arduino tft lcd calculator brands

In this tutorial we are going to learn how to make Arduino Calculator with TFT Display. Our calculator’s precision is up to two decimal points and you can add, subtract, multiply or divide up to 4 digit per number. Obviously you can add more number of digits if you want.

You have to just add number by touching on screen, maximum digits per number allowable is 4 and then select operator and add again second number, press on equal. Finally, you got the result on screen, Congratulation you have made your own Arduino Calculator with TFT Display.

Arduino development boards always help us to build a project easily and make it look more attractive. Programming an LCD with touch functionality may sound like a complicated task, but it can be made very easy by using Arduino libraries and extension modules. In this project, we will use a 3.5" Arduino TFT LCD to build an Arduino touchscreen calculator that can perform all basic calculations such as addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication.

Before we dive into the project, it is important to understand how this 3.5" TFT LCD module works and the model number used. Let"s take a look at the pinout of this 3.5" TFT LCD module.

As you can see, the module has 28 pins and fits perfectly into any Arduino Uno / Arduino Mega development board. The table below gives a description of these pins.

As you can see, the module pins can be divided into four main categories, namely LCD command pins, LCD data pins, SD card pins and power pins, we don"t need to know the details of how these pins work because they will be implemented by the Arduino library.

You can also find an SD card slot on the bottom of the module shown above. This slot can be used to load an SD card with bmp image files, which can be displayed on our TFT LCD screen using the Arduino program.

Another important thing to keep in mind is your interface IC. there are many types of TFT modules on the market from Adafruit TFT LCD modules to cheap Chinese clones. A program that fits an Adafruit expansion board may not be the same for a Chinese expansion board. Therefore, it is very important to know which type of LCD LCD you are holding. This detail must be obtained from the supplier. If you have a cheap clone like mine, then it most likely uses driver IC ili9341. You can follow the official Arduino tutorial to try some basic example programs to get familiar with this LCD.

If you intend to use the touch screen function of a TFT LCD module, it must be calibrated to work properly. An LCD screen that is not calibrated is unlikely to work properly; for example, you may touch in one place and the TFT may think it is touching somewhere else. These calibration results are not the same for all boards, so you will have to do this work yourself.

The best way to calibrate is to use a calibration sample program (with a library) or use a serial monitor to detect your errors. But for this project, calibration should not be a big issue due to the large size of the buttons, and I will also explain how to calibrate your LCD in the programming section below.

The 3.5" TFT LCD is a great Arduino expansion board. You can push the LCD directly onto the top of the Arduino Uno and have it match the pins perfectly and slide them in. However, for safety reasons, the programming terminals of the Arduino UNO must use small insulating tape in case the terminals come into contact with your TFT LCD screen. the LCD assembled to the UNO development board looks like the following.

We use the SPFD5408 library to ensure that the arduino calculator code works properly. This is a modified Adafruit library that works seamlessly with our LCD TFT module. You can view the full program at the end of this article.

Now, open the Arduino IDE and select Sketch -> Include Librarey -> Add .ZIP library. a browser window will open to navigate to the ZIP file and click "OK". If successful, you should notice "Library added to your Libraries" in the bottom left corner of your Arduino.

Now you can use the following code in the Arduino IDE and upload it to Arduino UNO to get the touchscreen calculator working. Further down the page, I"ll explain the code in small segments.

As mentioned before, we need to calibrate the LCD to make it work properly, but don"t worry the values given here are almost universal. The variables TS_MINX, TS_MINY, TS_MAXX and TS_MAXY determine the calibration of the screen. If you feel that the calibration is not ideal, you can make a slight change.

As we know, TFT LCD screens can display many colors, all of which must be entered as hexadecimal values. To make it more readable, we assign these values to a variable as shown below.

Okay, now we can move on to the programming part. This program involves three parts. One is to create a user interface for the calculator using buttons and displays. Then, detect the buttons based on user touch and finally calculate the results and display them. Let"s go through them one by one.

Here you can get creative to design the user interface of the calculator. I simply made the basic layout of the calculator with 16 buttons and a display unit. You must build the design as if you were drawing something on an MS drawing board. The added libraries will allow you to draw lines, rectangles, circles, characters, strings and more in any of the preferred colors. You can learn about the available features from this article.

The final step is to calculate the results and display them on the TFT LCD screen. The arduino calculator can only perform two numeric operations. These two numbers are named as variables "Num1" and "Num2". The variable "Number" is given and taken from Num1 and Num2, and the result is obtained.

The process of working with this Arduino touch screen calculator is very simple. You need to upload the following code to the Arduino development board and then power it up. At this point, a calculator will be displayed on the LCD screen.

After uploading the code you"ll able to see the calculator running in your display as mine and now you can perform basic mathematics calculations on this. So have fun making your own calculator with Arduino UNO.

Arduino has always helped to build projects easily and make them look more attractive.  Programming an LCD screen with touch screen option might sound as a complicated task, but the Arduino libraries and shields had made it really easy. In this project we will use a 2.4” Arduino TFT LCD screen to build our own Arduino Touch Screen calculator that could perform all basic calculations like Addition, Subtraction, Division and Multiplication.

Before we actually dive into the project it is important to know, how this 2.4” TFT LCD Module works and what are the types present in it. Let us take a look at the pinouts of this 2.4” TFT LCD screen module.

As you can see there are 28 pins which will perfectly fit into any Arduino Uno / Arduino Mega Board. A small classification of these pins is given in the table below.

As you can see the pins can be classified in to four main classifications such as LCD Command Pins, LCD Data Pins, SD Card Pins and Power Pins, We need not know much about the detailed working of these pins since they will be take care by our Arduino Library.

You can also find an SD card slot at the bottom of the module shown above, which can be used to load an SD card with bmp image files, and these images can be displayed in our TFT LCD screen using the Arduino Program.

Another important thing to note is your Interface IC. There are many types of TFT modules available in the market starting from the original Adafruit TFT LCD module to cheap Chinese clones. A program which works perfectly for your Adafruit shield might not work the same for Chinese breakout boards. So, it is very important to know which types of LCD display your are holding in hand. This detail has to be obtained from the vendor. If you are having a cheap clone like mine then it is most probably using the ili9341 driver IC.You can follow this TFT LCD interfacing with Arduino tutorial to try out some basic example programs and get comfortable with the LCD screen. Also check out our other TFT LCD projects with Arduino here:

If you planning to use the touch screen function of your TFT LCD module, then you have to calibrate it to make it work properly.  A LCD screen without calibration might work unlikely, for instance you might touch at one place and the TFT might respond for a touch at some other place. These calibrations results will not be similar for all boards and hence you are left on your own to do this.

The 2.4” TFT LCD screen is a perfect Arduino Shield. You can directly push the LCD screen on top of the Arduino Uno and it will perfectly match with the pins and slid in through. However, as matters of safety cover the Programming terminal of your Arduino UNO with a small insulation tape, just in case if the terminal comes in contact with your TFT LCD screen. The LCD assembled on UNO will look something like this below.

We are using the SPFD5408 Library to get this arduino calculator code working. This is a modified library of Adafruit and can work seamlessly with our LCD TFT Module. You can check the complete program at the end of this Article.

Now, open Arduino IDE and select Sketch -> Include Librarey -> Add .ZIP library. A browser window will open navigate to the ZIP file and click “OK”. You should notice “Library added to your Libraries” on the bottom-left corner of Arduino, if successful. A detailed guide to do the same is given in the Interfacing Tutorial.

Now, you can use the code below in your Arduino IDE and upload it to your Arduino UNO for the Touch Screen Calculator to work. Further down, I have explained the code into small segments.

As said earlier we need to calibrate the LCD screen to make it work as expected, but don’t worry the values given here are almost universal. The variables TS_MINX, TS_MINY, TS_MAXX, and TS_MAXY decide the calibration of the Screen. You can toy around them if you feel the calibration is not satisfactory.

As we know the TFT LCD screen can display a lot of colours, all these colours have to be entered in hex value. To make it more human readable we assign these values to a variable as shown below.

Okay now, we can get into the programming part. There are three sections involved in this program. One is creating a UI of a calculator with buttons and display. Then, detecting the buttons based on the users touch and finally calculating the results and display them. Let us get through them one by one.

This is where you can use a lot of your creativity to design the User Interface of calculator. I have simply made a basic layout of a calculator with 16 Buttons and one display unit. You have to construct the design just like you will draw something on MS paint. The libraries added will allow you to draw Lines, Rectangle, Circles, Chars, Strings and lot more of any preferred colour. You can understand the available functions from this article.

I have used the line and box drawing abilities to design an UI which looks very similar to the 90’s calculator.  Each box has a width and height of 60 pixels.

The final step is to calculate the result and display them on TFT LCD Screen. This arduino calculator can perform operation with 2 numbers only. These two numbers are named as variables “Num1” and “Num2”. The variable “Number” gives and takes value from Num1 and Num2 and also bears the result.

The working of this Arduino Touch Screen Calculator is simple. You have to upload the below given code on your Arduino and fire it up. You get the calculator displayed on your LCD screen.

Hi guys, welcome to today’s tutorial. Today, we will look on how to use the 1.8″ ST7735  colored TFT display with Arduino. The past few tutorials have been focused on how to use the Nokia 5110 LCD display extensively but there will be a time when we will need to use a colored display or something bigger with additional features, that’s where the 1.8″ ST7735 TFT display comes in.

The ST7735 TFT display is a 1.8″ display with a resolution of 128×160 pixels and can display a wide range of colors ( full 18-bit color, 262,144 shades!). The display uses the SPI protocol for communication and has its own pixel-addressable frame buffer which means it can be used with all kinds of microcontroller and you only need 4 i/o pins. To complement the display, it also comes with an SD card slot on which colored bitmaps can be loaded and easily displayed on the screen.

The schematics for this project is fairly easy as the only thing we will be connecting to the Arduino is the display. Connect the display to the Arduino as shown in the schematics below.

Due to variation in display pin out from different manufacturers and for clarity, the pin connection between the Arduino and the TFT display is mapped out below:

We will use two libraries from Adafruit to help us easily communicate with the LCD. The libraries include the Adafruit GFX library which can be downloaded here and the Adafruit ST7735 Library which can be downloaded here.

We will use two example sketches to demonstrate the use of the ST7735 TFT display. The first example is the lightweight TFT Display text example sketch from the Adafruit TFT examples. It can be accessed by going to examples -> TFT -> Arduino -> TFTDisplaytext. This example displays the analog value of pin A0 on the display. It is one of the easiest examples that can be used to demonstrate the ability of this display.

The second example is the graphics test example from the more capable and heavier Adafruit ST7735 Arduino library. I will explain this particular example as it features the use of the display for diverse purposes including the display of text and “animated” graphics. With the Adafruit ST7735 library installed, this example can be accessed by going to examples -> Adafruit ST7735 library -> graphics test.

The first thing, as usual, is to include the libraries to be used after which we declare the pins on the Arduino to which our LCD pins are connected to. We also make a slight change to the code setting reset pin as pin 8 and DC pin as pin 9 to match our schematics.

Next, we create an object of the library with the pins to which the LCD is connected on the Arduino as parameters. There are two options for this, feel free to choose the most preferred.

The complete code for this is available under the libraries example on the Arduino IDE. Don’t forget to change the DC and the RESET pin configuration in the code to match the schematics.

Uploading the code to the Arduino board brings a flash of different shapes and text with different colors on the display. I captured one and its shown in the image below.

TFT display is commonly used in many electronic applications, projects.One of the cheapest Arduino compatible TFT display is shown in the video.But one of th...

TFT display is commonly used in many electronic applications, projects.One of the cheapest Arduino compatible TFT display is shown in the video.But one of th...

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TFT LCD Basic Knowledge | TFT Wide Viewing Angle Technologies | Sunlight Readable TFT LCD | TFT vs. IPS Display | LCD Controller Datasheet | TFT Controller Sample Codes | Electro-Optical Characteristics

With how fast technology changes, constantly learning and staying open-minded helps us stay on top of our game especially when we’re striving to be the best in our field. Brush up on your LCD knowledge with us!

STONE Technologies is a proud manufacturer of superior quality TFT LCD modules and LCD screens. The company also provides intelligent HMI solutions that perfectly fit in with its excellent hardware offerings.

STONE TFT LCD modules come with a microcontroller unit that has a 1GHz Cortex-A8 CPU. Such a module can easily be transformed into an HMI screen. Simple hexadecimal instructions can be used to control the module through the UART port. Furthermore, you can seamlessly develop STONE TFT LCD color user interface modules and add touch control, features to them.

Becoming a reputable TFT LCD manufacturer is no piece of cake. It requires a company to pay attention to detail, have excellent manufacturing processes, the right TFT display technology, and have a consumer mindset.

Now, we list down 10 of the best famous LCD manufacturers globally. We’ll also explore why they became among the top 10 LCD display Manufacturers in the world.

LG Display is a leading manufacturer of thin-film transistor liquid crystal displays (TFT-LCD) panels, OLED, and flexible displays.LG Display began developing TFT-LCD in 1987 and currently offers Display panels in a variety of sizes and specifications using different cutting-edge technologies (IPS, OLED, and flexible technology).

With innovative and differentiated technologies, QINNOOptoelectronics provides advanced display integration solutions, including 4K2K ultra-high resolution, 3D naked eye, IGZO, LTPS, AMOLED, OLED, and touch solutions. Qinnooptoelectronics sets specifications and leads the market. A wide range of product line is across all kinds of TFT LCD panel modules, touch modules, for example, TV panel, desktop and laptop computer monitor with panels, small and medium scale “panels, medical, automotive, etc., the supply of cutting-edge information and consumer electronics customers around the world, for the world TFT – LCD (thin-film transistor liquid crystal display) leading manufacturers.

AU Optronics Co., LTD., formerly AU Optronics Corporation, was founded in August 1996. It changed its name to AU Optronics after its merger with UNIOPtronics in 2001. Through two mergers, AU has been able to have a full range of generations of production lines for panels of all sizes.Au Optronics is a TFT-LCD design, manufacturing, and r&d company. Since 2008, au Optronics has entered the green energy industry, providing customers with high-efficiency solar energy solutions.

Sharp has been called the “father of LCD panels”.Since its founding in 1912, Sharp developed the world’s first calculator and LIQUID crystal display, represented by the living pencil, which was invented as the company name. At the same time, Sharp is actively expanding into new areas to improve people’s living standards and social progress. Made a contribution.

BYD IT products and businesses mainly include rechargeable batteries, plastic mechanism parts, metal parts, hardware electronic products, cell phone keys, microelectronics products, LCD modules, optoelectronics products, flexible circuit boards, chargers, connectors, uninterruptible power supplies, DC power supplies, solar products, cell phone decoration, cell phone ODM, cell phone testing, cell phone assembly business, notebook computer ODM, testing and manufacturing and assembly business, etc.

Tianma microelectronics co., LTD., founded in 1983, the company focus on smartphones, tablets, represented by high order laptop display market of consumer goods and automotive, medical, POS, HMI, etc., represented by professional display market, and actively layout smart home, intelligent wear, AR/VR, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and other emerging markets, to provide customers with the best product experience.IN terms of technology, the company has independently mastered leading technologies such as LTPS-TFT, AMOLED, flexible display, Oxide-TFT, 3D display, transparent display, and in-cell/on-cell integrated touch control. TFT-LCD key Materials and Technologies National Engineering Laboratory, national enterprise Technology Center, post-doctoral mobile workstation, and undertake national Development and Reform Commission, The Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and other major national thematic projects. The company’s long-term accumulation and continuous investment in advanced technology lay the foundation for innovation and development in the field of application.

This 2.8? TFT Touchscreen shield is designed especially for Arduino UNO/Mega2560. The shield can directly plug into the UNO/Mega2560 board. The TFT display uses SPI protocol for communication with the MCU. Library for Adafruit TFT touchscreen shield is compatible with it, which is easy to use. It has way more better and clear resolution than a B/W 128×64 display or a 16×2 lcd display. This display also has a resistive touchscreen attached to it, so you can detect a touch anywhere on the screen and this can also help take input via touch on screen. Meanwhile, this module supports mini SD card to expand storage and can display files from the same. The display can be used for various application with Arduino like displaying sensor data, plotting of graph using the data obtained, building a touch screen calculator with input being provided by touching screen and using Arduino for computation. The display can also be used with RPi via the SPI pins to be used as a screen. This could help display the GUI of RPi or even can be used to view the RPi?s camera output.

Wiring the LCD 16\u00d72 Keypad Shield on Arduino | 14core.comDFR0009 ESP32 DIYI0TArduino Touch Screen Calculator using TFT LCD Circuit Digest Calculator using arduino lcd and keypadTouch Screen TFT Shield for.

2.4 inch TFT Touch Screen LCD Module for Arduino has excellent vivid color contrast. You can Spice up your Arduino project with a beautiful large touchscreen.

I have a iteadstudio 2.4 tft touch shield that currently works with my Arduino Uno R3 board. I now want to get this shield working on the Arduino Mega 2560.

We need a shield because the TFT Touch screen works at 3.3V and the Arduino Mega outputs are 5 V. For the first example I have the HCSR04 ultrasonic sensor.

I have a iteadstudio 2.4 tft touch shield that currently works with my Arduino Uno R3 board. I now want to get this shield working on the Arduino Mega 2560.

I have a iteadstudio 2.4 tft touch shield that currently works with my Arduino Uno R3 board. I now want to get this shield working on the Arduino Mega 2560.

We need a shield because the TFT Touch screen works at 3.3V and the Arduino Mega outputs are 5 V. For the first example I have the HCSR04 ultrasonic sensor.

Arduino TFT LCD Touchscreen Calculator: Hi Guys in this instructables we will learn how to make a calculator using Arduino Uno with 3.5 TFT LCD Touchscreen.

Also due to the use of phosphors OLEDs suffer from screen burnin and there is currently no way to recycle OLED displays whereas LCD panels can be recycled.

That is the reason why Uno works out of box for SD access. ArduinoUnoR3Pinouts.png. On the other hand Mega 2560 SPI takes place on 50 51 and 52 as shown.

Arduino touch screen calculator using tft lcd display Lcd Arduino Arduino Programming Diy Electronics. Choose board. Save. Saved from circuitdigest.com.

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for 2.4 TFT LCD Display Shield Touch Panel Module 240320 for Arduino UNO Ili9341 at the best.

Oct 29 2016 Arduino Mega + 2.4 TFT LCD Shield + DHT11 Temperature and Humidity Displaying: Today I am going to show you how to use 2.4 TFT LCD shield.

ERTFT0243 is 2.4tft lcd module display in 240x320 resolution with parallel and serial spi interface.Optional touch panel.Idea for 8051arduinostm32avr.

2.4 TFT LCD Display Shield Touch Panel Module 240320 For Arduino UNO ILI9341 12.00. FOR SALE! 2.4 inch 2.4 TFT LCD Display Module with Touch Panel SD.

In this article, we will see a list of useful Arduino Shields, a special hardware that sits on top of Arduino and gives additional features to Arduino. I collected a list of unique and useful Arduino Shields which are mostly compatible with Arduino UNO.

Arduino Shields are add-on boards than can be plugged on top of an Arduino board and provided additional capabilities and functionalities to an Arduino Board. They have the same pin position as an Arduino Board and are usually designed to implement a specific function.

While it is easy to play around with Arduino by placing components on a breadboard, it is not a preferrable option to design a final product with breadboards.

With the help of Arduino Shields, Sensor Boards and other expansion boards, you can significantly reduce the complexity of the wiring the circuit and at the same time reduce the build time and construction process.

Perhaps the simplest of Arduino Shields is the Prototype Shield. It comes with a prototyping area, on which, you can solder the components, if necessary.

As the name suggests, an IO Expansion Shield allows you to connect several Analog and Digital IO devices to the Arduino without breadboard and soldering. There are headers for connecting 3-pin and 4-pin sensors. You can select the supply voltage for sensors between 3.3V and 5V.

If you are beginner, then the Multifunction Shield is a must have expansion board for Arduino if you want to quickly start programming without worrying about wiring the circuits. It contains 4 LEDs, 3 Push Buttons, a 10 kΩ Potentiometer, a Piezo Buzzer as the basic IO devices.

One of the popular Arduino Shields is the LCD Shield. It is built around the famous 1602 Character LCD (16×2 LCD Module). It contains a 16×2 LCD Display with White characters and Blue backlight. The shield also contains 6 Push Buttons of which 1 is the Reset button and the other 5 are for user application like LEFT, RIGHT, UP, DOWN and SELECT.

The LCD is connected to Arduino through pins D4 – D10 using 4-bit mode. You can also control the backlight (D10). Another beautiful implementation is the way the 5 push buttons are connected using only one Analog IN pin.

If you want to build robots and cars using Arduino, then a Motor Driver is an important component. Fortunately, there are several Motor Driver Shields for Arduino to reduce design time and complexity. The most popular one is the L293D Motor Shield. As the name suggests, it contains the famous L293D Motor Driver IC.

Controlling Robots and RC Cars with a Joystick is a fun little project on its own. A Joystick Module is a tricky one as it is not breadboard friendly. So, using a Joystick Shield on top of your Arduino Board changes the “game” completely (pun intended). There are several types of Joystick Shields but the one I present here is a complete package.

If you want control mains powered devices using Arduino, then you use a Relay Module in your project. A Relay Shield is an Arduino Expansion Board consisting of 4 Mechanical Relay Modules with four dedicated terminal connectors for each relay.

To incorporate Touchpad in your Arduino Project, you can use the Capacitive Touch Pad Shield. It consists of 9 Capacitive Touch Pads interface through MPR121 IC, Proximity Capacitive Touch Sensor Controller.

If you are building a Robotic Arm or a Hexapod Robot with lot of Servo Motors, then the next Arduino Shield is just for you. It is a 16-Channel, 12-bit PWM Servo Shield for Arduino.

Using a GSM/GPRS Shield, you can connect your Arduino Board to a GSM Network. The GSM/GPRS Shield allows you to make / answer calls, send / receive messages (SMS), connect to internet through GPRS.

HC-05 Bluetooth Module is a very popular communication modules for Arduino. There are Arduino Shields with Bluetooth Modules on then to enable Bluetooth Communication over serial interface.

Another popular shield in the Arduino Community is the Ethernet Shield. This particular Ethernet Shield is based on W5100 Ethernet Controller from Wiznet. Connect an ethernet cable to the RJ-45 Jack and you can control Arduino from the Internet.

The impact of ESP8266 on DIY Community is immeasurable. It is a small module with built-in Wi-Fi for wireless connectivity of Arduino. The combination of Arduino and ESP8266 is a major contributor to the DIY IoT Projects. There are Wi-Fi shields for Arduino to easily integrate ESP2666 (or any other Wi-Fi Controller) to an Arduino Board.

No need for soldering or breadboard as this Wi-Fi Shield simply plugs into an existing Arduino Board and communicated over Serial Interface. There is also a microSD Card slot on-board for data storage.

The VS1053 MP3 Decoder based MP3 Shields for are Arduino are a great way to add Music touch to your DIY Project. The VS1053 MP3 Decoder IC is an decode several audio formats like Ogg Vorbis, MP3, AAC, WMA, MIDI.

VS1053 MP3 Player Shield also consists of an microSD Card Slot so that it is easy to store and play audio from an SD Card. There is a 3.5mm headphone jack and the shield communicates with Arduino over SPI Interface.

This is a fun little shield to a small colour display to Arduino. The Colour TFT Shield consists of a 1.8” TFT LCD screen with a resolution of 160×128 pixels. This particular display is controlled by ST7735 TFT Driver IC which can display 18-bit colours.

A Touchscreen Module is a great addition to your Arduino Project. A TFT Touchscreen LCD Shield is the easy way to start with touch screen. Although touch screen modules come in various dimensions, a 2.4” LCD is quite popular.

This LCD supports a resolution of 320×240 pixels. There are many LCD Controllers but SPFD5408 is a popular one. The shield also contains a microSD card slot.

Adding a microSD Card to your Arduino Project can be very useful in data logging and other similar applications. A microSD Shield enable you to add a microSD card to your Arduino Board.

The Xbee Shield for Arduino is a great way simplify the process of adding Xbee Modules to your Arduino Project. These shields are designed to support different wireless networks like Zigbee, Bluetooth Low Energy, IEEE 802.15.4, etc.

A GPS Shield with Data Logger consists of a GPS Receiver Module and a microSD Card Slot on-board. The GPS Module interfaces with Arduino over serial communication while the microSD card is connected to the SPI Pins.

You can implement speed monitoring, position tracking and other similar application using a GPS Logger Shield and an Arduino UNO board. There are several GPS Modules like GP3906, Neo-6M, REB-4216 etc.

PN532 NFC Controller based NFC/RFID Shield is a perfect board for adding 13.56 MHz RFID or NFC functionality to your Arduino applications. The shield is compatible with SPI, I2C and SPI Communication interfaces.

As the name suggests, an USB Host Shield gives your Arduino board USB Host capabilities. This USB host shield consists of all the digital and analog circuitry to enable full-speed USB peripheral/host with your Arduino UNO.

The MQ2 Gas Sensor is a very useful module to implement safety related applications. An MQ2 Smoke Sensor Shield will be perfect for your Arduino Board to detect Smoke, LPG, Carbon Monoxide and other toxic gases.

Digital FM Radio Shield for Arduino enable you to listen to FM stations using your Arduino Board. You can digitally control the stations, receive Radio data system (RDS) information like artist song and read the strength of the signal using this shield.

If we want a long distance, no interference and reliable communication, especially in noisy industrial environment, then RS484 is the best choice. A fully isolated RS485 Shield for Arduino can be used for professional application as it provides galvanic isolation between the RS485 Bus and the Arduino.

Addressable LEDs are awesome. Whether it is an Arduino project or a new PC build, adding LEDs with customisable colours is always a delight. NeoPixel, a brand of Addressable LEDs (based on WS2812B) from Adafruit, are very popular RGB LEDs in the market.

Even though it is considered an antique protocol, the MIDI Communication Protocol allows you to control music synthesizers, sequencers, samplers and other music related devices. Using a MIDI Shield you can build Arduino based MIDI Interface System.

If you want to add power backup to your Arduino Project, then Energy Shield is the way to go. This shield is based on LiPo Battery power shield, which will charge the battery if external power is available but switches to battery power in case the external power is disconnected.

Interfacing camera with a Microcontroller board like Arduino is always a challenging task as the camera is a memory intensive module. But the Camera Shield for Arduino by ArduCam simplifies this task with a easy to use camera and simple user interface.

This article gave an overview of some of the commonly used Arduino Shields in the DIY community. This list of Arduino Shields is quite small compared to plethora of shields and expansion boards available in the market. I will add more shields in the future.

Adafruit_ST7735 is the library we need to pair with the graphics library for hardware specific functions of the ST7735 TFT Display/SD-Card controller.

In the file dialog select the downloaded ZIP file and your library will be installed automatically. This will automatically install the library for you (requires Arduino 1.0.5 or newer). Restarting your Arduino software is recommended as it will make the examples visible in the examples menu.

The easiest way to remedy this is by extracting the GitHub ZIP file. Place the files in a directory with the proper library name (Adafruit_GFX, Adafruit_ST7735 or SD) and zip the folder (Adafruit_GFX, Adafruit_ST7735.zip, SD.zip). Now the Arduino software can read and install the library automatically for you.

Basically, besides the obvious backlight, we tell the controller first what we are talking to with the CS pins. CS(TFT) selects data to be for the Display, and CS(SD) to set data for the SD-Card. Data is written to the selected device through SDA (display) or MOSI (SD-Card). Data is read from the SD-Card through MISO.

As mentioned before, the display has a SLOW and a FAST mode, each serving it’s own purpose. Do some experiments with both speeds to determine which one works for your application. Of course, the need of particular Arduino pins plays a role in this decision as well …

Low Speed display is about 1/5 of the speed of High Speed display, which makes it only suitable for particular purposes, but at least the SPI pins of the Arduino are available.

After connecting the display in Low Speed configuration, you can load the first example from the Arduino Software (“File” “Example” “Adafruit_ST7735” –  recommend starting with the “graphictest“).

You can name your BMP file “parrot.bmp” or modify the Sketch to have the proper filename (in “spitftbitmap” line 70, and in “soft_spitftbitmap” line 74).

#define SD_CS 4 // Chip select line for SD card#define TFT_CS 10 // Chip select line for TFT display#define TFT_DC 9 // Data/command line for TFT#define TFT_RST 8 // Reset line for TFT (or connect to +5V)

#define SD_CS 4 // Chip select line for SD card#define TFT_CS 10 // Chip select line for TFT display#define TFT_DC 9 // Data/command line for TFT#define TFT_RST 8 // Reset line for TFT (or connect to +5V)

To use this in your Arduino Sketch: The first 2 characters represent RED, the second set of two characters is for GREEN and the last 2 characters represent BLUE. Add ‘0x’ in front of each of these hex values when using them (‘0x’ designates a hexadecimal value).

Based on these functions, I did create a little demo to show what these functions do. Either download the file or just copy the code and paste it into an empty Arduino Sketch.

tft.print("Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Curabitur adipiscing ante sed nibh tincidunt feugiat. Maecenas enim massa, fringilla sed malesuada et, malesuada sit amet turpis. Sed porttitor neque ut ante pretium vitae malesuada nunc bibendum. Nullam aliquet ultrices massa eu hendrerit. Ut sed nisi lorem. In vestibulum purus a tortor imperdiet posuere. ");