4 inch tft display for arduino made in china

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.

As the code is a bit longer and for better understanding I will post the source code of the program in sections with description for each section. And at the end of this article I will post the complete source 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.

Next is the distance sensor button. First we need to set the color and then using the fillRoundRect() function we will draw the rounded rectangle. Then we will set the color back to white and using the drawRoundRect() function we will draw another rounded rectangle on top of the previous one, but this one will be without a fill so the overall appearance of the button looks like it has a frame. On top of the button we will print the text using the big font and the same background color as the fill of the button. The same procedure goes for the two other buttons.

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.

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.

Here’s that function which uses the ultrasonic sensor to calculate the distance and print the values with SevenSegNum font in green color, either in centimeters or inches. If you need more details how the ultrasonic sensor works you can check my particular tutorialfor that. Back in the loop section we can see what happens when we press the select unit buttons as well as the back button.

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:

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.

For prototyping and testing:A solderless breadboard male-to-male jumpers male-to-female jumpers 22 gauge insulated hookup wire, solid Graph paper, for planning and sketching wiring diagrams and layouts

A couple of sets (4 each) of decent rechargeable NIMH AA batteries. Note: Beware of cheap ripoff batteries from Hong Kong. These typically take only a 200 mA charge, and even an "intelligent" charger will not refresh them. Purple, blue, and green ones are suspect -- see picture and ... Link #1Link #2

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.

on the far side of the display. It has 220x176 resolution (hires!) and will accept either 3.3 or 5 volts. It will work hooked up to an Uno, and with a few pin changes, also with a Mega. The 11-pin row is for activating the display itself, and the 5-pin row for the SD socket on its back.

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

Not at all - it was your Instructable that got me going with the display to begin with! We all build off each other"s work, to the benefit of everyone.0

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.

Whatever you are currently celebrating, Christmas, Hanukkah, Jul, Samhain, Festivus, or any other end-of-the-civil-year festivities, I wish you a good time! This December 25th edition of the Nextion Sunday Blog won"t be loaded with complex mathematical theory or hyper-efficient but difficult to understand code snippets. It"s about news and information. Please read below...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.

WF43WTYBEDSG0 is a 4.3-inch IPS TFT-LCD display with a Capacitive Touch screen, made of resolution 480x272 pixels. This module is built-in with BT815 controller IC, and it supports SPI and QSPI interfaces. The QSPI interface can achieve four times data rate compared with the current SPI interface and make a smoother display accordingly. The series of BT815/6 controller IC with EVE (Embedded Video Engine) technology simplifies the system architecture, Eve technology is a revolutionary concept that utilizes an object-oriented approach to creating high-quality human-machine interfaces (HMI). This new technology supports display, audio and touch, enabling engineers to quickly and efficiently design HMI and provide a powerful solution for high-resolution displays that reduce material costs.

WF43WTYBEDSG0 is adopted IPS panel which is having the advantage of wider view angle of Left:80 / Right:80 / Up:80 / Down:80 degree (typical), contrast ratio 800:1 (typical value), brightness 400 nits (typical value), glare surface panel, aspect ratio 16:9. The PCAP touch screen is built-in with ILI2130 IC, supporting I2C interface and multi-touch function.

We offer the TFT module WF43WTYBEDSG0#000 designed to support the Arduino board. The control signal for WF43WTYBEDSG0 is 3.3V; it has a built-in storage device (FLASH 32M). The control signal of WF43WTYBEDSG0#000 is 5V; without a built-in storage device (FLASH); but with a MicroSD Socket, pins CON1~CON4 are designed for SPI control (such as for Arduino Uno Rev3). WF43W model can be operating at temperatures from -20℃ to+ 70℃ and storage temperatures from -30℃ to +80℃.

Checking a TFT lcd driver is very messy thing especially if its a Chinese manufactured TFT. TFT’s that are supplied by Chinese manufactures are cheap and every body loves to purchase them since they are cheap,but people are unaware of the problems that comes in future when finding the datasheet or specs of the particular TFT they purchased. Chinese manufactures did not supply datasheet of TFT or its driver. The only thing they do is writes about the TFT driver their lcd’s are using on their websites. I also get in trouble when i started with TFT’s because i also purchased a cheap one from aliexpress.com. After so many trials i succeeded in identifying the driver and initializing it. Now i though to write a routine that can identify the driver.

I wrote a simple Arduino Sketch that can easily and correctly identify the TFT Lcd driver. I checked it on 2.4, 3.2 and 3.8 inch 8-bit TFT lcd and it is identifying the drivers correctly. The drivers which i successfully recognized are ILI9325, ILI9328, ILI9341, ILI9335, ST7783, ST7781 and ST7787. It can also recognize other drivers such as ML9863A, ML9480 and ML9445 but i don’t have tft’s that are using this drivers.

The basic idea behind reading the driver is reading the device ID. Since all the drivers have their ID’s present in their register no 0x00, so what i do is read this register and identify which driver tft is using. Reading the register is also a complex task, but i have gone through it many times and i am well aware of how to read register. A simple timing diagram from ST7781 driver explains all. I am using tft in 8-bit interface so i uploaded timing diagram of 8-bit parallel interface. The diagram below is taken from datasheet of ST7781 tft lcd driver.

The most complex tft i came across is from a Chinese manufacturer “mcufriend”. mcufriend website says that they use ILI9341 and ILI9325 drivers for their tft’s. But what i found is strange their tft’s are using ST7781 driver(Device ID=7783). This is really a mesh. I have their 2.4 inch tft which according to their website is using ILI9341 driver but i found ST7783 driver(Device ID=7783). The tft i have is shown below.

I am using Arduino uno to read driver. I inserted my lcd on arduino uno and read the driver. After reading driver i am printing its number on Serial Monitor.

Note:On serial monitor driver number will be displayed like if your lcd is using ST7783 controller than on serial monitor 7783 will be displayed or if tft is using ILI9341 than on 9341 will be displayed.

The code works on Arduino uno perfectly but if you are using any other board, than just change the pin numbers according to the board that you are using also check out for the Ports D and B. TFT Data Pin D0 is connected to Port-B Pin#0 and D1 is connected to Port-B Pin#1. TFT Data Pins D2 to D7 are connected to Port-D Pins 2,3,4,5,6,7. So if you are using Arduino mega than check for the Ports D and B and Make connections according to them. Arduino mega is working on ATmega2560 or ATmega1280 Microcontroller and Arduino uno is working on ATmega328p Microcontroller so both platforms have ports on different locations on arduino board so first check them and then make connections. The same process applies to all Arduino boards.