nodemcu esp8266 1.8 tft lcd pricelist

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.

The code can be compiled in the Arduino IDE provided you have installed the board mamanger, by specifing the URL in the additional boards manager url field in preferences. Currently: [http://arduino.esp8266.com/stable/ package_esp8266com_index.json] - the board you select will determine which graphics libraries are used. So if you get compilation errors, make sure you"ve picked either NodeMCU 1.0 (ESP 12-E Module) or Adafruit Feather Huzzah ESP8266. The size of dispay is determined at runtime based on the chipset.

Due to the demands on the processor and memory by BearSSL, you need to adjust a few build settings. Set the CPU frequency to 160 Mhz instead of the default 80. Also, ESP8266Wifi 3.0.x now allows slightly differnt memory settings [https://arduino-esp8266.readthedocs.io/en/latest/mmu.html], so you may have occasional out of memory errors using the default 32k cache + 32k IRAM. Instead, I recommend option 4: 16KB cache + 32KB IRAM + 16KB 2nd Heap (not shared). YMMV.

After compiling the source code and uploading to your ESP, it will restart and begin by looking for known WIFI networks. If it can"t connect, it will go into softAP mode and create an adhoc wifi network called esp. You can connect to it and navigate to [http://192.168.4.1/wifi]. This page will allow you to configure your wifi settings. You can add multiple wifi networks.

If you want to print the PCB, I recommend https://oshpark.com. The PCB is for a NodeMCU ESP8266 and TFT. You won"t need one if you use the Adafruit Huzzah board and Featherwings.

Pins D5 (GPIO14) and D7 (GPIO13) are hardware SPI module pins of the ESP8266EX microcontroller respectively for SCK (serial clock) and MOSI (master-out slave-in).

The first library is a driver for the ST7735 TFT display which can be installed from Arduino IDE library manager (Sketch —> Include Library —> Manage Libraries …, in the search box write “st7735” and install the one from Adafruit).

Project hardware circuit should give the same result as the one shown in the following video where Arduino UNO board is used (NodeMCU is much faster than Arduino UNO):

I am using the 1.8″ color ST7735 TFT display a lot. The reason for that is that this display is very easy to use, it costs less than $5 and it offers color! At the back, the display has an SD card slot.A brief summary of the pins (adapted from Adafruits thorough summary):

RST – this is the TFT reset pin. Connect to ground to reset the TFT! Its best to have this pin controlled by the library so the display is reset cleanly, but you can also connect it to the Arduino Reset pin, which works for most cases.CS – this is the TFT SPI chip select pinD / C – this is the TFT SPI data or command selector pinDIN – this is the SPI Master Out Slave In pin (MOSI), it is used to send data from the microcontroller to the SD card and / or TFTSCLK – this is the SPI clock input pinVcc – this is the power pin, connect to 5VDC – it has reverse polarity protection but try to wire it right!LED – this is the input for the backlight control. Connect to 5VDC to turn on the backlight.GND – this is the power and signal ground pinNow that we know what we’re dealing with it’s time to start wiring!

For an upcoming new project I wanted a colour (UK spelling) LCD screen (ideally OLED), 256×256 (or greater) resolution and nice and cheap. It was not an easy 2 minute task. There were no OLED screens offering what I wanted (that I could see at the time). So compromises were made, in the end I purchased a 128×128 pixel screen (none OLED) for around $3.50 (£3.20, 3.50 Euro). Not as cheap as I thought I might get one for but the cheapest I could find. There were a lot of sellers offering this screen and it’s shown below.

Due to the planned game being more advanced than Space Invaders I needed a processor with more memory and speed than the Arduino could offer. Enter the ESP8266 processors which offer faster speeds and lots and lots more memory. Wifi is also available but will not be required for this project unless we implemented a World High Score Table perhaps! There are newer versions, ESP32, available with even more power but are more expensive and we don’t need that level of performance for this project. I’m using a NodeMCU from Lolin, which is basically a breakout board for the ESP8266 so that you can use it easily on breadboards or small production runs using through hole.

Power is self explanatory. LED adds a little extra brightness to the screen but it does still work if not connected. I’ve seen resistors added in series here and even variable ones to vary the brightness but I’ve ran it directly connected on this screen with no issues and wouldn’t want it dimmer as its not ultra bright. It is actually on even when not connected giving adequate brightness in my opinion. SCL is the SPI clock and goes to the NodeMCU’s hardware SPI pin (pin D5). SDA is actually the SPI MOSI connection and goes to the NodeMCU’s SPI MOSI pin (D7). RS is a Regsiter Select pin for ST7735 driver chips, this maps to a variable called TFT_DC in the Adafruitcode (explained later) that I was using for testing. This controls whether we are sending a command to the ST7735 chip or actual data. I think that Adafruit call it DC meaning Data Control, but I’m not sure. On some boards it may even be referred to as A0. For our purposed we connect it to D4. RST is the screen reset and and is connected to pin D3. These last two can connect to any NodeMCU pins that are not used for other functions. CS is Chip Select (usually referred to as Slave Select in the SPI protocol) and again can connect to any pin but I use D2. If this is pulled low then this device can receive or send data on the SPI bus. If only one device in your design you could pull this low permanently and not use D2.

Load up the example code that should now be available at “Files->Examples->XTronical ST7735 Library->GraphicsTestESP8266”. This is basically the Adafruit example with just some tiny changes (It goes through all the tests for each rotational position of the screen) so that it uses the new driver file and slightly altered initialisation routine.

There is an issue with the line drawing routine within the Adafruit GFX library, so this part of the original demo was removed. Basically it forces the NodeMCU to reset. As I’m not going ot be using this I’ve decided for now to ignore this issue.