stm32 tft display free sample

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The LCD I am using is a 2.8″ TFT LCD with SPI communication. I also have another 16-bit Parallel TFT LCD but it will be another story for another time. For this post, let’s focus on how to display what you want on the 2.8″ LCD. You can find all details about this LCD from this page:http://www.lcdwiki.com/2.8inch_SPI_Module_ILI9341_SKU:MSP2807

First thing first, this LCD use SPI as the main communication protocol with your MCU. For STM32 users, HAL Library has already implemented this protocol which makes this project easier for us. But, a little knowledge about this protocol does not hurt anyone. SPI is short for Serial Peripheral Interface which, aside from two data lines, also has a clock line and select lines to choose between devices you want to communicate with.

This LCD uses ILI9341 as a single-chip SOC driver for a display with a resolution of 240×320. More details can be found in the official document of ILI9341. But the most important thing is that we have to establish astart sequencein order for this LCD to work. The “start sequence” includes many other sequences which are also defined in the datasheet. Each sequence starts when you send a command to ILI9341 and then some parameters to follow up. This sequence is applied for all communication between MCU and ILI9341.

For this project, I recommend using theSystem Workbench for STM32for coding and building the code. After installing and open the program, go to the source code you have just downloaded and double click the.cprojectfile. It will automatically be open in your IDE. Then build the program by right click on the folder you just open (TFTLCD) and chooseBuild Project. Wait for it to finish and upload it to the board by right clicking the folder, choose Run As and then clickAc6 STM32C/C++ Application. And that’s it for running the example.

The most important library for this project is obviously the ILI9341_Driver. This driver is built from the provided source code in the lcdwiki.com page. I only choose the part that we need to use the most in many applications like writing string, displaying image and drawing symbols. Another library from the wiki page is the TOUCH library. Most of the libraries I got from the Internet were not working properly due to some adjustments to the original one.

To draw symbols or even display images, we need a “byte array” of that image or symbol. As an illustration, to display an image from a game called Transistor, I have a “byte array” of that image stored in a file named transistor.h. You can find this file in the link below. Then, I draw each pixel from the image to the LCD by adding the code in the Display_Picture() function in the Display folder.void Display_Picture()

The above example is just only for displaying black and white image. In order to show a color image, we need to a little bit different. First, go tothis websiteto generate the array of the colour image. Remember to change your size to 320×240 and choose the 65K color option. Because it now takes up two bytes for one pixel, we need to send two bytes at once. You can check the Display_Color_Picture() function in the Display folder.void Display_Color_Picture()

An excellent new compatible library is available which can render TrueType fonts on a TFT screen (or into a sprite). This has been developed by takkaO and is available here. I have been reluctant to support yet another font format but this is an amazing library which is very easy to use. It provides access to compact font files, with fully scaleable anti-aliased glyphs. Left, middle and right justified text can also be printed to the screen. I have added TFT_eSPI specific examples to the OpenFontRender library and tested on RP2040 and ESP32 processors, however the ESP8266 does not have sufficient RAM. Here is a demo screen where a single 12kbyte font file binary was used to render fully anti-aliased glyphs of gradually increasing size on a 320x480 TFT screen:

The following is now deprecated due to the number of issues it can cause in certain circumstances. For ESP32 ONLY, the TFT configuration (user setup) can now be included inside an Arduino IDE sketch providing the instructions in the example Generic->Sketch_with_tft_setup are followed. See ReadMe tab in that sketch for the instructions. If the setup is not in the sketch then the library settings will be used. This means that "per project" configurations are possible without modifying the library setup files. Please note that ALL the other examples in the library will use the library settings unless they are adapted and the "tft_setup.h" header file included. Note: there are issues with this approach, #2007 proposes an alternative method.

Support has been added in v2.4.70 for the RP2040 with 16 bit parallel displays. This has been tested and the screen update performance is very good (4ms to clear 320 x 480 screen with HC8357C). The use of the RP2040 PIO makes it easy to change the write cycle timing for different displays. DMA with 16 bit transfers is also supported.

Smooth fonts can now be rendered direct to the TFT with very little flicker for quickly changing values. This is achieved by a line-by-line and block-by-block update of the glyph area without drawing pixels twice. This is a "breaking" change for some sketches because a new true/false parameter is needed to render the background. The default is false if the parameter is missing, Examples:

New anti-aliased graphics functions to draw lines, wedge shaped lines, circles and rounded rectangles. Examples are included. Examples have also been added to display PNG compressed images (note: requires ~40kbytes RAM).

Frank Boesing has created an extension library for TFT_eSPI that allows a large range of ready-built fonts to be used. Frank"s library (adapted to permit rendering in sprites as well as TFT) can be downloaded here. More than 3300 additional Fonts are available here. The TFT_eSPI_ext library contains examples that demonstrate the use of the fonts.

Users of PowerPoint experienced with running macros may be interested in the pptm sketch generator here, this converts graphics and tables drawn in PowerPoint slides into an Arduino sketch that renders the graphics on a 480x320 TFT. This is based on VB macros created by Kris Kasprzak here.

The RP2040 8 bit parallel interface uses the PIO. The PIO now manages the "setWindow" and "block fill" actions, releasing the processor for other tasks when areas of the screen are being filled with a colour. The PIO can optionally be used for SPI interface displays if #define RP2040_PIO_SPI is put in the setup file. Touch screens and pixel read operations are not supported when the PIO interface is used.

DMA can now be used with the Raspberry Pi Pico (RP2040) when used with both 8 bit parallel and 16 bit colour SPI displays. See "Bouncy_Circles" sketch.

An Arduino IDE compatible graphics and fonts library for 32 bit processors. The library is targeted at 32 bit processors, it has been performance optimised for RP2040, STM32, ESP8266 and ESP32 types, other processors may be used but will use the slower generic Arduino interface calls. The library can be loaded using the Arduino IDE"s Library Manager. Direct Memory Access (DMA) can be used with the ESP32, RP2040 and STM32 processors with SPI interface displays to improve rendering performance. DMA with a parallel interface (8 and 16 bit parallel) is only supported with the RP2040.

For other processors only SPI interface displays are supported and the slower Arduino SPI library functions are used by the library. Higher clock speed processors such as used for the Teensy 3.x and 4.x boards will still provide a very good performance with the generic Arduino SPI functions.

"Four wire" SPI and 8 bit parallel interfaces are supported. Due to lack of GPIO pins the 8 bit parallel interface is NOT supported on the ESP8266. 8 bit parallel interface TFTs (e.g. UNO format mcufriend shields) can used with the STM32 Nucleo 64/144 range or the UNO format ESP32 (see below for ESP32).

The library supports some TFT displays designed for the Raspberry Pi (RPi) that are based on a ILI9486 or ST7796 driver chip with a 480 x 320 pixel screen. The ILI9486 RPi display must be of the Waveshare design and use a 16 bit serial interface based on the 74HC04, 74HC4040 and 2 x 74HC4094 logic chips. Note that due to design variations between these displays not all RPi displays will work with this library, so purchasing a RPi display of these types solely for use with this library is NOT recommended.

A "good" RPi display is the MHS-4.0 inch Display-B type ST7796 which provides good performance. This has a dedicated controller and can be clocked at up to 80MHz with the ESP32 (125MHz with overclocked RP2040, 55MHz with STM32 and 40MHz with ESP8266). The MHS-3.5 inch RPi ILI9486 based display is also supported, however the MHS ILI9341 based display of the same type does NOT work with this library.

Some displays permit the internal TFT screen RAM to be read, a few of the examples use this feature. The TFT_Screen_Capture example allows full screens to be captured and sent to a PC, this is handy to create program documentation.

The library supports Waveshare 2 and 3 colour ePaper displays using full frame buffers. This addition is relatively immature and thus only one example has been provided.

The library includes a "Sprite" class, this enables flicker free updates of complex graphics. Direct writes to the TFT with graphics functions are still available, so existing sketches do not need to be changed.

The "Animated_dial" example shows how dials can be created using a rotated Sprite for the needle. To run this example the TFT interface must support reading from the screen RAM (not all do). The dial rim and scale is a jpeg image, created using a paint program.

The XPT2046 touch screen controller is supported for SPI based displays only. The SPI bus for the touch controller is shared with the TFT and only an additional chip select line is needed. This support will eventually be deprecated when a suitable touch screen library is available.

The library supports SPI overlap on the ESP8266 so the TFT screen can share MOSI, MISO and SCLK pins with the program FLASH, this frees up GPIO pins for other uses. Only one SPI device can be connected to the FLASH pins and the chips select for the TFT must be on pin D3 (GPIO0).

Configuration of the library font selections, pins used to interface with the TFT and other features is made by editing the User_Setup.h file in the library folder, or by selecting your own configuration in the "User_Setup_Selet,h" file. Fonts and features can easily be enabled/disabled by commenting out lines.

The .vlw files must be uploaded to the processors FLASH filing system (SPIFFS, LittleFS or SD card) for use. Alternatively the .vlw files can be converted to C arrays (see "Smooth Font -> FLASH_Array" examples) and stored directly in FLASH as part of the compile process. The array based approach is convenient, provides performance improvements and is suitable where: either use of a filing system is undesirable, or the processor type (e.g. STM32) does not support a FLASH based filing system.

It would be possible to compress the vlw font files but the rendering performance to a TFT is still good when storing the font file(s) in SPIFFS, LittleFS or FLASH arrays.

Anti-aliased fonts can also be drawn over a gradient background with a callback to fetch the background colour of each pixel. This pixel colour can be set by the gradient algorithm or by reading back the TFT screen memory (if reading the display is supported).

The common 8 bit "Mcufriend" shields are supported for the STM Nucleo 64/144 boards and ESP32 UNO style board. The STM32 "Blue/Black Pill" boards can also be used with 8 bit parallel displays.

Unfortunately the typical UNO/mcufriend TFT display board maps LCD_RD, LCD_CS and LCD_RST signals to the ESP32 analogue pins 35, 34 and 36 which are input only. To solve this I linked in the 3 spare pins IO15, IO33 and IO32 by adding wires to the bottom of the board as follows:

If the display board is fitted with a resistance based touch screen then this can be used by performing the modifications described here and the fork of the Adafruit library:

If you load a new copy of TFT_eSPI then it will overwrite your setups if they are kept within the TFT_eSPI folder. One way around this is to create a new folder in your Arduino library folder called "TFT_eSPI_Setups". You then place your custom setup.h files in there. After an upgrade simply edit the User_Setup_Select.h file to point to your custom setup file e.g.:

The library was intended to support only TFT displays but using a Sprite as a 1 bit per pixel screen buffer permits support for the Waveshare 2 and 3 colour SPI ePaper displays. This addition to the library is experimental and only one example is provided. Further examples will be added.

The first device in the series, the FT800, launched in 2013 and took the titles of British Engineering Excellence ‘Electronic Product of the Year’ and Elektra ‘Digital Semiconductor of the year’, within the same year, where the product was described as providing ‘versatility and innovation’ and ‘the technological capabilities with efficiencies that differentiate it from its competitors’. With its revolutionary EVE technology deploying an object-oriented approach, the series is capable of simplifying the implementation of intelligent displays – reducing bill of material costs, power budget, board space, and development time.

This new library is a standalone library that contains the TFT driver as well as the graphics functions and fonts that were in the GFX library. This library has significant performance improvements when used with an UNO (or ATmega328 based Arduino) and MEGA.

Examples are included with the library, including graphics test programs. The example sketch TFT_Rainbow_one shows different ways of using the font support functions. This library now supports the "print" library so the formatting features of the "print" library can be used, for example to print to the TFT in Hexadecimal, for example:

To use the F_AS_T performance option the ILI9341 based display must be connected to an MEGA as follows:MEGA +5V to display pin 1 (VCC) and pin 8 (LED) UNO 0V (GND) to display pin 2 (GND)

TFT_ILI9341 library updated on 1st July 2015 to version 12, this latest version is attached here to step 8:Minor bug when rendering letter "T" in font 4 without background fixed

The ST7789 TFT module contains a display controller with the same name: ST7789. It’s a color display that uses SPI interface protocol and requires 3, 4 or 5 control pins, it’s low cost and easy to use. This display is an IPS display, it comes in different sizes (1.3″, 1.54″ …) but all of them should have the same resolution of 240×240 pixel, this means it has 57600 pixels. This module works with 3.3V only and it doesn’t support 5V (not 5V tolerant).

The ST7789 display module shown in project circuit diagram has 7 pins: (from right to left): GND (ground), VCC, SCL (serial clock), SDA (serial data), RES (reset), DC (or D/C: data/command) and BLK (back light).

As mentioned above, the ST7789 TFT display controller works with 3.3V only (power supply and control lines). The display module is supplied with 3.3V (between VCC and GND) which comes from the Arduino board.

To connect the Arduino to the display module, I used voltage divider for each line which means there are 4 voltage dividers. Each voltage divider consists of 2.2k and 3.3k resistors, this drops the 5V into 3V which is sufficient.

The first library is a driver for the ST7789 TFT display which can be installed from Arduino IDE library manager (Sketch —> Include Library —> Manage Libraries …, in the search box write “st7789” and install the one from Adafruit).

I don"t actually have a display at present. I purchased a 7in one some months ago. It had an LT7381 controller and was supplied with a Hunda LT7381 library for Arduino and some basic display design software. However, I couldn"t get the hardware to work despite it being described as Arduino compatible. As it turned out, it also didn"t display anything when used with the supplied USB adaptor and design software for the PC, so it may have been faulty anyway. I posted something at the time but the controller is quite new and there was not much feedback. I ended up sending it back and getting a refund although it still cost me to send it back to china.

The reason I posted was because the project is now at the stage where the LCD display really needs to be added and I intended to get advice before making another purchase. In the meantime I have been working on the project using a 20x4 display.

Thank you for that information. Since I am using an ESP8266, it sounds like I need to look for a board that uses SPI for the display. From what I can tell, it seems that some of the cheap ones from china only use SPI only for the SD card which further confuses things.

I don"t posses an Arduino shield which is why I was trying to ascertain whether I need something like that. What is their purpose? A lot of photos show the display plugged into one and then into typically a Mega 2560. I don"t understand what the purpose of the shield is? Is it just a convenient way to provide a means of fitting the board to an Arduino with level shifting? SPI needs only 4 wires. Can"t these be connected directly to the ESP SPI pins?

Thanks for the extensive library. I see you already used a ST7586S in one of your videos demonstrations. I have a similar display but it draws 2 pixel per byte and not 3 pixel as the datasheet . Can you help me with this ? below is the initialization code i used

Hi! Were you able to get 3 pixels per byte?Hi Andrey, yes! In order to use this feature you have to use a “read – modify – write” pset function which reads data from the display, changes it and writes it back to the display. BR Achim

Hi! I have the same problem with the pixels. Could you show me a example about the use of the "Read Modify Write" function to write 3 pixels per byte?. I did not understand this command on the datasheet. When this command is enabled, is it necessary to do the algorithm on the diagram at page 37 of the datasheet every time when i want write data to the display? Or is it only necessary one time on the initialization process?

I find this library somewhat intriging. Do you have any working Arduino examples, and if it is not asking too much – something for a SSD1322 based display?

Can you provide code for the dsPic33 with the SSD1322 driver? That is the exact setup I am trying to run for a project of mine. I am using the Blue Display. Thank you so much!!!!Hi Mike,

AchimAs we"re already talking Microchip, what would be necessary to get a Pic32MZ2048ECH144 and HX8238-A based display to use µGUI?First of all you have to connect the TFT DPI Interface to the PIC. Then initialize the internal DPI Interface of the PIC. After that you only have to write a Pset-function to use uGUI. Hope this helps! By the way: which hardware platform do you use? BR Achim

I really like the design of your code. I was able to get it up and running on a PSOC5 with no problems on a 128×64 newhaven display in so little time I was surprised!

Have you thought about how to implement screen rotation? I am wondering how to change to portrait from landscape on my display (at compile time, not run time)

I"m also interested in getting a 1.5" OLED SSD1351 running on a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B. In fact, I want to run 3 displays from that Pi (without exhausting the GPIO either–it"ll be running 3 sensors too).

At first i would like to congratulate you for this great library/project. I tested it in the STM32F429 Discovery and liked a lot. So, I would ask if you are interested in creating an adaptation layer for an event manager based on RTOS services. I beleive that through RTOS semaphores, queues and timers it is possible to better manage the CPU resources. I started myself a GUI event handler, as you can see here:

Starting with your example of uGFX 3.0 on Stm32f429-Discovery (embd LCD removed) i have changed only screen dimensions to the ltdc.h in order to make it all work and so on it"s a really good result.

Can I use ugui with STM32F4-Discovery + ssd1963 fsmc module? I have ssd1963 library. I can run the screen but do not know how I could combine seamlessly with ugui. Can you help with this?Hi Mehmet,

Hi there i am after a oled display for a pure evoke flow radio and have been told it is a pmo 19301 and is 2.7" diagonaly my question is do you know where i can buy one of these units.

Nice job on the uGUI! I"m currently experimenting with it, I had an stm32f429 discovery board so could start right away with your example project in CoIDE.

We are using Tiny6410 stamp module. It is restricted to using only friendlyarm display. We need to interface resistive touchscreen display of 5 inch & 7 inch of our choice. Please give steps how we can use your library.

I tried, but I can not force to work my 240×128 display with T6963C controller . Could you please send me the code to this: 240×128 LCD | Driver: T6963C | Interface: 8080

I have a small display with no touchscreen. However I want to use windows with GUI buttons and use up/down buttons (physical buttons) to select GUI buttons on the screen (and use an enter button to simulate pressing a GUI button). Is it possible to do this with ugui, to select GUI buttons and generate GUI button clicks programmatically without toutchscreen?

Is there a sample project for STM32f7xx-Discovery also available?Hi, yes I’m going to write an example for the STM32F7. Unfortunately I’m very busy right now, so please be patient…

well, this is my first time using STM. i"m using stm32f407 by the way. i really want to use ugui with my stm and ssd1289. do you have any project example that i can use as refrence? it would be really helpful. thanks!Please have a look at the forum. Have you already downloaded my example projects? BR Achim

I"ve set it up on an STM32L100RCT6 with an 128×64 glcd, and everything works like a charm, except the UG_DrawLine() function, which seems to always draw a falling line, no matter how the arguments are arranged