arduino 3.2 tft lcd touch shield drawing example factory
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 next example is controlling an RGB LED using these three RGB sliders. For example if we start to slide the blue slider, the LED will light up in blue and increase the light as we would go to the maximum value. So the sliders can move from 0 to 255 and with their combination we can set any color to the RGB LED, but just keep in mind that the LED cannot represent the colors that much accurate.
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.
Now we need to make the buttons functional so that when we press them they would send us to the appropriate example. In the setup section we set the character ‘0’ to the currentPage variable, which will indicate that we are at the home screen. So if that’s true, and if we press on the screen this if statement would become true and using these lines here we will get the X and Y coordinates where the screen has been pressed. If that’s the area that covers the first button we will call the drawDistanceSensor() custom function which will activate the distance sensor example. Also we will set the character ‘1’ to the variable currentPage which will indicate that we are at the first example. The drawFrame() custom function is used for highlighting the button when it’s pressed. The same procedure goes for the two other buttons.
drawDistanceSensor(); // It is called only once, because in the next iteration of the loop, this above if statement will be false so this funtion won"t be called. This function will draw the graphics of the first example.
getDistance(); // Gets distance from the sensor and this function is repeatedly called while we are at the first example in order to print the lasest results from the distance sensor
So the drawDistanceSensor() custom function needs to be called only once when the button is pressed in order to draw all the graphics of this example in similar way as we described for the home screen. However, the getDistance() custom function needs to be called repeatedly in order to print the latest results of the distance measured by the sensor.
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:
drawDistanceSensor(); // It is called only once, because in the next iteration of the loop, this above if statement will be false so this funtion won"t be called. This function will draw the graphics of the first example.
getDistance(); // Gets distance from the sensor and this function is repeatedly called while we are at the first example in order to print the lasest results from the distance sensor
No! For about the price of a familiar 2x16 LCD, you get a high resolution TFT display. For as low as $4 (shipping included!), it"s possible to buy a small, sharp TFT screen that can be interfaced with an Arduino. Moreover, it can display not just text, but elaborate graphics. These have been manufactured in the tens of millions for cell phones and other gadgets and devices, and that is the reason they are so cheap now. This makes it feasible to reuse them to give our electronic projects colorful graphic displays.
There are quite a number of small cheap TFT displays available on eBay and elsewhere. But, how is it possible to determine which ones will work with an Arduino? And what then? Here is the procedure:ID the display. With luck, it will have identifying information printed on it. Otherwise, it may involve matching its appearance with a picture on Google images. Determine the display"s resolution and the driver chip.
Find out whether there is an Arduino driver available. Google is your friend here. Henning Karlsen"s UTFT library works with many displays. (http://www.rinkydinkelectronics.com/library.php?i...)
Download and install the driver library. On a Linux machine, as root, copy the library archive file to the /usr/share/arduino/libraries directory and untar or unzip it.
Load an example sketch into the Arduino IDE, and then upload it to the attached Arduino board with wired-up TFT display. With luck, you will see text and/or graphics.
We"ll begin with a simple one. The ILI9163 display has a resolution of 128 x 128 pixels. With 8 pins in a single row, it works fine with a standard Arduino UNO or with a Mega. The hardware hookup is simple -- only 8 connections total! The library put together by a smart fella, by the name of sumotoy, makes it possible to display text in multiple colors and to draw lines.
Note that these come in two varieties, red and black. The red ones may need a bit of tweaking to format the display correctly -- see the comments in the README.md file. The TFT_ILI9163C.h file might need to be edited.
It is 5-volt friendly, since there is a 74HC450 IC on the circuit board that functions as a level shifter. These can be obtained for just a few bucks on eBay and elsewhere, for example -- $3.56 delivered from China. It uses Henning Karlsen"s UTFT library, and it does a fine job with text and graphics. Note that due to the memory requirement of UTFT, this display will work with a standard UNO only with extensive tweaking -- it would be necessary to delete pretty much all the graphics in the sketch, and just stay with text.
This one is a 2.2" (diagonal) display with 176x220 resolution and parallel interface. It has a standard ("Intel 8080") parallel interface, and works in both 8-bit and 16-bit modes. It uses the S6D0164 driver in Henning Karlsen"s UTFT library, and because of the memory requirements of same, works only with an Arduino Mega or Due. It has an SD card slot on its back
This one is a bit of an oddball. It"s a clone of the more common HY-TFT240, and it has two rows of pins, set at right angles to one another. To enable the display in 8-bit mode, only the row of pins along the narrow edge is used. The other row is for the SD card socket on the back, and for 16-bit mode. To interface with an Arduino ( Mega or Due), it uses Henning Karlsen"s UTFT library, and the driver is ILI9325C. Its resolution is 320x240 (hires!) and it incorporates both a touch screen and an SD card slot.
Having determined that a particular TFT display will work with the Arduino, it"s time to think about a more permanent solution -- constructing hard-wired and soldered plug-in boards. To make things easier, start with a blank protoshield as a base, and add sockets for the TFT displays to plug into. Each socket row will have a corresponding row next to it, with each individual hole "twinned" to the adjacent hole in the adjoining row by solder bridges, making them accessible to jumpers to connect to appropriate Arduino pins. An alternative is hard-wiring the socket pins to the Arduino pins, which is neater but limits the versatility of the board.
The key to an effective DIY shield is a neat and logical layout. Sketching the prospective shield on quadrille (graph) paper may be helpful. A multitester or continuity tester might be useful for detecting wiring and soldering errors.
In step 5, you mention that the TFT01 display can"t be used with the UTFT library on an Arduino Uno because of its memory requirements. It can - all you have to do is edit memorysaver.h and disable any display models you"re not using.
I think you should add a disclaimer that the code might make the Arduino Uno unprogrammable afterward (due to use up the two 0 and 1 pin) and link to how to fix it: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5290428/how-to-reset-an-arduino-board/8453576?sfb=2#84535760
Tho I realize this is quickly becoming legacy hardware, these 8,16 bit parallel spi with 4 wire controller 3.2in Taft touch display 240x380. It has become very inexpensive with ally of back stock world wide so incorporating them into any project is easier then ever. Sorry to my question. I’m having difficulty finding wiring solution for this lcd. It is a sd1289 3.3 and 5v ,40 pin parallel 8,16 bit. I do not want to use a extra shield,hat or cape or adapter. But there’s a lot of conflicting info about required lvl shifters for this model any help or links to info would be great .. thank you. I hope I gave enough information to understand what I’m adoing
#1 you need a data sheet for the display and pinout and the i/o board attached to the cable.Than before you buy check for a driver for this chip Raydium/RM69071.if no driver lib are you able to write one and do you have the necessary tools to work on this scale to wire it up ..if you answer no than search for an arduino ready product.WCH0
hooking up and adding a lib is no piece of cake insure the screen you buy is arduino ready and sold by a reputable shop with step by step directions...WCH0
I"m sorry that I can"t help you with this. You"ll have to do your own research. See if you can identify the chipset and find out if there"s an Arduino driver for it.0
Thanks for the wealth of knowledge! It is amazing at what is possible with items the average person can easily acquire. I hope to put some of your tips to use this winter as I would like to build sensors and other items for home automation and monitoring. Being able to have small displays around the house in addition to gathering and controlling things remotely will help the family see room conditions without going to the computer. The idea of a touchscreen control for cheap is mind blowing.
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In this article, you will learn how to use TFT LCDs by Arduino boards. From basic commands to professional designs and technics are all explained here.
There are several components to achieve this. LEDs, 7-segments, Character and Graphic displays, and full-color TFT LCDs. The right component for your projects depends on the amount of data to be displayed, type of user interaction, and processor capacity.
TFT LCD is a variant of a liquid-crystal display (LCD) that uses thin-film-transistor (TFT) technology to improve image qualities such as addressability and contrast. A TFT LCD is an active matrix LCD, in contrast to passive matrix LCDs or simple, direct-driven LCDs with a few segments.
In Arduino-based projects, the processor frequency is low. So it is not possible to display complex, high definition images and high-speed motions. Therefore, full-color TFT LCDs can only be used to display simple data and commands.
There are several components to achieve this. LEDs, 7-segments, Character and Graphic displays, and full-color TFT LCDs. The right component for your projects depends on the amount of data to be displayed, type of user interaction, and processor capacity.
TFT LCD is a variant of a liquid-crystal display (LCD) that uses thin-film-transistor (TFT) technology to improve image qualities such as addressability and contrast. A TFT LCD is an active matrix LCD, in contrast to passive matrix LCDs or simple, direct-driven LCDs with a few segments.
In Arduino-based projects, the processor frequency is low. So it is not possible to display complex, high definition images and high-speed motions. Therefore, full-color TFT LCDs can only be used to display simple data and commands.
After choosing the right display, It’s time to choose the right controller. If you want to display characters, tests, numbers and static images and the speed of display is not important, the Atmega328 Arduino boards (such as Arduino UNO) are a proper choice. If the size of your code is big, The UNO board may not be enough. You can use Arduino Mega2560 instead. And if you want to show high resolution images and motions with high speed, you should use the ARM core Arduino boards such as Arduino DUE.
In electronics/computer hardware a display driver is usually a semiconductor integrated circuit (but may alternatively comprise a state machine made of discrete logic and other components) which provides an interface function between a microprocessor, microcontroller, ASIC or general-purpose peripheral interface and a particular type of display device, e.g. LCD, LED, OLED, ePaper, CRT, Vacuum fluorescent or Nixie.
The LCDs manufacturers use different drivers in their products. Some of them are more popular and some of them are very unknown. To run your display easily, you should use Arduino LCDs libraries and add them to your code. Otherwise running the display may be very difficult. There are many free libraries you can find on the internet but the important point about the libraries is their compatibility with the LCD’s driver. The driver of your LCD must be known by your library. In this article, we use the Adafruit GFX library and MCUFRIEND KBV library and example codes. You can download them from the following links.
You must add the library and then upload the code. If it is the first time you run an Arduino board, don’t worry. Just follow these steps:Go to www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software and download the software of your OS. Install the IDE software as instructed.
First you should convert your image to hex code. Download the software from the following link. if you don’t want to change the settings of the software, you must invert the color of the image and make the image horizontally mirrored and rotate it 90 degrees counterclockwise. Now add it to the software and convert it. Open the exported file and copy the hex code to Arduino IDE. x and y are locations of the image. sx and sy are sizes of image. you can change the color of the image in the last input.
Upload your image and download the converted file that the UTFT libraries can process. Now copy the hex code to Arduino IDE. x and y are locations of the image. sx and sy are size of the image.
In this template, We converted a .jpg image to .c file and added to the code, wrote a string and used the fade code to display. Then we used scroll code to move the screen left. Download the .h file and add it to the folder of the Arduino sketch.
In this template, We used sin(); and cos(); functions to draw Arcs with our desired thickness and displayed number by text printing function. Then we converted an image to hex code and added them to the code and displayed the image by bitmap function. Then we used draw lines function to change the style of the image. Download the .h file and add it to the folder of the Arduino sketch.
In this template, We added a converted image to code and then used two black and white arcs to create the pointer of volumes. Download the .h file and add it to the folder of the Arduino sketch.
In this template, We added a converted image and use the arc and print function to create this gauge. Download the .h file and add it to folder of the Arduino sketch.
while (a < b) { Serial.println(a); j = 80 * (sin(PI * a / 2000)); i = 80 * (cos(PI * a / 2000)); j2 = 50 * (sin(PI * a / 2000)); i2 = 50 * (cos(PI * a / 2000)); tft.drawLine(i2 + 235, j2 + 169, i + 235, j + 169, tft.color565(0, 255, 255)); tft.fillRect(200, 153, 75, 33, 0x0000); tft.setTextSize(3); tft.setTextColor(0xffff); if ((a/20)>99)
while (b < a) { j = 80 * (sin(PI * a / 2000)); i = 80 * (cos(PI * a / 2000)); j2 = 50 * (sin(PI * a / 2000)); i2 = 50 * (cos(PI * a / 2000)); tft.drawLine(i2 + 235, j2 + 169, i + 235, j + 169, tft.color565(0, 0, 0)); tft.fillRect(200, 153, 75, 33, 0x0000); tft.setTextSize(3); tft.setTextColor(0xffff); if ((a/20)>99)
In this template, We display simple images one after each other very fast by bitmap function. So you can make your animation by this trick. Download the .h file and add it to folder of the Arduino sketch.
In this template, We just display some images by RGBbitmap and bitmap functions. Just make a code for touchscreen and use this template. Download the .h file and add it to folder of the Arduino sketch.
Touchscreen displays are everywhere! Phones, tablets, self-serve kiosks, bank machines and thousands of other devices we interact with make use of touchscreen displays to provide an intuitive user interface.
Today we will learn how touchscreens work, and how to use a common inexpensive resistive touchscreen shield for the Arduino. Future videos and articles will cover capacitive touchscreens, as well as a touchscreen HAT for the Raspberry Pi.
Although touchscreens seem to be everywhere these days we tend to forget that just a few decades ago these devices were just science fiction for most of us. For many people, the touchscreen concept was introduced 30 years ago in the television seriesStar Trek: The Next Generation.
Eric A Johnson, a researcher at the Royal Radar Establishment in Malvern UK is credited for describing and then prototyping the first practical touchscreen. HIs device was a capacitive touchscreen, and it’s first commercial use was on air traffic control screens. However, the touchscreens used then were not transparent, instead, they were mounted on the frame of the CRT display.
In 1972, a group at the University of Illinois filed for a patent on an optical touchscreen. This device used a 16×16 array of LEDs and phototransistors, mounted on a frame around a CRT display. Placing your finger, or another solid object, on the screen would break two of the light beams, this was used to determine the position and respond accordingly.
The first transparent touchscreen was developed atCERNin 1973. CERN is also home to the Large Hadron Collider, and this is where Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web.
The first resistive touchscreen was developed by American inventor George Samuel Hurst in 1975, although the first practical version was not produced until 1982.
In 1982 theUniversity of Toronto’sInput Research Group developed the first multi-touch touchscreen, a screen that could interpret more than one touch at the same time. The original device used a video camera behind a frosted piece of glass. Three years later the same group developed a multi-touch tablet that used a capacitive touchscreen instead.
The first commercial product to use a touchscreen was a point-of-sale terminal developed by Atari and displayed at the 1986 COMDEX expo in Las Vegas. The next year Casio launched theCasio PB-1000 pocket computerwith a touchscreen consisting of a simple 4×4 matrix.
LG created the world’s first capacitive touchscreen phone, theLG Pradaused a capacitive touchscreen and was released in early 2007. A few weeks later Apple released its first iPhone.
Most early touchscreen devices were resistive, as this technology is generally less expensive than capacitive screens. However, nowadays capacitive screens are more common, being used in the majority of smartphones and tablets.
Although they were invented after capacitive touchscreens, resistive touchscreens are probably the most common type used by hobbyists. The reason for that is the price and performance, resistive touchscreens are cheaper than capacitive ones and they are generally more accurate.
A resistive touchscreen consists of two thin layers of material, separated by a tiny gap. Spacers are used to maintain the gap and keep the two sheets apart.
In a 4-Wire Analog touchscreen, there are two electrodes or “busbars” on each of the conductive layers. On one layer these electrodes are mounted on the two X-axis sides, the other layer has them on the two y-axes.
This is the most inexpensive method of designing a resistive touchscreen. The touchscreen display that we will be working with today uses this arrangement.
In a 5-Wire Analog touchscreen, there are four wires, one connected to a circular electrode on each corner of the bottom layer. A fifth wire is connected to a “sensing wire”, which is embedded in the top layer.
Touching any point on the screen causes current to flow to each of the bottom electrodes, measuring all four electrode currents determines the position that the screen was touched.
This 8-Wire Analog touchscreen uses an arrangement of electrodes identical to the 4-Wire variety. The difference is that there are two wires connected to each electrode, one to each end.
Capacitive touchscreens are actually older technology than resistive displays. They are commonly used in phones and tablets, so you’re probably familiar with them.
The capacitive touchscreen makes use of the conductivity of the human body. The touchscreen itself consists of a glass plate that has been treated with a conductive material.
The surface capacitive touchscreen is the most inexpensive design, so it is widely used. It consists of four electrodes placed at each corner of the touchscreen, which maintain a level voltage over the entire conductive layer.
This is a more advanced touchscreen technique. In a projected capacitive touchscreen transparent electrodes are placed along the protective glass coating and are arranged in a matrix.
One line of electrodes (vertical) maintain a constant level of current. Another line (horizontal) are triggered when your finger touches the screen and initiates current flow in that area of the screen. The electrostatic field created where the two lines intersect determine where it was touched.
The module we will be experimenting with today is a very common Arduino Shield, which is rebranded by many manufacturers. You can easily find these on Amazon, eBay or at your local electronics shop.
You can also just use the shield as an LCD display and ignore the two other components, however, if you intend on doing that it would be cheaper just to buy an LCD display without any touchscreen features.
This is a TFT orThin Film Transistordevice that uses liquid crystals to produce a display. These displays can produce a large number of colors with a pretty decent resolution.
You do need to be looking directly at the display for best color accuracy, as most of these inexpensive LCD displays suffer from distortion and “parallax error” when viewed from the side. But as the most common application for a device like this is as a User Interface (UI) this shouldn’t be a problem.
This shield uses a 4-wire analog resistive touchscreen, as described earlier. Two of the wires (one X and one Y) are connected to a couple of the analog inputs on the Arduino. The analog inputs are required as the voltage levels need to be measured to determine the position of the object touching the screen.
You should note that the microSD card uses the SPI interface and is wired for the Arduino Uno. While the rest of the shield will function with an Arduino Mega 2560, the SPI connections on the Mega are different, so the microSD card will not work.
The last paragraph regarding the microSD card may make you think that an Arduino Uno is the best choice for the Touchscreen Display Shield. And it you require the microSD card then it probably is a good choice.
But using an Arduino Uno with this shield does have one big disadvantage – a limited number of free I/O pins. In fact there are only three pins left over once the card has been plugged in:
If your product is self-contained and doesn’t need many (or any) I/O pins then you’ll be fine. But if you need more pins to interface with then an Arduino Mega 2560 is a much better choice. It has a lot of additional analog and digital pins.
So if you don’t require the microSD card, or are willing to hook up a separate microSD card, then the Arduino Mega 2560 is a better choice for most applications.
As there are three devices on the shield you will need libraries for each of the ones you want to use. TheSD Libraryis already installed in your Arduino IDE, so you will just need libraries for the display and touchscreen.
For the LCD you will have a lot of choices in libraries. Most of these shields come with a CD ROM with some sketches and libraries, so you can use the LCD libraries there. Bear in mind however that code on these CD ROMs tends to be a little dated, you may have better lick on the vendors website.
This useful resource contains code, libraries and datasheets for a wealth of LCD displays, both touchscreen and non-touchscreen. You’ll also find code for some common OLED displays as well.
I ran my touchscreen through all of the code samples I obtained from the LCD Wiki. It’s an interesting exercise, and by examining the sketch for each demo you can learn a lot about programming the display.
The first example is a very simple color “sweep” test. Navigate to theExample_01_Simple_testfolder and open the folder for your Arduino controller. Navigate down until you find the “ino” file and load it.
This test does not make use of any of the extra libraries, it drives the LCD directly. It is only a test of the LCD display, it does not make use of the touchscreen membrane.
You’ll find this example in theExample_02_clear_screenfolder, the sameclear_Screen.inoexample is used for both the Uno and Mega so there are no separate folders.
This example does use the custom libraries, and is a very good way to learn how to use them. You’ll note that theLCDWIKI_GUI.hlibrary is loaded, which is the graphics library for the LCD display.
Another library, LCDWIKI_KBV.h, is loaded as well. This is a hardware-specific “helper” library that provides an interface to the actual hardware for the other libraries.
When you run this example the results will be similar to the first one, a series of colors will sweep across the screen. In this case the colors are different, and they vary in speed.
A look at the loop will show how this is done. TheLCDWIKI_GUI.hlibrary has a “Fill_Screen” method that fills the screen with an RGB color. You can specify the color in both hexadecimal or decimal format, the example illustrates both ways.
The example itself is in a folder labeled “Example_03_colligate_test” and the code itself is in the colligate_test.ino file. I suspect a translation error resulted in the name!
This sketch uses a number of functions from theLCDWIKI_GUI.hlibrary, along with some custom functions to draw geometric shapes. It then displays a cycle of graphs, shapes, and patterns on the LCD display.
This example makes use of a second file that contains fonts. The Display Scroll sketch illustrates a number of different methods of scrolling characters, in different fonts, colors and even languages.
Unlike the previous examples that put the text in with a number of graphics, this example is a pretty simple one with just a block of text in different sizes and colors. This makes it very simple to understand how the text is positioned on the display.
In addition to the graphics and “helper” libraries that have been used in the previous examples this sketch also uses theTouchScreenlibrary to read screen interaction. This was one of the libraries included in the original ZIP file.
As its name would imply, this sketch displays a bitmap image on the display. The images need to be placed onto the root of a microSD card, which in turn is plugged into the socket on the display shield.
Note that this demo will only work on the Arduino Uno, as the microSD card uses the SPI bus and is wired to the Arduino Uno SPI port. The Arduino Mega 2560 board uses different pins for SPI.
Another thing you will notice is the speed at which the images draw, which is not particularly impressive. The clock speed of the Arduino has a lot to do with this, as does the method used to extract each individual pixel from the image.
This example draws some small “switches” on the display. The switches are active and respond to touch. There are slide switches, a push button, some radio buttons and some text-based expandable menus to test with.
The Touch Pen example is actually a pretty decent little drawing application. You can draw whatever you want on the main screen area. A set of buttons allow you to set the stylus color and pen width.
While the sample code is a bit difficult to follow it’s worth the effort, as it shows you how to create a dynamic menu system. Touching the stylus color button, for example, will open a new menu to select colors. This is a handy technique that you’ll need to know when developing your own user interfaces.
The Calibration utility lets you calibrate the resistive touchscreen. It achieves this by placing a number of crosses on the screen. You can calibrate the screen by using the stylus to touch the center of one of the crosses as accurately as you can.
After you touch one of the cross points the sketch runs through a calibration sequence, during which time you need to continue to touch the cross point. You’ll be informed when it is finished.
After calibration, the sketch will display a number of calibration values for the resistive touchscreen. These values can be used in your future sketches to make the touchscreen more accurate.
The examples are a great way to demonstrate the capabilities of your touchscreen. But to really put your interface to work you’ll need to write your own interface code.
Writing a touchscreen interface can be challenging. I would suggest that you start by modifying one of the example codes, one that is closest to your desired interface.
For my experiment, I will be using an Arduino Mega 2560 to drive three LEDs. I used a Red, Green and Blue LED but really any colors will work – I just wanted my LED colors to match my button colors.
The digital I/O connector at the back of the Mega is still accessible even when the touchscreen display shield is installed, so I used three of those connections for the LEDs. I hooked up each LED anode through a 220-ohm dropping resistor and connected them as follows:
TheAdafruit TFTLCD Libraryis used. It uses the previous library to provide an easy method of drawing on the LCD display. It works with LCD displays that use driver chips like the ILI9325 and ILI9328.
TheTouchScreenlibrary comes in the code that you downloaded from the LCD Wiki or from the CD ROM included with your touchscreen shield. As its name implies it is used to interface with the touchscreen.
TheMCUFRIEND_kbvlibrary is also included in the software you obtained for your display shield. It takes care of supplying the correct hardware information for your display shield to the other libraries.
Next, we define some touchscreen parameters. You can ‘fine-tune” your code here by using parameters from your own display, which you can obtain from the Calibration Sketch we ran from the sample code. Otherwise, just use the values here and you should be fine.
Now, still in the Setup, we set up the LCD display rotation and fill the background in black. Next step is to draw our buttons. Once we are done that the Setup is finished, and our screen should be displaying the three buttons on a black background.
We start by triggering the touchscreen, which is done by toggling pin 13 on the Arduino high. If something is touching the screen we read it and assign it to a TSPoint object named “p”.
We then need to reset the pin modes for two of the touchscreen pins back to outputs. This is done as these pins get shared with other LCD display functions and get set as inputs temporarily.
Load the code into your Arduino IDE and upload it to your Arduino Mega 2560. Make sure you have the correct processor-type set in your Arduino IDE, especially if you are used to working with the Uno!
This is a pretty simple demo but it does illustrate how to create a simple IDE. You can expand upon it to add more buttons, or to change the button colors or shapes. And, of course, you don’t have to light LEDs with your buttons, they can control anything that you can connect to your Arduino.
Touchscreen interfaces are used in a number of products, and now you can design your own devices using them. They can really make for an intuitive and advanced display and will give your project a very professional “look and feel” if done correctly.
This is not the only time we will look at touchscreen displays. Next time we’ll examine a capacitive touchscreen and we’ll explore the Adafruit Graphics libraries further to create some very fancy displays with controls and indicators.
Let"s learn how to use a touchscreen with the Arduino. We will examine the different types of touchscreens and will then create a simple interface using an inexpensive Arduino touchscreen shield.
After two theory-loaded blog posts about handling data array-like in strings (Strings, arrays, and the less known sp(lit)str(ing) function and Strings & arrays - continued) which you are highly recommended to read before continuing here, if you haven"t already, it"s big time to see how things work in practice! We"ll use a string variable as a lookup lookup table containing data of one single wave period and add this repeatedly to a waveform component until it"s full.A few weeks ago, I wrote this article about using a text variable as an array, either an array of strings or an array of numbers, using the covx conversion function in addition for the latter, to extract single elements with the help of the spstr function. It"s a convenient and almost a "one fits all" solution for most use cases and many of the demo projects or the sample code attached to the Nextion Sunday Blog articles made use of it, sometimes even without mentioning it explicitly since it"s almost self-explaining. Then, I got a message from a reader, writing: "... Why then didn"t you use it for the combined sine / cosine lookup table in the flicker free turbo gauge project?"105 editions of the Nextion Sunday blog in a little over two years - time to look back and forth at the same time. Was all the stuff I wrote about interesting for my readers? Is it possible at all to satisfy everybody - hobbyists, makers, and professionals - at the same time? Are people (re-)using the many many HMI demo projects and code snippets? Is anybody interested in the explanation of all the underlying basics like the algorithms for calculating square roots and trigonometric functions with Nextion"s purely integer based language? Are optimized code snippets which allow to save a few milliseconds here and there helpful to other developers?Looking through the different Nextion user groups on social networks, the Nextion user forum and a few not so official but Nextion related forums can be surprising. Sometimes, Nextion newbies ask questions or have issues although the required function is well (in a condensed manner for the experienced developer, I admit) documented on the Nextion Instruction Set page, accessible through the menu of this website. On top of that, there is for sure one of my more than 100 Sunday blog articles which deals not only with that function, but goes often even beyond the usual usage of it. Apparently, I should sometimes move away from always trying to push the limits and listen to the "back to the roots!" calls by my potential readers...Do you remember the (almost) full screen sized flicker free and ultra rapid gauge we designed in June? And this without using the built-in Gauge component? If not, it"s time to read this article first, to understand today"s improvements. The June 2022 version does its job perfectly, the needle movement is quick and smooth, and other components can be added close to the outer circle without flickering since there is no background which needs constantly to be redrawn. But there was a minor and only esthetic weak point: The needle was a 1px thin line, sometimes difficult to see. Thus, already a short time after publishing, some readers contacted me and asked if there were a way to make the needle thicker, at least 2 pixels.Recently, when playing with a ESP32 based NodeMCU 32S and especially with its WiFi configuration, I did as (I guess) everybody does: I loaded an example sketch to learn more about the Wifi library. When you set up the ESP32 as an access point, creating its own wireless network, everything is pretty straightforward. You can easily hard code the Wifi name (SSID) and the password. But what about the client mode ? Perhaps one needs to use it in different environments. And then, a hard coded network name and password are definitively not the best solution. Thus, I thought, why not use a Nextion HMI for a dynamic WiFi setup functionality?
In this guide we’re going to show you how you can use the 1.8 TFT display with the Arduino. You’ll learn how to wire the display, write text, draw shapes and display images on the screen.
The 1.8 TFT is a colorful display with 128 x 160 color pixels. The display can load images from an SD card – it has an SD card slot at the back. The following figure shows the screen front and back view.
This module uses SPI communication – see the wiring below . To control the display we’ll use the TFT library, which is already included with Arduino IDE 1.0.5 and later.
The TFT display communicates with the Arduino via SPI communication, so you need to include the SPI library on your code. We also use the TFT library to write and draw on the display.
The 1.8 TFT display can load images from the SD card. To read from the SD card you use the SD library, already included in the Arduino IDE software. Follow the next steps to display an image on the display:
In this guide we’ve shown you how to use the 1.8 TFT display with the Arduino: display text, draw shapes and display images. You can easily add a nice visual interface to your projects using this display.
※ Price Increase NotificationThe TFT glass cell makers such as Tianma,Hanstar,BOE,Innolux has reduced or stopped the production of small and medium-sized tft glass cell from August-2020 due to the low profit and focus on the size of LCD TV,Tablet PC and Smart Phone .It results the glass cell price in the market is extremely high,and the same situation happens in IC industry.We deeply regret that rapidly rising costs for glass cell and controller IC necessitate our raising the price of tft display.We have made every attempt to avoid the increase, we could accept no profit from the beginning,but the price is going up frequently ,we"re now losing a lot of money. We have no choice if we want to survive. There is no certain answer for when the price would go back to the normal.We guess it will take at least 6 months until these glass cell and semiconductor manufacturing companies recover the production schedule. (Mar-03-2021)
ER-TFT032-2 is 240x320 dots 3.2 " color tft lcd module display with ILI9320 controller and optional 4-wire resistive touch panel,superior display quality,super wide viewing angle and easily controlled by MCU such as 8051, PIC, AVR, ARDUINO ARM and Raspberry PI.It can be used in any embedded systems,industrial device,security and hand-held equipment which requires display in high quality and colorful image.It supports 8080 16-bit parallel interface. .FPC is soldering type,there is no need for zif connector.Lanscape mode is also available.
SainSmart 3.2" TFT LCD Display is a LCD touch screen module. It has 40pins interface and SD card and Flash reader design. It is a powerful and mutilfunctional module for your project.The Screen include a controller SSD1289, it"s a support 8/16bit data interface , easy to drive by many MCU like STM32 ,AVR and 8051. It is designed with a touch controller in it . The touch IC is ADS7843 , and touch interface is included in the 40 pins breakout. It is the version of product only with touch screen and touch controller.
There is built-in SD card slot in the shield, so we can use it to upload images. But the images need to be converted RAW format first.You can use the tool here. SD libraries need to be preinstalled for displaying the image.
2.Put the SD libraries(ITDB02_Graph16、ITDB02_tinyFAT16 and tinyFAT) into the folder arduino-0023/libraries ,then upload the ino File/Examples/ITDB02_tinyFAT16/_240x320_Portrait.After reset, you can see the image in screen.
Note:The SD library only can be use in version arduino-00xx and the library only supports FAT16 fomatted SD card up to 2GB, so you need to fomat your SD card to FAT16. 4GB FAT16 fomatted SD card is tested not working. Long file names are not supported. Keep your file names compliant with 8.3 standard.
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 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 next example is controlling an RGB LED using these three RGB sliders. For example if we start to slide the blue slider, the LED will light up in blue and increase the light as we would go to the maximum value. So the sliders can move from 0 to 255 and with their combination we can set any color to the RGB LED, but just keep in mind that the LED cannot represent the colors that much accurate.
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.
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.
Now we need to make the buttons functional so that when we press them they would send us to the appropriate example. In the setup section we set the character ‘0’ to the currentPage variable, which will indicate that we are at the home screen. So if that’s true, and if we press on the screen this if statement would become true and using these lines here we will get the X and Y coordinates where the screen has been pressed. If that’s the area that covers the first button we will call the drawDistanceSensor() custom function which will activate the distance sensor example. Also we will set the character ‘1’ to the variable currentPage which will indicate that we are at the first example. The drawFrame() custom function is used for highlighting the button when it’s pressed. The same procedure goes for the two other buttons.
drawDistanceSensor(); // It is called only once, because in the next iteration of the loop, this above if statement will be false so this funtion won"t be called. This function will draw the graphics of the first example.
getDistance(); // Gets distance from the sensor and this function is repeatedly called while we are at the first example in order to print the lasest results from the distance sensor
So the drawDistanceSensor() custom function needs to be called only once when the button is pressed in order to draw all the graphics of this example in similar way as we described for the home screen. However, the getDistance() custom function needs to be called repeatedly in order to print the latest results of the distance measured by the sensor.
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:
drawDistanceSensor(); // It is called only once, because in the next iteration of the loop, this above if statement will be false so this funtion won"t be called. This function will draw the graphics of the first example.
getDistance(); // Gets distance from the sensor and this function is repeatedly called while we are at the first example in order to print the lasest results from the distance sensor
In this article, you will learn how to use TFT LCDs by Arduino boards. From basic commands to professional designs and technics are all explained here.
There are several components to achieve this. LEDs, 7-segments, Character and Graphic displays, and full-color TFT LCDs. The right component for your projects depends on the amount of data to be displayed, type of user interaction, and processor capacity.
TFT LCD is a variant of a liquid-crystal display (LCD) that uses thin-film-transistor (TFT) technology to improve image qualities such as addressability and contrast. A TFT LCD is an active matrix LCD, in contrast to passive matrix LCDs or simple, direct-driven LCDs with a few segments.
In Arduino-based projects, the processor frequency is low. So it is not possible to display complex, high definition images and high-speed motions. Therefore, full-color TFT LCDs can only be used to display simple data and commands.
There are several components to achieve this. LEDs, 7-segments, Character and Graphic displays, and full-color TFT LCDs. The right component for your projects depends on the amount of data to be displayed, type of user interaction, and processor capacity.
TFT LCD is a variant of a liquid-crystal display (LCD) that uses thin-film-transistor (TFT) technology to improve image qualities such as addressability and contrast. A TFT LCD is an active matrix LCD, in contrast to passive matrix LCDs or simple, direct-driven LCDs with a few segments.
In Arduino-based projects, the processor frequency is low. So it is not possible to display complex, high definition images and high-speed motions. Therefore, full-color TFT LCDs can only be used to display simple data and commands.
After choosing the right display, It’s time to choose the right controller. If you want to display characters, tests, numbers and static images and the speed of display is not important, the Atmega328 Arduino boards (such as Arduino UNO) are a proper choice