stm32 spi tft display in stock

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.

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.

The use of PIO for SPI allows the RP2040 to be over-clocked (up to 250MHz works on my boards) in Earle"s board package whilst still maintaining high SPI clock rates.

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.

The library now supports the Raspberry Pi Pico with both the official Arduino board package and the one provided by Earle Philhower. The setup file "Setup60_RP2040_ILI9341.h" has been used for tests with an ILI9341 display. At the moment only SPI interface displays have been tested. SPI port 0 is the default but SPI port 1 can be specifed in the setup file if those SPI pins are used.

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).

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 STM32, ESP8266 and ESP32 types. 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 is only supported with the RP2040.

For other processors the generic only SPI interface displays are supported and slower non-optimised standard Arduino SPI functions are used by the library.

"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 (55MHz with STM32 and 40MHz with ESP8266). The MHS-3.5 inch RPi ILI9486 based display is also supported.

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.

If an ESP32 board has SPIRAM (i.e. PSRAM) fitted then Sprites will use the PSRAM memory and large full screen buffer Sprites can be created. Full screen Sprites take longer to render (~45ms for a 320 x 240 16 bit Sprite), so bear that in mind.

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 contains proportional fonts, different sizes can be enabled/disabled at compile time to optimise the use of FLASH memory. Anti-aliased (smooth) font files in vlw format stored in SPIFFS are supported. Any 16 bit Unicode character can be included and rendered, this means many language specific characters can be rendered to the screen.

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 example we provide is based on STM32F103RBT6, and the connection method provided is also the corresponding pin of STM32F103RBT6. If you need to transplant the program, please connect according to the actual pin.

ST7735S is a 132*162 pixel LCD, and this product is a 128*160 pixel LCD, so some processing has been done on the display: the display starts from the second pixel in the horizontal direction, and the first pixel in the vertical direction. Start to display, so as to ensure that the position corresponding to the RAM in the LCD is consistent with the actual position when displayed.

Note: Different from the traditional SPI protocol, the data line from the slave to the master is hidden since the device only has display requirement.

Framebuffer uses a video output device to drive a video display device from a memory buffer containing complete frame data. Simply put, a memory area is used to store the display content, and the display content can be changed by changing the data in the memory.

If you need to draw pictures, or display Chinese and English characters, we provide some basic functions here about some graphics processing in the directory RaspberryPi\c\lib\GUI\GUI_Paint.c(.h).

Set points of the display position and color in the buffer: here is the core GUI function, processing points display position and color in the buffer.

The fill color of a certain window in the image buffer: the image buffer part of the window filled with a certain color, usually used to fresh the screen into blank, often used for time display, fresh the last second of the screen.

Display time: in the image buffer,use (Xstart Ystart) as the left vertex, display time,you can choose Ascii visual character font, font foreground color, font background color.;

Note: Each character library contains different characters; If some characters cannot be displayed, it is recommended that you can refer to the encoding set ro used.

The demo is developed based on the HAL library. Download the demo, find the STM32 program file directory, and open the LCD_demo.uvprojx in the STM32\STM32F103RBT6\MDK-ARM directory to check the program.

For the screen, if you need to draw pictures, display Chinese and English characters, display pictures, etc., you can use the upper application to do, and we provide some basic functions here about some graphics processing in the directory STM32\STM32F103RB\User\GUI_DEV\GUI_Paint.c(.h)

Image buffer part of the window filling color: the image buffer part of the window filled with a certain color, generally as a window whitewashing function, often used for time display, whitewashing on a second

Display time: in the image buffer,use (Xstart Ystart) as the left vertex, display time,you can choose Ascii visual character font, font foreground color, font background color.

DEV_Config.cpp(.h): It is the hardware interface definition, which encapsulates the read and write pin levels, SPI transmission data, and pin initialization;

The hardware interface is defined in the two files DEV_Config.cpp(.h), and functions such as read and write pin level, delay, and SPI transmission are encapsulated.

For the screen, if you need to draw pictures, display Chinese and English characters, display pictures, etc., you can use the upper application to do, and we provide some basic functions here about some graphics processing in the directory GUI_Paint.c(.h)

Display time: in the image buffer,use (Xstart Ystart) as the left vertex, display time,you can choose Ascii visual character font, font foreground color, font background color.

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 a start sequence in order for this LCD to work. The “start sequence” includes many other sequences that 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 the System Workbench for STM32 for coding and building the code. After installing and open the program, go to the source code you have just downloaded and double click the .cproject file. It will automatically be open in your IDE. Then build the program by right click on the folder you just open (TFTLCD) and choose Build Project. Wait for it to finish and upload it to the board by right clicking the folder, choose Run As and then click Ac6 STM32 C/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 a 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.

The above example is just only for displaying black and white images. In order to show a color image, we need to a little bit different. First, go to this website to 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.

I am trying to interface with an SPI ILI9341 screen using an STM32 microcontroller. I know there are a whole lot of things that can go wrong with these interfaces, and I"ve spent an awful lot of time searching and solving problems. But I"m kind of at a loss as to why my display seems to succeed in its initialization, but refuses to display any colors.

Here are the commands that I"m sending - the "spi_write_[command|data]" methods just set D/C low or high respectively and then send a byte over the peripheral, and the commands/data are from several other libraries, mostly Adafruit"s. I"ve reviewed them several times and tried tweaking a few commands, including the SPI timing, but nothing seems to help.

Thanks for any help! I"ve verified that each pin"s signals are making it to the displays with an oscilloscope - even the Data/Command and CS pins - so I"m really out of ideas as to what could be going wrong.

I have a 7" TFT display with RA8875 from Waveshare (usable with SPI or parallel 16), and a 7" TFT with SSD1963 (parallel 16). You can see most of the TFT displays I have here: GxTFT/src/myTFTs at master · ZinggJM/GxTFT · GitHub. You can find links to the devices in these files, some are obsolete.

I need to check use of GxTFT with the official STM32 package. There is a potential issue with pin number parameters: pin numbers of analog capable pins are too high to be interpreted positive as int8_t. The issue is present in GxIO_SPI, affects use of displays with SPI connection. This is notfixed in GitHub - ZinggJM/GFX_TFT: TFT Display Classes based on GFX_ROOT and GFX_Extensions.

The pin number issue is present at a lot more places in my TFT libraries. Only GxEPD2 has been fixed so far. The issue is also present in Adafruit_GFX in Adafruit_SPITFT, see: