over the I2C protocol. Here we are using I2C channel 0, which maps SDA to GP0 and SCL to GP1.i2c = I2C(0, sda=Pin(0), scl=Pin(1), freq=400000)

4. Create a variableI2C_ADDR,which will store the first I2C address found when we scan the bus. As we only have one I2C device connected, we only need to see the first [0] address returned in the scan.I2C_ADDR = i2c.scan()[0]

5. Create an objectlcdto set up the I2C connection for the library. It tells the library what I2C pins we are using, set via the i2c object, the address of our screen, set via I2C_ADDRand finally it sets that we have a screen with two rows and 16 columns.lcd = I2cLcd(i2c, I2C_ADDR, 2, 16)

6. Create a loopto continually run the code, the first line in the loop will print the I2C address of our display to Thonny’s Python Shell.while True:

8. Write two lines of textto the screen. The first will print “I2C Address:” followed by the address stored inside the I2C_ADDR object. Then insert a new line character “\n” and then write another line saying “Tom’s Hardware" (or whatever you want it to say). Pause for two seconds to allow time to read the text.lcd.putstr("I2C Address:"+str(I2C_ADDR)+"\n")

9. Clear the screenbefore repeating the previous section of code, but this time we display the I2C address of the LCD display using its hex value. The PCF8574T chip used in the I2C backpack has two address, 0x20 and 0x27 and it is useful to know which it is using, especially if we are using multiple I2C devices as they may cause a clash on the bus.lcd.clear()

11. To flash the LED backlight, use a for loopthat will iterate ten times. It will turn on the backlight for 0.2 seconds, then turn it off for the same time. The “Backlight Test” text will remain on the screen even with the backlight off.for i in range(10):

12. Turn the backlight back onand then hide the cursor. Sometimes, a flashing cursor can detract from the information we are trying to communicate.lcd.backlight_on()

13. Create a for loopthat will print the number 0 to 19 on the LCD screen. Note that there is a 0.4 second delay before we delete the value and replace it with the next. We have to delete the text as overwriting the text will make it look garbled.for i in range(20):

Save and runyour code. As with any Python script in Thonny, Click on File >> Saveand save the file to your Raspberry Pi Pico. We recommend calling it i2c_lcd_test.py. When ready, click on the Green play buttonto start the code and watch as the test runs on the screen.

Due to the high popularity of Raspberry Pi boards, a great many manufacturers are creating dedicated displays and matrices for these devices. In addition, they also work with a large proportion of standard PC monitors. All this makes it very easy to choose a model that will work for your electronic project.

When making your choice, it is worth paying attention primarily to compatibility with the version of your Raspberry minicomputer and matching the technical parameters to the requirements of your project. For example, a simple alphanumeric display will work just fine for an alarm clock or radio, while a touchscreen LCD or LED display will be necessary when building more advanced hardware, such as your own tablet.

The market offers displays made in almost every technology – liquid crystal, LED, OLED or e-paper, colour and monochrome, touch or otherwise controlled. They range from screens capable of displaying all content to matrices with single programmable LEDs or segmented and alphanumeric displays.

Raspberry Pi displays are offered by brands such as Pimoroni, Waveshare, Adafruit and DFRobot, as well as the Raspberry Pi Foundation itself. In addition, the board can be connected to many models of ordinary computer monitors that have the appropriate specifications.

The vast majority of Raspberry Pi displays are connected via HDMI (miniHDMI on Raspberry Pi Zero and microHDMI on Raspberry Pi 4). A Composite connector is also available, and the 4th generation minicomputer also has a dedicated DSI connector. Designed specifically for the Raspberry Pi, the displays are often mounted like HAT caps, on GPIO pins. The display can also be connected via wires to goldpin connectors.

For now, the Raspberry Pi Foundation has only one official displaymodel available, which is compatible with several versions of the board. These are the 4B, 3B+, 2B, 1B+ models.

The display is a seven-inch capacitive touchscreen with a maximum resolution of 800 x 480 px, which connects to Raspberry Pi minicomputers via a DSI connector.

Although Raspberry Pi displays use different connectors and manufacturing technologies, connecting them usually follows a very similar pattern. Below are the next steps in this process.

Firstly,connect the display to the Raspberry Piboard using the appropriate connectors. It is worth remembering that many displays require an additional power supply (for example via microUSB), so you need to take care of this connection as well. For displays connected via goldpin, it is worth paying particular attention to ensure that they are connected to power pins with the correct voltage (some displays work with 5 V and some with 3.3 V).

Some displays, particularly computer monitors that use an HDMI cable, can work with the Raspberry Pi on a plug and play basis – this means that they will work as soon as they are connected. However, in most cases you will need to use the appropriate drivers or update your system. Often this is literally just a few lines of code – for example, this is what the commands look like to run the official Raspberry Pi touchscreen (a system update, as the drivers are pre-installed):

In some cases, especially with touch screen displays, additional calibration is required. Detailed instructions on how to calibrate specific display models are provided by their manufacturers. It is also worth checking forums, such as the Raspberry forum, where problems are reported and solutions presented.

The schematic is, CS (Chip Select), RST(Reset) and A0 (Register Select) can be connected to any 3 GPIO pins. In this example, 8,24 and 25 are default values. Different values can be specified as parameters when instantiating the ST7565 Python class. SCLK (Serial Clock) on the GLCD goes to GPIO 11 which is the Pi’s serial clock. SID (Serial Input Data) on the GLCD goes to GPIO 10 on the Pi which is MOSI. GPIO 10 and 11 must be used for SID and SCLK. Vdd is connected to a 3.3V pin on the PI and the grounds are also connected.

The LCD has a RGB backlight. The LED pins can go to GPIO’s 16,20 and 21. To control the color from the Pi, specifying RGB pins when instantiate the ST7565 class. The resistors must be placed in series to limit the current to prevent LED breakdown. The LED brightness can be changed by using different values of resistors. It will be best to adjust the current to be around 20mA, of course, different values will result in a different mix of colors. It is very difficult to mix a pure white color. Please calculate the resistor value carefully, at 40mA, the LED brightness will decrease sharply with time, with the current of close to 60mA, the LED might be breakdown and be permanently damaged.

The display is 128 pixels horizontal by 64 pixels vertical. The LCD can be broken into 8 horizontal pages. They are numbered from 3 to 0 and 7 to 4 up to down. Each page includes 128 columns and 8 rows of pixels. To address the pixels, specifying the page and column number, and send a byte to fill 8 vertical pixels at once.

The display has SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface) to connect to Pi. SPI requires 3 lines MOSI, MISO and Clock. The Pi is the master and the GLCD is the slave. In this example, Only writing to GLCD and not ready, so the connection to MOSI and Clock lines are needed. MOSI is the output from the Pi to the GLCD and the Clock synchronizes the timing.

From the raspi-config menu, select Advanced Options, then SPI. Then select Yes for “ Would like the SPI interface to be enabled”. Hit OK, Reboot. Select Yes for “ the SPI kernel module to be loaded by default”. Reboot the Pi after enabling SPI. Then test SPI using IsmodIt should return SPI_bcm2708 or spi_bcm2835 depending on the Pi version. The python SPI library requires python2.7 dev which can be installed with apt-get install:

The main ST7565 library (st7565.py) handles drawing, text & bitmaps, and a font module (xglcd_font.py) to load X-GLCD fonts. Here are the basic drawing commands which to create points, lines, rectangles, circles, ellipses, and regular polygons:For more details, please refer to the reference below or contact our engineers.

LCD character displays are useful for displaying information without the need for an external monitor. Common LCD character displays can be connected directly to the GPIO pins, but such an approach requires the use of up to 10 GPIO pins. For scenarios that require connecting to a combination of devices, devoting so much of the GPIO header to a character display is often impractical.

Many manufacturers sell 20x4 LCD character displays with an integrated GPIO expander. The character display connects directly to the GPIO expander, which then connects to the Raspberry Pi via the Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C) serial protocol.

There are many manufacturers of LCD character displays. Most designs are identical, and the manufacturer shouldn"t make any difference to the functionality. For reference, this tutorial was developed with the SunFounder LCD2004.

A using declaration creates an instance of I2cDevice by calling I2cDevice.Create and passing in a new I2cConnectionSettings with the busId and deviceAddress parameters. This I2cDevice represents the I2C bus. The using declaration ensures the object is disposed and hardware resources are released properly.

The device address for the GPIO expander depends on the chip used by the manufacturer. GPIO expanders equipped with a PCF8574 use the address 0x27, while those using PCF8574A chips use 0x3F. Consult your LCD"s documentation.

Another using declaration creates an instance of Lcd2004 to represent the display. Several parameters are passed to the constructor describing the settings to use to communicate with the GPIO expander. The GPIO expander is passed as the controller parameter.

Deploy the app to the Raspberry Pi as a self-contained app. For instructions, see Deploy .NET apps to Raspberry Pi. Make sure to give the executable execute permission using chmod +x.

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