arduino 2.4 tft lcd touch shield projects factory

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In this tutorial, you will learn how to use and set up 2.4″ Touch LCD Shield for Arduino. First, you’ll see some general information about this shield. And after learning how to set the shield up, you’ll see 3 practical projects.

The role of screens in electronic projects is very important. Screens can be of very simple types such as 7 Segment or character LCDs or more advanced models like OLEDs and TFT LCDs.

One of the most important features of this LCD is including a touch panel. If you are about to use the LCD, you need to know the coordinates of the point you touch. To do so, you should upload the following code on your Arduino board and open the serial monitor. Then touch your desired location and write the coordinates displayed on the serial monitor. You can use this coordination in any other project.

To display pictures on this LCD you should save the picture in 24bit BMP colored format and size of 240*320. Then move them to SD card and put the SD card in the LCD shield. we use the following function to display pictures. This function has 3 arguments; the first one stands for the pictures name, and the second and third arguments are for length and width coordinates of the top left corner of the picture.

If you want to display pictures without using an SD card, you can convert it to code and then display it. You can display even several photos sequentially without delay to create an animation. (Check this) But be aware that in this case, Arduino UNO may not be suitable (because of low processor speed). We recommend using the Arduino Mega or Arduino DUE.

The 2.4 ” tft lcd touch screen shield for Arduino can be used in a number of applications. However many of the shields available on the market are cloned versions which usually give many hobbyists hard time to use because they do not work properly with the common libraries for running TFT displays.

If you try uploading any of the examples in the Adafruit_GFX library for example the “graphicstest”, the lcd will just give a white screen. Nothing is displayed on the screen!

This problem is mainly due to using a newer version of the Adafruit GFX library. The 1.5.4 release of the Adafruit_GFX library broke compatibility with the Adafruit_TFTLCD library. So you have to roll back to Adafruit_GFX 1.5.3:

Another problem you may encounter with this tft lcd shield is the poor fuctioning of the touch screen. You may find the stylus pen is not well aligned with the content you are writing on the screen.

This is due to a bug in the TouchScreen library therefore you need to locate this library by following the path to where all the libraries for your Arduino IDE are stored.

First change it to return TSPoint(1023-x, 1023-y, z). Save the changes and then compile your code again and upload to check if the touch fuction is fine.

You can keep on adjusting the values of before x and y until you get an ideal point that works best for your tft lcd. Mine worked fine with return TSPoint(x, 1105-y, z)

Due to the limited processing power of the microprocessor in the Arduino, we need to store images in bmp format and they should be 320×240 pixels sizes.

The AZ-Delivery 2.4” TFT LCD Touch Display boasts 320x 240 pixels with 16-bit color. It has Touch capabilities, a built-in SD card drive, and plugs straight onto the top of an Arduino UNO or Mega. Amazon charges less than £11 for this device. It offers a major step up from the tiny SSD1306 128×64 monochrome display.

The TFT screen is much larger than the SSD1306 128×64 and much more colourful. The package includes an SD card reader on the underside and a stylus for accurate touch-screen control.

The underside of the board has labels on the pins. As the board is an Arduino shield, it will only fit on a UNO in one position. The SD card reader sits between USB and the power socket. It will also plug into and Arduino MEGA 2560. J1 and J2 fit into the digital pins, covering D0 to D13, while J3 and J4 fit into the analog and power pins.

I searched the Web for drivers and examples and found a great deal of praise for the TFT graphics, reports of problems with the Touch control and nothing about the SD card reader on this board.

In the end I installed several libraries (with all dependencies): Adafruit GFX, Adafruit TFTLCD, Adafruit TouchScreen, Adafruit ILI9341, MCUFRIEND_kbv and SPFD5408-master. (The last 2 are not essential but include some interesting examples). The SD library is included in the basic Arduino set.

I’ve used GFX with mono displays such as SSD1306 and soon got the TFT display working. The following script gives some idea about what it can do. I’ve included pixels, text (of varying sizes), lines, rectangles, triangles, squares, graphs, screen rotation, and text on a path. I was very impressed with the clarity, speed, brightness, and colors produced.

Normally, when setting the colour of an RGB LED you have a range of 0-255 (0-FF hex) for each RGB component which gives white = FFFFFF, red = FF000, green FF00 and blue = FF. This is 24-bit colour and takes 3 bytes.  224 gives 16,777,216 different colours. The TFT screen is a 16-bit colour device which can display 65,536 different colours – more than enough. Here the range is limited to 5 bits each for red and blue and 6 bits for green. (Our eyes are more sensitive to green so It gets the extra bit of accuracy.)

An obvious use for the SD reader is to log readings from sensors and display the results on the TFT display. Unfortunately,  the shield covers and uses most of the pins. The solution is to connect just the SD reader and power pins with jump leads which leaves plenty of pins to collect data from sensors.

Most Arduino users seldom use string manipulation. The documentation and a few simple examples of how to use strings are well scattered over the Web and difficult to find. The first sketch demonstrates how to create a file of 5 records/lines, each made up from an integer, a string, and a floating-point variable. The file is called datalog6.txt.

This is the part that often causes the most trouble with many owners giving up at this point. It may be because there are several different configurations of the pins used to connect to the touch layers of the screen on the many varied breakout boards and shields using this display. In this case four of the pins are used, at different times, to control both the graphics or the touch elements of the screen.

This is a resistive touch screen, rather than a capacitive one. Above the graphics, layers are two transparent resistive layers held apart by tiny dimples. One is connected at the top and bottom and the other at the sides. A potential difference is applied across them and when the stylus or a finger presses on the screen an electrical connection is made between the resistive layers.

As a final example here is a sketch which shows off the Touch screen with buttons, bar graphs and colours. The buttons allow the user to adjust the RGB mix to display all the possible colours available. If you find one you particularly like it displays the hex value of the 16-bit colour.

There is a small amount of jitter as the bar graph re-draws but overall, the shield works quickly and very well. After the screen has updated and waiting for a touch the image is steady, sharp, and bright. Once you have calibrated the touch device it is very accurate as demonstrated with the small (30×30 pixel buttons) and provides excellent, colorful graphics on a usefully large display.

I was very pleased with the quality of the display and the accuracy of the Touch device. It sits neatly and securely on a UNO or a MEGA 2560. With an SD card reader included it was excellent value and I will be making good use of it in the future.

Ever wanted to know how to make a simple drawing program on a LCD display, or are you curious about programming touch screens? Well, in this tutorial, we will be covering on how do you program a touchscreen display using the 2.4″ Touchscreen LCD sheild with Arduino Uno, which open up many possible applications which includes making a user friendly touch interface for making purchases, a simple touch-screen base remote control, and many more.

Hooking up the 2.4″ TFT LCD Touchscreen shield is realatively easy, since it is a Arduino shield. Just plug in the whole screen into the Arduino Uno, just note where the pins are located and connect the shield accordingly. There will be 2 parts in this tutoria, the first where you will test the functionality of the screen, and the next where you test the touch functionality of the screen.

For the graphics test of the 2.4″ screen, I used the sample sketch provided by the Adafruit TFTLCD library. The library can be downloaded here or here. (NOTE: You have to have the Adafruit GFX library installed before this library is installed, as the TFTLCD library uses the Adafruit GFX library for graphics. The library can be downloaded at https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-GFX-Library) A great thanks to Adafruit for their libraries.

Try uploading the example ‘graphictest’ sketch of the TFTLCD library. The screen should then be running the graphics test as shown above. If the screen displays nothing or displays only static, you may want to follow the steps taken below.

The modification I made in the example sketch is that I hard coded the LCD Driver, as for my case, the Arduino was unable to detect the LCD driver (and only produced noise on the screen).

Therefore, I set identifier variable as 0x9341 (located at line 60), which means that the shield is actually using a IL9341 LCD driver. Below are some useful links that may help if you encounter any difficulties:

This is the hardcoded sketch. Please upload the ‘graphictest’ example sketch of the TFTLCD library. If there is static or no display, you may need to modify the ‘identifier’ variable depending on which LCD driver you are using. Below is a sample code of the LCD Driver hard coded.// IMPORTANT: Adafruit_TFTLCD LIBRARY MUST BE SPECIFICALLY

Open & upload the ‘tftpaint’ example sketch from the TFTLCD library. (You may want to calibrate the screen first before using it. To do so, visit this post where I written a calibration code which can be used in this example. However, please note that certain parameters have to be changed for the calibration sketch to work with this 2.4″ screen.)

If the sketch does not run properly, you may want to do the following modifications. For my case, I need to modify a few parts, which includes:Hardcoding the LCD Driver

In this tutorial, you will learn how to use and set up 2.4″ Touch LCD Shield for Arduino. First, you’ll see some general information about this shield. And after learning how to set the shield up, you’ll see 3 practical projects.

The role of screens in electronic projects is very important. Screens can be of very simple types such as 7 Segment or character LCDs or more advanced models like OLEDs and TFT LCDs.

One of the most important features of this LCD is including a touch panel. If you are about to use the LCD, you need to know the coordinates of the point you touch. To do so, you should upload the following code on your Arduino board and open the serial monitor. Then touch your desired location and write the coordinates displayed on the serial monitor. You can use this coordination in any other project./*TFT LCD - TFT Touch CoordinateBased on Librery Examplemodified on 21 Feb 2019by Saeed Hosseinihttps://electropeak.com/learn/*/#include #include "TouchScreen.h"#define YP A2#define XM A3#define YM 8#define XP 9// For better pressure precision, we need to know the resistance// between X+ and X- Use any multimeter to read it// For the one we"re using, its 300 ohms across the X plateTouchScreen ts = TouchScreen(XP, YP, XM, YM, 300);void setup(void) {Serial.begin(9600);}void loop(void) {TSPoint p = ts.getPoint();if (p.z > ts.pressureThreshhold) {Serial.print("X = "); Serial.print(p.x);Serial.print("\tY = "); Serial.print(p.y);Serial.print("\tPressure = "); Serial.println(p.z);}delay(100);}

Displaying Text and Shapes on Arduino 2.4 LCD/*TFT LCD - TFT Simple drivingmodified on 21 Feb 2019by Saeed Hosseinihttps://electropeak.com/learn/*/#include #include #define LCD_CS A3#define LCD_CD A2#define LCD_WR A1#define LCD_RD A0#define LCD_RESET A4#define BLACK 0x0000#define BLUE 0x001F#define RED 0xF800#define GREEN 0x07E0#define CYAN 0x07FF#define MAGENTA 0xF81F#define YELLOW 0xFFE0#define WHITE 0xFFFF#define ORANGE 0xFD20#define GREENYELLOW 0xAFE5#define NAVY 0x000F#define DARKGREEN 0x03E0#define DARKCYAN 0x03EF#define MAROON 0x7800#define PURPLE 0x780F#define OLIVE 0x7BE0#define LIGHTGREY 0xC618#define DARKGREY 0x7BEFAdafruit_TFTLCD tft(LCD_CS, LCD_CD, LCD_WR, LCD_RD, LCD_RESET);void setup() {Serial.begin(9600);Serial.println(F("TFT LCD test"));#ifdef USE_ADAFRUIT_SHIELD_PINOUTSerial.println(F("Using Adafruit 2.4\" TFT Arduino Shield Pinout"));#elseSerial.println(F("Using Adafruit 2.4\" TFT Breakout Board Pinout"));#endifSerial.print("TFT size is ");Serial.print(tft.width());Serial.print("x");Serial.println(tft.height());tft.reset();uint16_t identifier = tft.readID();if (identifier == 0x9325) {Serial.println(F("Found ILI9325 LCD driver"));} else if (identifier == 0x9328) {Serial.println(F("Found ILI9328 LCD driver"));} else if (identifier == 0x7575) {Serial.println(F("Found HX8347G LCD driver"));} else if (identifier == 0x9341) {Serial.println(F("Found ILI9341 LCD driver"));} else if (identifier == 0x8357) {Serial.println(F("Found HX8357D LCD driver"));} else {Serial.print(F("Unknown LCD driver chip: "));Serial.println(identifier, HEX);Serial.println(F("If using the Adafruit 2.4\" TFT Arduino shield, the line:"));Serial.println(F(" #define USE_ADAFRUIT_SHIELD_PINOUT"));Serial.println(F("should appear in the library header (Adafruit_TFT.h)."));Serial.println(F("If using the breakout board, it should NOT be #defined!"));Serial.println(F("Also if using the breakout, double-check that all wiring"));Serial.println(F("matches the tutorial."));return;}tft.begin(identifier);Serial.println(F("Benchmark Time (microseconds)"));Serial.print(F("Screen fill "));Serial.println(FillScreen());delay(500);tft.setTextColor(YELLOW);tft.setCursor(70, 180);tft.setTextSize(1);tft.println("Electropeak");delay(200);tft.fillScreen(PURPLE);tft.setCursor(50, 170);tft.setTextSize(2);tft.println("Electropeak");delay(200);tft.fillScreen(PURPLE);tft.setCursor(20, 160);tft.setTextSize(3);tft.println("Electropeak");delay(500);tft.fillScreen(PURPLE);for (int rotation = 0; rotation < 4; rotation++) { tft.setRotation(rotation); tft.setCursor(0, 0); tft.setTextSize(3); tft.println("Electropeak"); delay(700); } delay(500); Serial.print(F("Rectangles (filled) ")); Serial.println(testFilledRects(YELLOW, MAGENTA)); delay(500); } void loop() { } unsigned long FillScreen() { unsigned long start = micros(); tft.fillScreen(RED); delay(500); tft.fillScreen(GREEN); delay(500); tft.fillScreen(BLUE); delay(500); tft.fillScreen(WHITE); delay(500); tft.fillScreen(MAGENTA); delay(500); tft.fillScreen(PURPLE); delay(500); return micros() - start; } unsigned long testFilledRects(uint16_t color1, uint16_t color2) { unsigned long start, t = 0; int n, i, i2, cx = tft.width() / 2 - 1, cy = tft.height() / 2 - 1; tft.fillScreen(BLACK); n = min(tft.width(), tft.height()); for (i = n; i > 0; i -= 6) {i2 = i / 2;start = micros();tft.fillRect(cx - i2, cy - i2, i, i, color1);t += micros() - start;// Outlines are not included in timing resultstft.drawRect(cx - i2, cy - i2, i, i, color2);}return t;}

Displaying BMP pictures/*This code is TFTLCD Library Example*/#include #include #include #include #define LCD_CS A3#define LCD_CD A2#define LCD_WR A1#define LCD_RD A0#define SD_CS 10Adafruit_TFTLCD tft(LCD_CS, LCD_CD, LCD_WR, LCD_RD, A4);void setup(){Serial.begin(9600);tft.reset();uint16_t identifier = tft.readID();if (identifier == 0x9325) {Serial.println(F("Found ILI9325 LCD driver"));} else if (identifier == 0x9328) {Serial.println(F("Found ILI9328 LCD driver"));} else if (identifier == 0x7575) {Serial.println(F("Found HX8347G LCD driver"));} else if (identifier == 0x9341) {Serial.println(F("Found ILI9341 LCD driver"));} else if (identifier == 0x8357) {Serial.println(F("Found HX8357D LCD driver"));} else {Serial.print(F("Unknown LCD driver chip: "));Serial.println(identifier, HEX);Serial.println(F("If using the Adafruit 2.4\" TFT Arduino shield, the line:"));Serial.println(F(" #define USE_ADAFRUIT_SHIELD_PINOUT"));Serial.println(F("should appear in the library header (Adafruit_TFT.h)."));Serial.println(F("If using the breakout board, it should NOT be #defined!"));Serial.println(F("Also if using the breakout, double-check that all wiring"));Serial.println(F("matches the tutorial."));return;}tft.begin(identifier);Serial.print(F("Initializing SD card..."));if (!SD.begin(SD_CS)) {Serial.println(F("failed!"));return;}Serial.println(F("OK!"));bmpDraw("pic1.bmp", 0, 0);delay(1000);bmpDraw("pic2.bmp", 0, 0);delay(1000);bmpDraw("pic3.bmp", 0, 0);delay(1000);}void loop(){}#define BUFFPIXEL 20void bmpDraw(char *filename, int x, int y) {File bmpFile;int bmpWidth, bmpHeight; // W+H in pixelsuint8_t bmpDepth; // Bit depth (currently must be 24)uint32_t bmpImageoffset; // Start of image data in fileuint32_t rowSize; // Not always = bmpWidth; may have paddinguint8_t sdbuffer[3 * BUFFPIXEL]; // pixel in buffer (R+G+B per pixel)uint16_t lcdbuffer[BUFFPIXEL]; // pixel out buffer (16-bit per pixel)uint8_t buffidx = sizeof(sdbuffer); // Current position in sdbufferboolean goodBmp = false; // Set to true on valid header parseboolean flip = true; // BMP is stored bottom-to-topint w, h, row, col;uint8_t r, g, b;uint32_t pos = 0, startTime = millis();uint8_t lcdidx = 0;boolean first = true;if ((x >= tft.width()) || (y >= tft.height())) return;Serial.println();Serial.print(F("Loading image ""));Serial.print(filename);Serial.println("\"");// Open requested file on SD cardif ((bmpFile = SD.open(filename)) == NULL) {Serial.println(F("File not found"));return;}// Parse BMP headerif (read16(bmpFile) == 0x4D42) { // BMP signatureSerial.println(F("File size: ")); Serial.println(read32(bmpFile));(void)read32(bmpFile); // Read & ignore creator bytesbmpImageoffset = read32(bmpFile); // Start of image dataSerial.print(F("Image Offset: ")); Serial.println(bmpImageoffset, DEC);// Read DIB headerSerial.print(F("Header size: ")); Serial.println(read32(bmpFile));bmpWidth = read32(bmpFile);bmpHeight = read32(bmpFile);if (read16(bmpFile) == 1) { // # planes -- must be "1"bmpDepth = read16(bmpFile); // bits per pixelSerial.print(F("Bit Depth: ")); Serial.println(bmpDepth);if ((bmpDepth == 24) && (read32(bmpFile) == 0)) { // 0 = uncompressedgoodBmp = true; // Supported BMP format -- proceed!Serial.print(F("Image size: "));Serial.print(bmpWidth);Serial.print("x");Serial.println(bmpHeight);// BMP rows are padded (if needed) to 4-byte boundaryrowSize = (bmpWidth * 3 + 3) & ~3;// If bmpHeight is negative, image is in top-down order.// This is not canon but has been observed in the wild.if (bmpHeight < 0) { bmpHeight = -bmpHeight; flip = false; } // Crop area to be loaded w = bmpWidth; h = bmpHeight; if ((x + w - 1) >= tft.width()) w = tft.width() - x;if ((y + h - 1) >= tft.height()) h = tft.height() - y;// Set TFT address window to clipped image boundstft.setAddrWindow(x, y, x + w - 1, y + h - 1);for (row = 0; row < h; row++) { // For each scanline...// Seek to start of scan line. It might seem labor-// intensive to be doing this on every line, but this// method covers a lot of gritty details like cropping// and scanline padding. Also, the seek only takes// place if the file position actually needs to change// (avoids a lot of cluster math in SD library).if (flip) // Bitmap is stored bottom-to-top order (normal BMP)pos = bmpImageoffset + (bmpHeight - 1 - row) * rowSize;else // Bitmap is stored top-to-bottompos = bmpImageoffset + row * rowSize;if (bmpFile.position() != pos) { // Need seek?bmpFile.seek(pos);buffidx = sizeof(sdbuffer); // Force buffer reload}for (col = 0; col < w; col++) { // For each column... // Time to read more pixel data? if (buffidx >= sizeof(sdbuffer)) { // Indeed// Push LCD buffer to the display firstif (lcdidx > 0) {tft.pushColors(lcdbuffer, lcdidx, first);lcdidx = 0;first = false;}bmpFile.read(sdbuffer, sizeof(sdbuffer));buffidx = 0; // Set index to beginning}// Convert pixel from BMP to TFT formatb = sdbuffer[buffidx++];g = sdbuffer[buffidx++];r = sdbuffer[buffidx++];lcdbuffer[lcdidx++] = tft.color565(r, g, b);} // end pixel} // end scanline// Write any remaining data to LCDif (lcdidx > 0) {tft.pushColors(lcdbuffer, lcdidx, first);}Serial.print(F("Loaded in "));Serial.print(millis() - startTime);Serial.println(" ms");} // end goodBmp}}bmpFile.close();if (!goodBmp) Serial.println(F("BMP format not recognized."));}// These read 16- and 32-bit types from the SD card file.// BMP data is stored little-endian, Arduino is little-endian too.// May need to reverse subscript order if porting elsewhere.uint16_t read16(File f) {uint16_t result;((uint8_t *)&result)[0] = f.read(); // LSB((uint8_t *)&result)[1] = f.read(); // MSBreturn result;}uint32_t read32(File f) {uint32_t result;((uint8_t *)&result)[0] = f.read(); // LSB((uint8_t *)&result)[1] = f.read();((uint8_t *)&result)[2] = f.read();((uint8_t *)&result)[3] = f.read(); // MSBreturn result;}

To display pictures on this LCD you should save the picture in 24bit BMP colored format and size of 240*320. Then move them to SD card and put the SD card in the LCD shield. we use the following function to display pictures. This function has 3 arguments; the first one stands for the pictures name, and the second and third arguments are for length and width coordinates of the top left corner of the picture.bmpdraw(“filename.bmp”,x,y);

Create A Paint App w/ Arduino 2.4 Touchscreen/*This code is TFTLCD Library Example*/#include #include #include #if defined(__SAM3X8E__)#undef __FlashStringHelper::F(string_literal)#define F(string_literal) string_literal#endif#define YP A3#define XM A2#define YM 9#define XP 8#define TS_MINX 150#define TS_MINY 120#define TS_MAXX 920#define TS_MAXY 940TouchScreen ts = TouchScreen(XP, YP, XM, YM, 300);#define LCD_CS A3#define LCD_CD A2#define LCD_WR A1#define LCD_RD A0#define LCD_RESET A4#define BLACK 0x0000#define BLUE 0x001F#define RED 0xF800#define GREEN 0x07E0#define CYAN 0x07FF#define MAGENTA 0xF81F#define YELLOW 0xFFE0#define WHITE 0xFFFFAdafruit_TFTLCD tft(LCD_CS, LCD_CD, LCD_WR, LCD_RD, LCD_RESET);#define BOXSIZE 40#define PENRADIUS 3int oldcolor, currentcolor;void setup(void) {Serial.begin(9600);Serial.println(F("Paint!"));tft.reset();uint16_t identifier = tft.readID();if(identifier == 0x9325) {Serial.println(F("Found ILI9325 LCD driver"));} else if(identifier == 0x9328) {Serial.println(F("Found ILI9328 LCD driver"));} else if(identifier == 0x7575) {Serial.println(F("Found HX8347G LCD driver"));} else if(identifier == 0x9341) {Serial.println(F("Found ILI9341 LCD driver"));} else if(identifier == 0x8357) {Serial.println(F("Found HX8357D LCD driver"));} else {Serial.print(F("Unknown LCD driver chip: "));Serial.println(identifier, HEX);Serial.println(F("If using the Adafruit 2.4\" TFT Arduino shield, the line:"));Serial.println(F(" #define USE_ADAFRUIT_SHIELD_PINOUT"));Serial.println(F("should appear in the library header (Adafruit_TFT.h)."));Serial.println(F("If using the breakout board, it should NOT be #defined!"));Serial.println(F("Also if using the breakout, double-check that all wiring"));Serial.println(F("matches the tutorial."));return;}tft.begin(identifier);tft.fillScreen(BLACK);tft.fillRect(0, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, RED);tft.fillRect(BOXSIZE, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, YELLOW);tft.fillRect(BOXSIZE*2, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, GREEN);tft.fillRect(BOXSIZE*3, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, CYAN);tft.fillRect(BOXSIZE*4, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, BLUE);tft.fillRect(BOXSIZE*5, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, MAGENTA);tft.drawRect(0, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, WHITE);currentcolor = RED;pinMode(13, OUTPUT);}#define MINPRESSURE 10#define MAXPRESSURE 1000void loop(){digitalWrite(13, HIGH);TSPoint p = ts.getPoint();digitalWrite(13, LOW);pinMode(XM, OUTPUT);pinMode(YP, OUTPUT);if (p.z > MINPRESSURE && p.z < MAXPRESSURE) {if (p.y < (TS_MINY-5)) {Serial.println("erase");tft.fillRect(0, BOXSIZE, tft.width(), tft.height()-BOXSIZE, BLACK);}p.x = map(p.x, TS_MINX, TS_MAXX, tft.width(), 0);p.y = map(p.y, TS_MINY, TS_MAXY, tft.height(), 0);if (p.y < BOXSIZE) {oldcolor = currentcolor;if (p.x < BOXSIZE) {currentcolor = RED;tft.drawRect(0, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, WHITE);} else if (p.x < BOXSIZE*2) {currentcolor = YELLOW;tft.drawRect(BOXSIZE, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, WHITE);} else if (p.x < BOXSIZE*3) {currentcolor = GREEN;tft.drawRect(BOXSIZE*2, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, WHITE);} else if (p.x < BOXSIZE*4) {currentcolor = CYAN;tft.drawRect(BOXSIZE*3, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, WHITE);} else if (p.x < BOXSIZE*5) {currentcolor = BLUE;tft.drawRect(BOXSIZE*4, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, WHITE);} else if (p.x < BOXSIZE*6) { currentcolor = MAGENTA; tft.drawRect(BOXSIZE*5, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, WHITE); } if (oldcolor != currentcolor) { if (oldcolor == RED) tft.fillRect(0, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, RED); if (oldcolor == YELLOW) tft.fillRect(BOXSIZE, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, YELLOW); if (oldcolor == GREEN) tft.fillRect(BOXSIZE*2, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, GREEN); if (oldcolor == CYAN) tft.fillRect(BOXSIZE*3, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, CYAN); if (oldcolor == BLUE) tft.fillRect(BOXSIZE*4, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, BLUE); if (oldcolor == MAGENTA) tft.fillRect(BOXSIZE*5, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, MAGENTA); } } if (((p.y-PENRADIUS) > BOXSIZE) && ((p.y+PENRADIUS) < tft.height())) {tft.fillCircle(p.x, p.y, PENRADIUS, currentcolor);}}}

Final NotesIf you want to display pictures without using an SD card, you can convert it to code and then display it. You can display even several photos sequentially without delay to create an animation. (Check this)But be aware that in this case, Arduino UNO may not be suitable (because of low processor speed). We recommend using the Arduino Mega or Arduino DUE.

In this Arduino touch screen tutorial we will learn how to use TFT LCD Touch Screen with Arduino. You can watch the following video or read the written tutorial below.

For this tutorial I composed three examples. The first example is distance measurement using ultrasonic sensor. The output from the sensor, or the distance is printed on the screen and using the touch screen we can select the units, either centimeters or inches.

The third example is a game. Actually it’s a replica of the popular Flappy Bird game for smartphones. We can play the game using the push button or even using the touch screen itself.

As an example I am using a 3.2” TFT Touch Screen in a combination with a TFT LCD Arduino Mega Shield. 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 HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor, then for the second example an RGB LED with three resistors and a push button for the game example. Also I had to make a custom made pin header like this, by soldering pin headers and bend on of them so I could insert them in between the Arduino Board and the TFT Shield.

Here’s the circuit schematic. We will use the GND pin, the digital pins from 8 to 13, as well as the pin number 14. As the 5V pins are already used by the TFT Screen I will use the pin number 13 as VCC, by setting it right away high in the setup section of code.

I will use the UTFT and URTouch libraries made by Henning Karlsen. Here I would like to say thanks to him for the incredible work he has done. The libraries enable really easy use of the TFT Screens, and they work with many different TFT screens sizes, shields and controllers. You can download these libraries from his website, RinkyDinkElectronics.com and also find a lot of demo examples and detailed documentation of how to use them.

After we include the libraries we need to create UTFT and URTouch objects. The parameters of these objects depends on the model of the TFT Screen and Shield and these details can be also found in the documentation of the libraries.

Next we need to define the fonts that are coming with the libraries and also define some variables needed for the program. In the setup section we need to initiate the screen and the touch, define the pin modes for the connected sensor, the led and the button, and initially call the drawHomeSreen() custom function, which will draw the home screen of the program.

So now I will explain how we can make the home screen of the program. With the setBackColor() function we need to set the background color of the text, black one in our case. Then we need to set the color to white, set the big font and using the print() function, we will print the string “Arduino TFT Tutorial” at the center of the screen and 10 pixels  down the Y – Axis of the screen. Next we will set the color to red and draw the red line below the text. After that we need to set the color back to white, and print the two other strings, “by HowToMechatronics.com” using the small font and “Select Example” using the big font.

Ok next is the RGB LED Control example. If we press the second button, the drawLedControl() custom function will be called only once for drawing the graphic of that example and the setLedColor() custom function will be repeatedly called. In this function we use the touch screen to set the values of the 3 sliders from 0 to 255. With the if statements we confine the area of each slider and get the X value of the slider. So the values of the X coordinate of each slider are from 38 to 310 pixels and we need to map these values into values from 0 to 255 which will be used as a PWM signal for lighting up the LED. If you need more details how the RGB LED works you can check my particular tutorialfor that. The rest of the code in this custom function is for drawing the sliders. Back in the loop section we only have the back button which also turns off the LED when pressed.

In order the code to work and compile you will have to include an addition “.c” file in the same directory with the Arduino sketch. This file is for the third game example and it’s a bitmap of the bird. For more details how this part of the code work  you can check my particular tutorial. Here you can download that file:

Spice up your Arduino project with a beautiful touchscreen display shield with built in microSD card connection. This TFT display is 2.4" diagonal and colorful (18-bit 262,000 different shades)! 240x320 pixels with individual pixel control. As a bonus, this display has a optional capacitive touch panel and resistive touch panel with controller XPT2046 attached by default.

The shield is fully assembled, tested and ready to go. No wiring, no soldering! Simply plug it in and load up our library - you"ll have it running in under 10 minutes! Works best with any classic Arduino (UNO/Due/Mega 2560).

This display shield has a controller built into it with RAM buffering, so that almost no work is done by the microcontroller. You can connect more sensors, buttons and LEDs.

Of course, we wouldn"t just leave you with a datasheet and a "good luck!" - we"ve written a full open source graphics library at the bottom of this page that can draw pixels, lines, rectangles, circles and text. We also have a touch screen library that detects x,y and z (pressure) and example code to demonstrate all of it. The code is written for Arduino but can be easily ported to your favorite microcontroller!

If you"ve had a lot of Arduino DUEs go through your hands (or if you are just unlucky), chances are you’ve come across at least one that does not start-up properly.The symptom is simple: you power up the Arduino but it doesn’t appear to “boot”. Your code simply doesn"t start running.You might have noticed that resetting the board (by pressing the reset button) causes the board to start-up normally.The fix is simple,here is the solution.

This TFT LCD display can display colour graphics and is a touch sensitive screen. It has an SD card slot too for storing images.This display board can be inserted directly on to the Arduino pins, without using any wires. That’s why it is called a shield.

Wiring is so easy – just plug the display shield on to the Arduino pins. While plugging it in, make sure that the 5V of the LCD goes to the 5V of the Arduino UNO board and also remember to stick a piece of insulation tape on the Arduino’s USB port to avoid short circuits.

Adafruit_GFX library – It’s the core graphics library. Go to Sketch -> Include Library -> Library Manager menu in the Arduino IDE and search for Adafruit_GFX. It can be installed from the library manager or can be downloaded from this link : https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-GFX-Library/archive/master.zip

Adafruit_TFTLCD library – It’s the LCD’s hardware specific library. The original version of the Adafruit_TFTLCD library did not work for me. So, I used a modified version of it. Someone has modified the library for various chipsets and I found it from the arduino forum for my display board. The modified version can be found here : https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=288475.0;attach=107569. Download it to the libraries folder of the Arduino IDE.

It’s better to know the TFT display’s driver ID. To find that out, I wrote a program (available at the end of this note). The program will print the LCD’s driver ID into the serial monitor and will also display colours on the LCD screen.  After uploading the program, just make sure that the  serial monitor is open and the baud rate is set to 9600.

Adafruit_TFTLCD has some examples along with the library. They can be compiled and uploaded to try the display. Examples like tftpaint marks out the point were we touch.

I"ll show you how to get started with a very popular variant of the TFT touch screen, including how to make a "button" (spoiler alert: it"s not a button just an area of screen that looks like one, that you can then receive touches from).

Today, we are going to Interface 2.4 inch TFT LCD Shield with Arduino. By using this color TFT LCD shield we can show characters, strings, blocks, images etc on the color TFT LCD. And we can use this TFT Shield in many applications like:  Security System, Home Automation, Games etc.

Interfacing TFT LCD with Arduino is very easy. We only need to have an Arduino Board & a 2.4 inch TFT Shield in hardware part and Arduino IDE & TFT Library in software part. Many libraries are available on the Internet, for TFT Shield to operate, but different TFT LCDs have different inbuilt drivers. So first we need to identify the driver of TFT and then install a suitable library for that. Here we are using 2.4 inch TFT Shield having ili9341 driver. Link, for downloading the Library for given TFT, is given in ‘Steps’ below. Check this for simple LCD interfacing with Arduino.

Then go to the Arduino Library in Program Files, where you have pasted the zipped downloaded library in Step 2­­ and select and open zipped SPFD5408-Master library.

Let"s get started with this creative Arduino project, where you"ll learn about the TFT LCD touch screen and how to use it to create your own colourful calculator. For a basic understanding of touch screen & LCD, a cheap TFT 2.4" Arduino shield is used to create this project. For creating a similar project, one should follow the steps and edit the code for better understanding.

Touch-screen devices using resistive technology, a two-dimensional membrane potentiometer provides x and y coordinates. The top layer is thin glass spaced close to a neighboring inner layer. The underside of the top layer has a transparent conductive coating; the surface of the layer beneath it has a transparent resistive coating. A finger or stylus deforms the glass to contact the underlying layer. Edges of the resistive layer have conductive contacts. Locating the contact point is done by applying a voltage to opposite edges, leaving the other two edges temporarily unconnected. The voltage of the top layer provides one coordinate. Disconnecting those two edges, and applying a voltage to the other two, formerly unconnected, provides the other coordinate. Alternating rapidly between pairs of edges provides frequent position updates. An analog to digital converter provides output data.

The shield connects ILI9341"s data pins 0-7 to Arduino"s digital pins 2-8 (allowing parallel communication, not SPI. ILI9341"s RESET goes to Arduino analog pin A4. CS (chip select) to A3. RS (CD command/data) to A2. WR and RD to A1 and A0.

ILI9341 is integrated inside the display. It drives the display and has nothing to do with the touchscreen (Although the shield connects some pins of ILI9341 together with pins of the touchscreen).

Now, open Arduino IDE and select Sketch -> Include Library -> 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.

The touchscreen I tested sometimes wrongly detects a touch, outside of the touched point. To prevent this I added some delays and the X and Y analog value is read repeatedly and touch is approved only if values do not differ a lot.

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 on our TFT LCD screen using the Arduino Program.

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 some insulator, just in case if the terminal comes in contact with your TFT LCD screen.

The calculator here is based on the simple logic that, you have to divide the screen according to touch coordinates values and write a program accordingly. Every digit or symbol visible on-screen have a defined area.