adafruit 1.44 color tft lcd free sample

2023-01-03 12:32:11

Hi guys, over the past few tutorials, we have been discussing TFT displays, how to connect and use them in Arduino projects, especially the 1.8″ Colored TFT display. In a similar way, we will look at how to use the 1.44″ TFT Display (ILI9163C) with the Arduino.

The ILI9163C based 1.44″ colored TFT Display, is a SPI protocol based display with a resolution of 128 x 128 pixels. It’s capable of displaying up to 262,000 different colors. The module can be said to be a sibling to the 1.8″ TFT display, except for the fact that it is much faster and has a better, overall cost to performance ratio when compared with the 1.8″ TFT display. Some of the features of the display are listed below;

TheTFT Display, as earlier stated, communicates with the microcontroller over SPI, thus to use it, we need to connect it to the SPI pins of the Arduino as shown in the schematics below.

Please note that the version of the display used for this tutorial is not available on fritzing which is the software used for the schematics, so follow the pin connection list below to further understand how each pin of the TFT display should be connected to the Arduino.

In order to allow the Arduino to work with the display, we need two Arduino libraries; the sumotoy TFT ILI9163C Arduino library which can be downloaded from this link and the popular Adafruit GFX Arduino library which we have used extensively in several tutorials. Download these libraries and install them in the Arduino IDE.

For today’s tutorial, we will be using the bigtest example which is one of the example codes that comes with the sumotoy ILI9163C Arduino library to show how to use the TFT display.

The example can be opened by going to File–>Examples–>TFT_ILI9163c–>bigtest as shown in the image below. It should be noted that this will only be available after the sumotoy library has been installed.

Next, we define some of the colors that will be used along with the corresponding hex values. If you’ve gone through any of our previous tutorials where we used the Adafruit GFX library, you would have noticed that this code contains a lot from the GFX library and it should be easier for you to follow.

Next, an object of the ILI9163c library named “display” was created with CS and DC parameter as inputs but due to the kind of display being used, we need to include the pin of the Arduino to which the A0 pin of the TFT display is connected which is D8.

adafruit 1.44 color tft lcd free sample

This lovely little display breakout is the best way to add a small, colorful and bright display to any project. Since the display uses 4-wire SPI to communicate and has its own pixel-addressable frame buffer, it can be used with every kind of microcontroller. Even a very small one with low memory and few pins available!

The 1.44" display has 128x128 color pixels. Unlike the low cost "Nokia 6110" and similar LCD displays, which are CSTN type and thus have poor color and slow refresh, this display is a true TFT! The TFT driver (ST7735R) can display full 16-bit color using our library code.

The breakout has the TFT display soldered on (it uses a delicate flex-circuit connector) as well as a ultra-low-dropout 3.3V regulator and a 3/5V level shifter so you can use it with 3.3V or 5V power and logic. We also had a little space so we placed a microSD card holder so you can easily load full color bitmaps from a FAT16/FAT32 formatted microSD card. The microSD card is not included, but you can pick one up here.

adafruit 1.44 color tft lcd free sample

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The TFT driver (ST7735R) can display full 16-bit color using our library code.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe breakout has the TFT display soldered on (it uses a delicate flex-circuit connector) as well as a ultra-low-dropout 3.3V regulator and a 3\/5V level shifter so you can use it with 3.3V or 5V power and logic. We also had a little space so we placed a microSD card holder so you can easily load full color bitmaps from a FAT16\/FAT32 formatted microSD card. The microSD card is not included, \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/www.adafruit.com\/products\/102\" target=\"_blank\"\u003ebut you can pick one up here\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOf course, we wouldn"t just leave you with a datasheet and a \"good luck!\" - \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/learn.adafruit.com\/adafruit-1-44-color-tft-with-micro-sd-socket\" target=\"_blank\"\u003ewe"ve written a full open source graphics library that can draw pixels, lines, rectangles, circles, text and bitmaps as well as example code and a wiring tutorial\u003c\/a\u003e. 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Since the display uses 4-wire SPI to communicate and has its own pixel-addressable frame buffer, it can be used with every kind of microcontroller. Even a very small one with low memory and few pins available!\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe 1.44\" display has 128x128 color pixels. Unlike the low cost \"Nokia 6110\" and similar LCD displays, which are CSTN type and thus have poor color and slow refresh, this display is a true TFT! The TFT driver (ST7735R) can display full 16-bit color using our library code.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe breakout has the TFT display soldered on (it uses a delicate flex-circuit connector) as well as a ultra-low-dropout 3.3V regulator and a 3\/5V level shifter so you can use it with 3.3V or 5V power and logic. We also had a little space so we placed a microSD card holder so you can easily load full color bitmaps from a FAT16\/FAT32 formatted microSD card. The microSD card is not included, \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/www.adafruit.com\/products\/102\" target=\"_blank\"\u003ebut you can pick one up here\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOf course, we wouldn"t just leave you with a datasheet and a \"good luck!\" - \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/learn.adafruit.com\/adafruit-1-44-color-tft-with-micro-sd-socket\" target=\"_blank\"\u003ewe"ve written a full open source graphics library that can draw pixels, lines, rectangles, circles, text and bitmaps as well as example code and a wiring tutorial\u003c\/a\u003e. The code is written for Arduino but can be easily ported to your favorite microcontroller!\u003c\/p\u003e"}

adafruit 1.44 color tft lcd free sample

This is a small graphics library, specifically aimed at ATtiny microcontrollers, for the variety of small colour TFT displays available at low cost from suppliers like Adafruit, AliExpress, or Banggood:

It"s an updated version of my Tiny TFT Graphics Library. This latest version of the library supports both the classic ATtiny processors, such as the ATtiny85, and the new 0-series, 1-series, and 2-series ATtiny processors, such as the ATtiny402. Like the original library it allows you to plot points, draw lines, draw filled rectangles, and plot characters and text with an optional scale factor, in 16-bit colour.

This library supports TFT displays that use an SPI interface and require four pins to drive the display. This leaves one pin free on an 8-pin chip such as the ATtiny85 or ATtiny402. If you need more pins choose a larger chip, such as the ATtiny84 or ATtiny404.

Unlike my Compact TFT Graphics Library which uses standard Arduino SPI calls, this library uses direct I/O pin manipulations. This means that you can use any assignment of pins to the four I/O lines needed by the display, and makes it about twice as fast as one using SPI calls. I"ve also added support for some additional displays, so it now supports 16 different TFT displays.

This library will work with displays based on the ST7735 which supports a maximum display size of 162x132, or the ST7789 and ILI9340/1 which support a maximum display size of 320x240. It includes parameters for the following colour TFT displays:

* These Adafruit displays conveniently all have the same edge-connector layout, so you can make a prototyping board or PCB that will take any of them, such as my Universal TFT Display Backpack.

The Adafruit displays all include an LDO 3.3V regulator and logic-level translation, so can be safely interfaced to processors powered from either 5V or 3.3V.

The library will probably support other TFT displays that use the same ST7735, ST7789, ILI9340/1 driver chips, but you may need to experiment with the parameters to get the image scaled and centered correctly.

The display needs to be connected to the microcontroller via four I/O lines: MOSI, SCK, CS, and DC. You can use any pins for these, but they should all be in the same port. You need to specify the port pin numbers of the pins you are using at the start of the Tiny TFT Graphics Library listing.

The library will probably support other TFT displays that use the same driver chips, but you may need to experiment with the parameters to get the image scaled and centered correctly.

adafruit 1.44 color tft lcd free sample

This lovely little display is the best way to add a small, colorful display to any project. Since the display uses 4-wire SPI to communicate and has its own pixel-addressable frame buffer, it can be used with every kind of microcontroller. Even with very little memory and few pins available!

The 1.44 ″ display has 128 × 128 color pixels. Unlike the low cost “Nokia 6110” and similar LCD displays, which are CSTN type and thus have poor color and slow refresh, this display is a true TFT! The TFT driver (ST7735R) can display full 16-bit color using our library code.

The breakout has the TFT display soldered on (it uses a delicate flex-circuit connector) as well as a ultra-low-dropout 3.3V regulator and a 3 / 5V level shifter so you can use it with 3.3V or 5V power and logic . We also had a little space so we placed a microSD card holder so you can easily load full color bitmaps from a FAT16 / FAT32 formatted microSD card. The microSD card is not included, but you can pick one up here.

adafruit 1.44 color tft lcd free sample

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).

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.

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).

adafruit 1.44 color tft lcd free sample

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 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.

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:

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 library now provides a "viewport" capability. See "Viewport_Demo" and "Viewport_graphicstest" examples. When a viewport is defined graphics will only appear within that window. The coordinate datum by default moves to the top left corner of the viewport, but can optionally remain at top left corner of TFT. The GUIslice library will make use of this feature to speed up the rendering of GUI objects (see #769).

"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.

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 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.

Drawing graphics into a sprite is very fast, for those familiar with the Adafruit "graphicstest" example, this whole test completes in 18ms in a 160x128 sprite. Examples of sprite use can be found in the "examples/Sprite" folder.

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).

The library is based on the Adafruit GFX and Adafruit driver libraries and the aim is to retain compatibility. Significant additions have been made to the library to boost the speed for the different processors (it is typically 3 to 10 times faster) and to add new features. The new graphics functions include different size proportional fonts and formatting features. There are lots of example sketches to demonstrate the different features and included functions.

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.

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).

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.

adafruit 1.44 color tft lcd free sample

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