sainsmart 1.8 tft lcd arduino made in china

This video gives an overview of the 1.8" color LCD, where to purchase and how to wire it to your Arduino. A detailed description of the pin outs are included for both the "fast" and "slow" wiring method. Also, I compare the write speed for both methods which demonstrates the performance of each.

I"m trying to get it to work on an Arduino Due. Not sure if it is currently possible because of drivers. If you were able to get this combination to work can you post the Arduino Due pins and a link to the drivers you used?

Greetings, Stan! I just got mine working. It seems that the Sainsmart labels their pins a little differently from the Adafruit. I was stumped, until I came across Kamal Mostafa"s website (Raspberry Pi projects : Adafruit/SainSmart 1.8" TFT LCD : st7735fb driver). There, he presents a table of which pins on the Adafruit correspond to which pins on the Sainsmart. Specifically:

Ignore, completely, the 4 pins over in the SD-Card section. Some of those pins have the same labels as what is referred to in the TFT docs you"ll find, but these are not the pins you want (unless you want to be accessing the SD card and not the TFT display).

The trouble seems to come from the fact that the Sainsmart labels their MOSI and Clock lines the way they"re labeled with i2C (as "SCL" and "SDA"). Anyway, here"s how I wired mine:

Although older examples let you assign all 5 of these pins however you want, the current examples in the Arduino software just specify CS, RS, and RES, while the SCL and SDA lines are just assumed to be plugged into your high-speed SPI lines. On my Uno, those are digital pins 13 and 11. On a Due, they"re supposedly on pins "3" and "4", respectively, of the little 6-pin ICSP header.

Don"t use the TFT18.ZIP that Sainsmart has on their website. It only works with an older version of the Arduino software. Instead, just use the built-in examples you"ll find at File->Examples->TFT->Arduino

With the above wiring, I was able to run the built-in examples without any modification. I"m currently working on getting Sainsmart"s demo sketches (like graphicstest_highspeed) to work. If you want them, let me know, but the built-in Arduino ones should work just fine for you.

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

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

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

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

So when using both display and SD-Card, and utilizing the Adafruit libraries with a SainSmart display, you will need to connect SDA to MOSI, and SCL to SCLK.

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

Note: Adafruit displays can have different colored tabs on the transparent label on your display. You might need to adapt your code if your display shows a little odd shift. I noticed that my SainSmart display (gree tab) behaves best with the code for the black tab – try them out to see which one works best for yours.

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

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

#define sclk 4 // SainSmart: SCL#define mosi 5 // SainSmart: SDA#define cs 6 // SainSmart: CS#define dc 7 // SainSmart: RS/DC#define rst 8 // SainSmart: RES

#define sclk 13 // SainSmart: SCL#define mosi 11 // SainSmart: SDA#define cs 10 // SainSmart: CS#define dc 9 // SainSmart: RS/DC#define rst 8 // SainSmart: RES

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

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

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

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

However, if your application needs your screen sideways, then you’d want to rotate the screen 90 degrees, effectively changing the display from a 128×160 pixel (WxH) screen to a 160×128 pixel display. Valid values are: 0 (0 degrees), 1 (90 degrees), 2 (180 degrees) and 3 (270 degrees).

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

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

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.

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.

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:

At this stage, any panel would need to connect either to the HDMI or VGA port. Although there is a dedicated TFT connector on the board it"s not currently available for use. Foundation hopes to sell/promote a tested TFT once all tht other stuff is done!

Yes it"s ST7735 based like the Adafruit ones. I"ve got one with an Sainsmart Arduino UNO from China, comes with the ST7735 code for the Arduino by LadyAda.

I have started a project writing framebuffer drivers for small TFT LCDs. I have written a helper module that greatly simplifies writing such a driver. That is if the display is RGB565 and uses SPI. I have ordered two more modules that I will try and make drivers for:

notro wrote:I have started a project writing framebuffer drivers for small TFT LCDs. I have written a helper module that greatly simplifies writing such a driver. That is if the display is RGB565 and uses SPI. I have ordered two more modules that I will try and make drivers for:

This library enables you to use ISR-based PWM channels on AVR ATmega164, ATmega324, ATmega644, ATmega1284 with MCUdude MightyCore, to create and output PWM any GPIO pin

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This library enables you to use ISR-based PWM channels on Arduino AVR ATtiny-based boards (ATtiny3217, etc.), using megaTinyCore, to create and output PWM any GPIO pin.

Small low-level classes and functions for Arduino: incrementMod(), decToBcd(). strcmp_PP(), PrintStr, PrintStrN, printPad{N}To(), printIntAsFloat(), TimingStats, formUrlEncode(), FCString, KString, hashDjb2(), binarySearch(), linearSearch(), isSorted(), reverse(), and so on.

Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) algorithms (crc8, crc16ccitt, crc32) programmatically converted from C99 code generated by pycrc (https://pycrc.org) to Arduino C++ using namespaces and PROGMEM flash memory.

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This library enables you to use Hardware-based PWM channels on Arduino AVRDx-based boards (AVR128Dx, AVR64Dx, AVR32Dx, etc.), using DxCore, to create and output PWM.

This library enables you to use ISR-based PWM channels on Arduino AVRDx-based boards (AVR128Dx, AVR64Dx, AVR32Dx, etc.), using DxCore, to create and output PWM any GPIO pin.

Small and easy to use Arduino library for using push buttons at INT0/pin2 and / or any PinChangeInterrupt pin.Functions for long and double press detection are included.Just connect buttons between ground and any pin of your Arduino - that"s itNo call of begin() or polling function like update() required. No blocking debouncing delay.

Arduino library for controlling standard LEDs in an easy way. EasyLed provides simple logical methods like led.on(), led.toggle(), led.flash(), led.isOff() and more.

OpenTherm Library to control Central Heating (CH), HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning) or Solar systems by creating a thermostat using Arduino IDE and ESP32 / ESP8266 hardware.

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ezTime - pronounced "Easy Time" - is a very easy to use Arduino time and date library that provides NTP network time lookups, extensive timezone support, formatted time and date strings, user events, millisecond precision and more.

A library for implementing fixed-point in-place Fast Fourier Transform on Arduino. It sacrifices precision and instead it is way faster than floating-point implementations.

The GCodeParser library is a lightweight G-Code parser for the Arduino using only a single character buffer to first collect a line of code (also called a "block") from a serial or file input and then parse that line into a code block and comments.

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LiquidCrystal fork for displays based on HD44780. Uses the IOAbstraction library to work with i2c, PCF8574, MCP23017, Shift registers, Arduino pins and ports interchangably.

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Arduino library for MCP4728 quad channel, 12-bit voltage output Digital-to-Analog Convertor with non-volatile memory and I2C compatible Serial Interface

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A library package for ARDUINO acting as ModBus slave communicating through UART-to-RS485 converter. Originally written by Geabong github user. Improved by Łukasz Ślusarczyk.

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An Arduino library for the Nano 33 BLE Sense that leverages Mbed OS to automatically place sensor measurements in a ring buffer that can be integrated into programs in a simple manner.

his library enables you to use Hardware-based PWM channels on RP2040-based boards, such as Nano_RP2040_Connect, RASPBERRY_PI_PICO, with either Arduino-mbed (mbed_nano or mbed_rp2040) or arduino-pico core to create and output PWM to any GPIO pin.

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The most powerful and popular available library for using 7/14/16 segment display, supporting daisy chaining so you can control mass amounts from your Arduino!

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Really tiny library to basic RTC functionality on Arduino. DS1307, DS3231 and DS3232 RTCs are supported. See https://github.com/Naguissa/uEEPROMLib for EEPROM support. Temperature, Alarms, SQWG, Power lost and RAM support.

Monochrome LCD, OLED and eInk Library. Display controller: SSD1305, SSD1306, SSD1309, SSD1312, SSD1316, SSD1318, SSD1320, SSD1322, SSD1325, SSD1327, SSD1329, SSD1606, SSD1607, SH1106, SH1107, SH1108, SH1122, T6963, RA8835, LC7981, PCD8544, PCF8812, HX1230, UC1601, UC1604, UC1608, UC1610, UC1611, UC1617, UC1638, UC1701, ST7511, ST7528, ST7565, ST7567, ST7571, ST7586, ST7588, ST75160, ST75256, ST75320, NT7534, ST7920, IST3020, IST3088, IST7920, LD7032, KS0108, KS0713, HD44102, T7932, SED1520, SBN1661, IL3820, MAX7219, GP1287, GP1247, GU800. Interfaces: I2C, SPI, Parallel.

True color TFT and OLED library, Up to 18 Bit color depth. Supported display controller: ST7735, ILI9163, ILI9325, ILI9341, ILI9486,LD50T6160, PCF8833, SEPS225, SSD1331, SSD1351, HX8352C.

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Universal Timer with 1 millisecond resolution, based on system uptime (i.e. Arduino: millis() function or STM32: HAL_GetTick() function), supporting OOP principles.

The 1.8inch LCD uses the PH2.0 8PIN interface, which can be connected to the Raspberry Pi according to the above table: (Please connect according to the pin definition table. The color of the wiring in the picture is for reference only, and the actual color shall prevail.)

ST7735S is a 132*162 pixel LCD, and this product is a 128*160 pixel LCD, so some processing has been done on the display: the display starts from the second pixel in the horizontal direction, and the first pixel in the vertical direction. Start to display, so as to ensure that the position corresponding to the RAM in the LCD is consistent with the actual position when displayed.

The LCD supports 12-bit, 16-bit and 18-bit input color formats per pixel, namely RGB444, RGB565, RGB666 three color formats, this routine uses RGB565 color format, which is also a commonly used RGB format

2. The module_init() function is automatically called in the INIT () initializer on the LCD, but the module_exit() function needs to be called by itself

Python has an image library PIL official library link, it do not need to write code from the logical layer like C, can directly call to the image library for image processing. The following will take 1.54inch LCD as an example, we provide a brief description for the demo.

The first parameter is a tuple of 2 elements, with (40, 50) as the left vertex, the font is Font2, and the fill is the font color. You can directly make fill = "WHITE", because the regular color value is already defined Well, of course, you can also use fill = (128,255,128), the parentheses correspond to the values of the three RGB colors so that you can precisely control the color you want. The second sentence shows Micro Snow Electronics, using Font3, the font color is white.

The demo is developed based on the HAL library. Download the demo, find the STM32 program file directory, and open the LCD_demo.uvprojx in the STM32\STM32F103RBT6\MDK-ARM directory to check the program.

image.cpp(.h): is the image data, which can convert any BMP image into a 16-bit true color image array through Img2Lcd (downloadable in the development data).

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.

While I was looking for a TFT display for a project with Arduino, I found on several webstores some displays based on the ST7735 chip by Sitronix (datasheet).

First identify – based on your Arduino board – which pins correspond to the different signals of the SPI bus. For the others, you can freely choose between the remaining pins.

(as you see, I connected the BLK pin directly to Vcc to have the backlight always on. You can also connect it to an Arduino digital pin to be able to control the backlight via software, for example if you need to save power).