arduino graphic tft lcd with touch screen master class free sample

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.

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.

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:

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.

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

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

AZ-Delivery usually supply an e-book (pdf document for download) with their boards. The German version comes first followed by other languages. This has just become available and provides setup instructions and a demonstration graphics only sketch.

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

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

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

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

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

The following sketch gives an indication of the colours available by converting an array of 24-bit colour values into their 16-bit equivalent and displaying them on the screen with the data. There are not enough pixels on the screen to display all the colours at once so the last part of the sketch takes out the least significant green bit and displays half the available colours six ways.

The SD card reader library is included with the basic setup, so we do not need to load a fresh library. The examples cover the simple tasks of creating, writing to, reading from and deleting files at a very basic level, all with strings.

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

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

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

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

The Analog pins are used to measure the voltages at that point on the two resistive layers, one at a time, in the same manner as we read the voltage from the wiper of a potentiometer – a potential divider. Using these values, it is possible to calculate, quite accurately, the coordinates of the point on the screen where the pressure has been applied. Calibration is often needed to improve accuracy. Adafruit suggests reading the resistance across the X plate (XP = D8 and XM = A2). On my board, I got 341 Ohms. Use this value as SENSITIVITY.

Try running the sketch to draw on the screen. The BLACK palette ‘button’ clears the screen and the others change the ‘ink’ colour. If the dot drawn is not directly under the stylus you can adjust the ‘fudge factors’ in the scaling section.

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

Gently pressing on the buttons at the bottom with the stylus changes the RGB values within their allowed ranges. The bars move to show the fraction of maximum possible for each of the red, green and blue values.

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

The SD card reader is a bonus, and could always be used, via jump wires, to record values from sensors on the other pins. These values could then be displayed graphically on the display with a different sketch.

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

The TFT configuration (user setup) can now be included inside an Arduino IDE sketch providing the instructions in the example Generic->Sketch_with_tft_setup are followed. See ReadMe tab in that sketch for the instructions. If the setup is not in the sketch then the library settings will be used. This means that "per project" configurations are possible without modifying the library setup files. Please note that ALL the other examples in the library will use the library settings unless they are adapted and the "tft_setup.h" header file included. Note: there are issues with this approach, #2007 proposes an alternative method.

Support has been added in v2.4.70 for the RP2040 with 16 bit parallel displays. This has been tested and the screen update performance is very good (4ms to clear 320 x 480 screen with HC8357C). The use of the RP2040 PIO makes it easy to change the write cycle timing for different displays. DMA with 16 bit transfers is also supported.

Support for the ESP32-S2, ESP32-S3 and ESP32-C3 has been added (DMA not supported at the moment). Tested with v2.0.3 RC1 of the ESP32 board package. Example setups:

Smooth fonts can now be rendered direct to the TFT with very little flicker for quickly changing values. This is achieved by a line-by-line and block-by-block update of the glyph area without drawing pixels twice. This is a "breaking" change for some sketches because a new true/false parameter is needed to render the background. The default is false if the parameter is missing, Examples:

New anti-aliased graphics functions to draw lines, wedge shaped lines, circles and rounded rectangles. Examples are included. Examples have also been added to display PNG compressed images (note: requires ~40kbytes RAM).

Frank Boesing has created an extension library for TFT_eSPI that allows a large range of ready-built fonts to be used. Frank"s library (adapted to permit rendering in sprites as well as TFT) can be downloaded here. More than 3300 additional Fonts are available here. The TFT_eSPI_ext library contains examples that demonstrate the use of the fonts.

Users of PowerPoint experienced with running macros may be interested in the pptm sketch generator here, this converts graphics and tables drawn in PowerPoint slides into an Arduino sketch that renders the graphics on a 480x320 TFT. This is based on VB macros created by Kris Kasprzak here.

The RP2040 8 bit parallel interface uses the PIO. The PIO now manages the "setWindow" and "block fill" actions, releasing the processor for other tasks when areas of the screen are being filled with a colour. The PIO can optionally be used for SPI interface displays if #define RP2040_PIO_SPI is put in the setup file. Touch screens and pixel read operations are not supported when the PIO interface is used.

DMA can now be used with the Raspberry Pi Pico (RP2040) when used with both 8 bit parallel and 16 bit colour SPI displays. See "Bouncy_Circles" sketch.

The library now supports the Raspberry Pi Pico with both the official Arduino board package and the one provided by Earle Philhower. The setup file "Setup60_RP2040_ILI9341.h" has been used for tests with an ILI9341 display. At the moment only SPI interface displays have been tested. SPI port 0 is the default but SPI port 1 can be specifed in the setup file if those SPI pins are used.

The library now provides a "viewport" capability. See "Viewport_Demo" and "Viewport_graphicstest" examples. When a viewport is defined graphics will only appear within that window. The coordinate datum by default moves to the top left corner of the viewport, but can optionally remain at top left corner of TFT. The GUIslice library will make use of this feature to speed up the rendering of GUI objects (see #769).

An Arduino IDE compatible graphics and fonts library for 32 bit processors. The library is targeted at 32 bit processors, it has been performance optimised for STM32, ESP8266 and ESP32 types. The library can be loaded using the Arduino IDE"s Library Manager. Direct Memory Access (DMA) can be used with the ESP32, RP2040 and STM32 processors with SPI interface displays to improve rendering performance. DMA with a parallel interface is only supported with the RP2040.

"Four wire" SPI and 8 bit parallel interfaces are supported. Due to lack of GPIO pins the 8 bit parallel interface is NOT supported on the ESP8266. 8 bit parallel interface TFTs (e.g. UNO format mcufriend shields) can used with the STM32 Nucleo 64/144 range or the UNO format ESP32 (see below for ESP32).

The library supports some TFT displays designed for the Raspberry Pi (RPi) that are based on a ILI9486 or ST7796 driver chip with a 480 x 320 pixel screen. The ILI9486 RPi display must be of the Waveshare design and use a 16 bit serial interface based on the 74HC04, 74HC4040 and 2 x 74HC4094 logic chips. Note that due to design variations between these displays not all RPi displays will work with this library, so purchasing a RPi display of these types solely for use with this library is not recommended.

A "good" RPi display is the MHS-4.0 inch Display-B type ST7796 which provides good performance. This has a dedicated controller and can be clocked at up to 80MHz with the ESP32 (55MHz with STM32 and 40MHz with ESP8266). The MHS-3.5 inch RPi ILI9486 based display is also supported.

Some displays permit the internal TFT screen RAM to be read, a few of the examples use this feature. The TFT_Screen_Capture example allows full screens to be captured and sent to a PC, this is handy to create program documentation.

The library includes a "Sprite" class, this enables flicker free updates of complex graphics. Direct writes to the TFT with graphics functions are still available, so existing sketches do not need to be changed.

A Sprite is notionally an invisible graphics screen that is kept in the processors RAM. Graphics can be drawn into the Sprite just as they can be drawn directly to the screen. Once the Sprite is completed it can be plotted onto the screen in any position. If there is sufficient RAM then the Sprite can be the same size as the screen and used as a frame buffer. Sprites by default use 16 bit colours, the bit depth can be set to 8 bits (256 colours) , or 1 bit (any 2 colours) to reduce the RAM needed. On an ESP8266 the largest 16 bit colour Sprite that can be created is about 160x128 pixels, this consumes 40Kbytes of RAM. On an ESP32 the workspace RAM is more limited than the datasheet implies so a 16 bit colour Sprite is limited to about 200x200 pixels (~80Kbytes), an 8 bit sprite to 320x240 pixels (~76kbytes). A 1 bit per pixel Sprite requires only 9600 bytes for a full 320 x 240 screen buffer, this is ideal for supporting use with 2 colour bitmap fonts.

One or more sprites can be created, a sprite can be any pixel width and height, limited only by available RAM. The RAM needed for a 16 bit colour depth Sprite is (2 x width x height) bytes, for a Sprite with 8 bit colour depth the RAM needed is (width x height) bytes. Sprites can be created and deleted dynamically as needed in the sketch, this means RAM can be freed up after the Sprite has been plotted on the screen, more RAM intensive WiFi based code can then be run and normal graphics operations still work.

Drawing graphics into a sprite is very fast, for those familiar with the Adafruit "graphicstest" example, this whole test completes in 18ms in a 160x128 sprite. Examples of sprite use can be found in the "examples/Sprite" folder.

If an ESP32 board has SPIRAM (i.e. PSRAM) fitted then Sprites will use the PSRAM memory and large full screen buffer Sprites can be created. Full screen Sprites take longer to render (~45ms for a 320 x 240 16 bit Sprite), so bear that in mind.

The "Animated_dial" example shows how dials can be created using a rotated Sprite for the needle. To run this example the TFT interface must support reading from the screen RAM (not all do). The dial rim and scale is a jpeg image, created using a paint program.

The XPT2046 touch screen controller is supported for SPI based displays only. The SPI bus for the touch controller is shared with the TFT and only an additional chip select line is needed. This support will eventually be deprecated when a suitable touch screen library is available.

The library supports SPI overlap on the ESP8266 so the TFT screen can share MOSI, MISO and SCLK pins with the program FLASH, this frees up GPIO pins for other uses. Only one SPI device can be connected to the FLASH pins and the chips select for the TFT must be on pin D3 (GPIO0).

The library contains proportional fonts, different sizes can be enabled/disabled at compile time to optimise the use of FLASH memory. Anti-aliased (smooth) font files in vlw format stored in SPIFFS are supported. Any 16 bit Unicode character can be included and rendered, this means many language specific characters can be rendered to the screen.

The library is based on the Adafruit GFX and Adafruit driver libraries and the aim is to retain compatibility. Significant additions have been made to the library to boost the speed for the different processors (it is typically 3 to 10 times faster) and to add new features. The new graphics functions include different size proportional fonts and formatting features. There are lots of example sketches to demonstrate the different features and included functions.

Configuration of the library font selections, pins used to interface with the TFT and other features is made by editing the User_Setup.h file in the library folder, or by selecting your own configuration in the "User_Setup_Selet,h" file. Fonts and features can easily be enabled/disabled by commenting out lines.

Anti-aliased (smooth) font files in "vlw" format are generated by the free Processing IDE using a sketch included in the library Tools folder. This sketch with the Processing IDE can be used to generate font files from your computer"s font set or any TrueType (.ttf) font, the font file can include any combination of 16 bit Unicode characters. This means Greek, Japanese and any other UCS-2 glyphs can be used. Character arrays and Strings in UTF-8 format are supported.

It would be possible to compress the vlw font files but the rendering performance to a TFT is still good when storing the font file(s) in SPIFFS, LittleFS or FLASH arrays.

Anti-aliased fonts can also be drawn over a gradient background with a callback to fetch the background colour of each pixel. This pixel colour can be set by the gradient algorithm or by reading back the TFT screen memory (if reading the display is supported).

The common 8 bit "Mcufriend" shields are supported for the STM Nucleo 64/144 boards and ESP32 UNO style board. The STM32 "Blue/Black Pill" boards can also be used with 8 bit parallel displays.

Unfortunately the typical UNO/mcufriend TFT display board maps LCD_RD, LCD_CS and LCD_RST signals to the ESP32 analogue pins 35, 34 and 36 which are input only. To solve this I linked in the 3 spare pins IO15, IO33 and IO32 by adding wires to the bottom of the board as follows:

If the display board is fitted with a resistance based touch screen then this can be used by performing the modifications described here and the fork of the Adafruit library:

If you load a new copy of TFT_eSPI then it will overwrite your setups if they are kept within the TFT_eSPI folder. One way around this is to create a new folder in your Arduino library folder called "TFT_eSPI_Setups". You then place your custom setup.h files in there. After an upgrade simply edit the User_Setup_Select.h file to point to your custom setup file e.g.:

You must make sure only one setup file is called. In the custom setup file I add the file path as a commented out first line that can be cut and pasted back into the upgraded User_Setup_Select.h file. The ../ at the start of the path means go up one directory level. Clearly you could use different file paths or directory names as long as it does not clash with another library or folder name.

The library was intended to support only TFT displays but using a Sprite as a 1 bit per pixel screen buffer permits support for the Waveshare 2 and 3 colour SPI ePaper displays. This addition to the library is experimental and only one example is provided. Further examples will be added.

Place the Adafruit_ILI9341 library folder your arduinosketchfolder/libraries/ folder. You may need to create the libraries subfolder if its your first library. Restart the IDE

The wiring may seem a bit daunting at first. But don"t let all the wires scare you. It is pretty straight forward. The images above will help you when you wire your TFT + Touchscreen to your ESP32. This is also decision making time. There are few options when it comes to connecting the two together. You can use a breadboard, you can use prototyping board or you can order a PCB specifically to connect the ILI9488 + touch to the 38-pin ESP32 DevKitC. I"d like to point out that the breadboard option is only an option for testing your connections and screen. It is not very practical to have on your desk and loose connections can cause problems.

If you like to order a PCB designed to make it easy to connect the ESP32 to the TFT screen, you can download the gerber files here: https://github.com/DustinWatts/ESP32_TFT_Combiner

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.

In which “Hello, World!” is the text you want to display and the (x, y) coordinate is the location where you want to start display text on the screen.

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:

Note: some people find issues with this display when trying to read from the SD card. We don’t know why that happens. In fact, we tested a couple of times and it worked well, and then, when we were about to record to show you the final result, the display didn’t recognized the SD card anymore – we’re not sure if it’s a problem with the SD card holder that doesn’t establish a proper connection with the SD card. However, we are sure these instructions work, because we’ve tested them.

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.

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

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.

Various sorting algorithms for Arduino, including Bubble Sort, Insertion Sort, Selection Sort, Shell Sort (3 versions), Comb Sort (4 versions), Quick Sort (3 versions).

Date, time, timezone classes for Arduino supporting the full IANA TZ Database to convert epoch seconds to date and time components in different time zones.

Useful Arduino utilities which are too small as separate libraries, but complex enough to be shared among multiple projects, and often have external dependencies to other libraries.

Fast and compact software I2C implementations (SimpleWireInterface, SimpleWireFastInterface) on Arduino platforms. Also provides adapter classes to allow the use of third party I2C libraries using the same API.

Enables Bluetooth® Low Energy connectivity on the Arduino MKR WiFi 1010, Arduino UNO WiFi Rev.2, Arduino Nano 33 IoT, Arduino Nano 33 BLE and Nicla Sense ME.

Simple Async HTTP Request library, supporting GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE and HEAD, on top of AsyncTCP libraries, such as AsyncTCP, ESPAsyncTCP, AsyncTCP_STM32, etc.. for ESP32 (including ESP32_S2, ESP32_S3 and ESP32_C3), WT32_ETH01 (ESP32 + LAN8720), ESP8266 (WiFi, W5x00 or ENC28J60) and currently STM32 with LAN8720 or built-in LAN8742A Ethernet.

Simple Async HTTP Request library, supporting GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE and HEAD, on top of AsyncTCP_RP2040W library for RASPBERRY_PI_PICO_W with CYW43439 WiFi.

Fully Asynchronous UDP Library for RASPBERRY_PI_PICO_W using CYW43439 WiFi with arduino-pico core. The library is easy to use and includes support for Unicast, Broadcast and Multicast environments.

The last hope for the desperate AVR programmer. A small (344 bytes) Arduino library to have real program traces and to find the place where your program hangs.

Simple Ethernet Manager for MultiBlynk for Teensy, SAM DUE, SAMD21, SAMD51, nRF52, ESP32, ESP8266, RP2040-based (Nano_RP2040_Connect, RASPBERRY_PI_PICO) boards, etc. with or without SSL, configuration data saved in ESP8266/ESP32 LittleFS, SPIFFS, nRF52/RP2040 LittleFS/InternalFS, EEPROM, DueFlashStorage or SAMD FlashStorage.

Simple Blynk Credentials Manager for STM32 boards using built-in LAN8742A Ethernet, LAN8720, ENC28J60 or W5x00 Ethernet shields, with or without SSL, configuration data saved in EEPROM.

Simple GSM shield Credentials Manager for Blynk and ESP32 / ESP8266 boards, with or without SSL, configuration data saved in LittleFS / SPIFFS / EEPROM.

Simple WiFiManager for Blynk and ESP32 with or without SSL, configuration data saved in either SPIFFS or EEPROM. Enable inclusion of both ESP32 Blynk BT/BLE and WiFi libraries. Then select one at reboot or run both. Eliminate hardcoding your Wifi and Blynk credentials and configuration data saved in either LittleFS, SPIFFS or EEPROM. Using AsyncWebServer instead of WebServer, with WiFi networks scanning for selection in Configuration Portal.

Simple GSM shield Credentials Manager for Blynk and ESP32 / ESP8266 boards, with or without SSL, configuration data saved in LittleFS / SPIFFS / EEPROM.

Simple Async WiFiManager for Blynk and ESP32 (including ESP32-S2, ESP32-C3), ESP8266 with or without SSL, configuration data saved in either LittleFS, SPIFFS or EEPROM. Now working with new ESP8266 core v3.0.1 and ESP32 core v1.0.6

Simple WiFiManager for Blynk with MultiWiFi Credentials, for Mega, SAM DUE, SAMD21, SAMD51, nRF52, STM32F/L/H/G/WB/MP1, Teensy, RP2040-based RASPBERRY_PI_PICO, etc. boards running ESP8266/ESP32-AT shields. Configuration data saved in EEPROM, EEPROM-emulated FlashStorage_STM32 or FlashStorage_SAMD, SAM-DUE DueFlashStorage or nRF52/TP2040 LittleFS.

Simple WiFiManager for Blynk and ESP32 (including ESP32-S2, ESP32-C3), ESP8266 with or without SSL, configuration data saved in either LittleFS, SPIFFS or EEPROM. Now working with new ESP8266 core v3.0.0 and ESP32 core v1.0.6

An Arduino library that takes input in degrees and output a string or integer for the 4, 8, 16, or 32 compass headings (like North, South, East, and West).

Directly interface Arduino, esp8266, and esp32 to DSC PowerSeries and Classic security systems for integration with home automation, remote control apps, notifications on alarm events, and emulating DSC panels to connect DSC keypads.

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.

ESP32 (including ESP32-S2, ESP32-S3 and ESP32-C3), ESP8266 WiFi Connection Manager using AsyncWebServer, with enhanced GUI and fallback Web ConfigPortal.

Start serving a local webpage if cannot connect to WiFi, also include Buffer for to WiFi client to prevent small packets with partial messages being sent.

Simple WebServer library for AVR, Teensy, SAM DUE, SAMD21, SAMD51, STM32F/L/H/G/WB/MP1, nRF52, SIPEED_MAIX_DUINO and RP2040-based (RASPBERRY_PI_PICO) boards using ESP8266/ESP32 AT-command shields with functions similar to those of ESP8266/ESP32 WebServer libraries

An ESP8266/ESP32-AT library for Arduino providing an easy-to-use way to control ESP8266-AT/ESP32-AT WiFi shields using AT-commands. For AVR, Teensy, SAM DUE, SAMD21, SAMD51, STM32, nRF52, SIPEED_MAIX_DUINO and RP2040-based (Nano_RP2040_Connect, RASPBERRY_PI_PICO, etc.) boards using ESP8266/ESP32 AT-command shields.

WiFi/Credentials Manager for nRF52, SAM DUE, SAMD21, SAMD51, STM32F/L/H/G/WB/MP1, RP2040-based Nano_RP2040_Connect, RASPBERRY_PI_PICO, etc. boards using ESP8266/ESP32-AT-command shields with fallback web configuration portal. Credentials are saved in EEPROM, SAMD FlashStorage, DueFlashStorage or nRF52/RP2040 LittleFS.

Library to detect a multi reset within a predetermined time, using RTC Memory, EEPROM, LittleFS or SPIFFS for ESP8266 and ESP32, ESP32_C3, ESP32_S2, ESP32_S3

Library to configure MultiWiFi/Credentials at runtime for ESP32 (including ESP32-S2, ESP32-S3 and ESP32-C3) and ESP8266 boards. With enhanced GUI and fallback web ConfigPortal.

Simple Ethernet Manager for STM32F/L/H/G/WB/MP1 boards with Ethernet LAN8720, W5x00, ENC28J60 or built-in LAN8742A shields, with or without SSL, configuration data saved in EEPROM. With DoubleResetDetect feature.

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.

ESP32 VGA, PAL/NTSC Color Composite, SSD1306 ILI9341 ST7789 Controller, PS/2 Mouse and Keyboard Controller, Graphics Library, Graphical User Interface (GUI), Sound Engine, Game Engine and ANSI/VT Terminal

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.

Basic to advanced line following, intersection detection, basic motor control, battery monitoring, gripper control, and basic collision detection with the Gobbit robot.

Arduino library for the Flysky/Turnigy RC iBUS protocol - servo (receive) and sensors/telemetry (send) using hardware UART (AVR, ESP32 and STM32 architectures)

An Arduino library to control the Iowa Scaled Engineering I2C-IRSENSE ( https://www.iascaled.com/store/I2C-IRSENSE ) reflective infrared proximity sensor.

This library provides an interface to control a stepper motor through Infineon’s Stepper Motor Control Shield "KIT_XMC1300_IFX9201" with h-bridge IFX9201 and XMC1300 microcontroller.

Treat PCF8574, MCP23017 and Shift registers like pins, matrix keypad, touch screen handler, button press and rotary encoder management (switches) on any supported IO (including DfRobot & Joysticks) with event handling, interchangable AVR/I2C(AT24) EEPROMs.

Convinient way to map a push-button to a keyboard key. This library utilize the ability of 32u4-based Arduino-compatible boards to emulate USB-keyboard.

This library allows you to easily create light animations from an Arduino board or an ATtiny microcontroller (traffic lights, chaser, shopkeeper sign, etc.)

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

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

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

This library enables you to use ISR-based PWM channels on an Arduino megaAVR board, such as UNO WiFi Rev2, AVR_Nano_Every, etc., to create and output PWM any GPIO pin.

Replace Arduino methods with mocked versions and let you develop code without the hardware. Run parallel hardware and system development for greater efficiency.

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.

Connects to MySQL or MariaDB using ESP8266/ESP32, WT32_ETH01 (ESP32 + LAN8720A), nRF52, SAMD21/SAMD51, STM32F/L/H/G/WB/MP1, Teensy, SAM DUE, Mega, RP2040-based boards, Portenta_H7, etc. with W5x00, ENC28J60 Ethernet, Teensy 4.1 NativeEthernet/QNEthernet, WiFiNINA modules/shields or Portenta_H7 WiFi/Ethernet. W5x00 can use Ethernet_Generic library. ENC28J60 can use either EthernetENC or UIPEthernet Library.

This library enables you to use ISR-based PWM channels on an nRF52-based board using Arduino-mbed mbed_nano core such as Nano-33-BLE to create and output PWM any GPIO pin.

This library enables you to use ISR-based PWM channels on an nRF52-based board using Adafruit_nRF52_Arduino core such as Itsy-Bitsy nRF52840 to create and output PWM any GPIO pin.

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.

The library for OpenBCI Ganglion board. Please use the DefaultGanglion.ino file in the examples to use the code that ships with every Ganglion board. Look through the skimmed down versions of the main firmware in the other examples.

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.

This library enables you to use SPI SD cards with RP2040-based boards such as Nano_RP2040_Connect, RASPBERRY_PI_PICO using either RP2040 Arduino-mbed or arduino-pico core.

This library enables you to use ISR-based PWM channels on RP2040-based boards, such as ADAFRUIT_FEATHER_RP2040, RASPBERRY_PI_PICO, etc., with arduino-pico core to create and output PWM any GPIO pin.

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!

A user interface through the serial channel (menus, sub-menus and command execution), with support for navigation through the menu hierarchy and online help.

Enables smooth servo movement. Linear as well as other (Cubic, Circular, Bounce, etc.) ease movements for servos are provided. The Arduino Servo library or PCA9685 servo expanders are supported.

An associative container used either as a list or btree without needing std lib, and a concurrent circular buffer. Works from AVR/Uno upwards to ESP32, mbed etc

Use the low-power high-resolution ICM 20948 9 DoF IMU from Invensense with I2C or SPI. Version 1.2 of the library includes support for the InvenSense Digital Motion Processor (DMP™).

The VL6180 combines an IR emitter, a range sensor, and an ambient light sensor together for you to easily use and communicate with via an I2C interface.

Enables reading and writing on SD card using SD card slot connected to the SDIO/SDMMC-hardware of the STM32 MCU. For slots connected to SPI-hardware use the standard Arduino SD library.

BufferedPrint stream for efficient networking. ChunkedPrint for HTTP chunked encoding. ChunkedStreamReader for HTTP chunked decoding. CStringBulder builds a c-string with Print class methods. StringReadStream to wrap string as Stream. And printf() function with formatting string from F macro.

Menu library for Arduino with IoT capabilities that supports many input and display devices with a designer UI, code generator, CLI, and strong remote control capability.

A library for creating Tickers which can call repeating functions. Replaces delay() with non-blocking functions. Recommanded for ESP and Arduino boards with mbed behind.

This library enables you to use Interrupt from Hardware Timers on an Arduino, Adafruit or Sparkfun AVR board, such as Nano, UNO, Mega, Leonardo, YUN, Teensy, Feather_32u4, Feather_328P, Pro Micro, etc.

This library enables you to use Interrupt from Hardware Timers on supported Arduino boards such as AVR, Mega-AVR, ESP8266, ESP32, SAMD, SAM DUE, nRF52, STM32F/L/H/G/WB/MP1, Teensy, Nano-33-BLE, RP2040-based boards, etc.

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.

A rotary encoder library that allows the callback of up to 9 different functions representing the same number of different encoder events. These different functions can be associated with events like press rotate and long press among many others.

RFC6455-based WebSockets Server and Client for Arduino boards, such as nRF52, Portenta_H7, SAMD21, SAMD51, STM32F/L/H/G/WB/MP1, Teensy, SAM DUE, RP2040-based boards, besides ESP8266/ESP32 (ESP32, ESP32_S2, ESP32_S3 and ESP32_C3) and WT32_ETH01. Ethernet shields W5100, W5200, W5500, ENC28J60, Teensy 4.1 NativeEthernet/QNEthernet or Portenta_H7 WiFi/Ethernet. Supporting websocket only mode for Socket.IO. Ethernet_Generic library is used as default for W5x00. Now supporting RP2040W

Enables network connection (local and Internet) and WiFiStorage for SAM DUE, SAMD21, SAMD51, Teensy, AVR (328P, 32u4, 16u4, etc.), Mega, STM32F/L/H/G/WB/MP1, nRF52, NINA_B302_ublox, NINA_B112_ublox, RP2040-based boards, etc. in addition to Arduino MKR WiFi 1010, Arduino MKR VIDOR 4000, Arduino UNO WiFi Rev.2, Nano 33 IoT, Nano RP2040 Connect

Simple WiFiWebServer, HTTP Client and WebSocket Client library for AVR Mega, megaAVR, Portenta_H7, Teensy, SAM DUE, SAMD21, SAMD51, STM32F/L/H/G/WB/MP1, nRF52, RP2040-based (Nano-RP2040-Connect, RASPBERRY_PI_PICO, RASPBERRY_PI_PICO_W, ESP32/ESP8266, etc.) boards using WiFi, such as WiFiNINA, WiFi101, CYW43439, U-Blox W101, W102, ESP8266/ESP32-AT modules/shields, with functions similar to those of ESP8266/ESP32 WebServer libraries.

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

TFT LCDs are the most popular color displays – the displays in smartphones, tablets, and laptops are actually the TFT LCDs only. There are TFT LCD shields available for Arduino in a variety of sizes like 1.44″, 1.8″, 2.0″, 2.4″, and 2.8″. Arduino is quite a humble machine whenever it comes to process or control graphics. After all, it is a microcontroller platform, and graphical applications usually require much greater processing resources. Still, Arduino is capable enough to control small display units. TFT LCDs are colorful display screens that can host beautiful user interfaces.

Most of the smaller TFT LCD shields can be controlled using the Adafruit TFT LCD library. There is also a larger TFT LCD shield of 3.5 inches, with an ILI9486 8-bit driver.

The Adafruit library does not support the ILI9486 driver. Actually, the Adafruit library is written to control only TFT displays smaller than 3.5 inches. To control the 3.5 inch TFT LCD touch screen, we need another library. This is MCUFRIEND_kbv. The MCUFRIEND_kbv library is, in fact, even easier to use in comparison to the Adafruit TFT LCD library. This library only requires instantiating a TFT object and even does not require specifying pin connections.

TFT LCDs for ArduinoUser interfaces are an essential part of any embedded application. The user interface enables any interaction with the end-user and makes possible the ultimate use of the device. The user interfaces are hosted using a number of devices like seven-segments, character LCDs, graphical LCDs, and full-color TFT LCDs. Out of all these devices, only full-color TFT displays are capable of hosting sophisticated interfaces. A sophisticated user interface may have many data fields to display or may need to host menus and sub-menus or host interactive graphics. A TFT LCD is an active matrix LCD capable of hosting high-quality images.

Arduino operates at low frequency. That is why it is not possible to render high-definition images or videos with Arduino. However, Arduino can control a small TFT display screen rendering graphically enriched data and commands. By interfacing a TFT LCD touch screen with Arduino, it is possible to render interactive graphics, menus, charts, graphs, and user panels.

Some of the popular full-color TFT LCDs available for Arduino include 3.5″ 480×320 display, 2.8″ 400×200 display, 2.4″ 320×240 display and 1.8″ 220×176 display. A TFT screen of appropriate size and resolution can be selected as per a given application.

If the user interface has only graphical data and commands, Atmega328 Arduino boards can control the display. If the user interface is a large program hosting several menus and/or submenus, Arduino Mega2560 should be preferred to control the TFT display. If the user interface needs to host high-resolution images and motions, ARM core Arduino boards like the DUE should be used to control the TFT display.

MCUFRIEND_kbv libraryAdafruit TFT LCD library supports only small TFT displays. For large TFT display shields like 3.5-inch, 3.6-inch, 3.95-inch, including 2.4-inch and 2.8-inch TFT LCDs, MCUFRIEND_kbv library is useful. This library has been designed to control 28-pin TFT LCD shields for Arduino UNO. It also works with Arduino Mega2560. Apart from UNO and Mega2560, the library also supports LEONARDO, DUE, ZERO, and M0-PRO. It also runs on NUCLEO-F103 and TEENSY3.2 with Sparkfun Adapter. The Mcufriend-style shields tend to have a resistive TouchScreen on A1, 7, A2, 6 but are not always in the same direction rotation. The MCUFRIEND_kbv library can be included in an Arduino sketch from the library manager.

The 3.5-inch TFT LCD shield needs to be plugged atop the Arduino board. The Mcufriend-style shields are designed to fit into all the above-mentioned Arduino boards. The shields have a TFT touch screen that can display colorful images and interfaces and a micro SD card reader to save images and other data. A 3.5-inch TFT LCD touch screen has the following pin diagram.

The drawFastVLine function draws a vertical line that starts in x, y location, and its length is h pixel and its color is t. The drawFastHLine function draws a horizontal line that starts in x and y location, and the length is w pixel, and the color is t. The drawLine function draws a line that starts in xi and yi locationends is in xj and yj, and the color is t. These methods draw lines with 5-pixel thickness.

The fillRect function draws a filled rectangle in x and y locations. w is width, h is height, and t is the color of the rectangle. The drawRect function draws a rectangle in x and y location with w width and h height and t color. The fillRoundRect function draws a filled Rectangle with r radius round corners in x and y location and w width and h height and t color. The drawRoundRect function draws a Rectangle with r radius round corners in x and y location and w width and h height and t color.

The drawTriangle function draws a triangle with three corner location x, y and z, and t color. The fillTriangle function draws a filled triangle with three corner location x, y and z, and t color.

How project worksThe code fills a rectangle, then draws a rectangle within which text “EEWORLDONLINE” is displayed. Then, lines, circles, rectangles, and squares are drawn on the screen. The project ends with a greeting and a message.

Used to describe a clocked parallel TFT connection that uses 18 data lines (6 for Red, 6 for Green, 6 for Blue) as well as Hsync, Vsync, data enable, and pixel clock to transfer data to the TFT. Theoretical color depth is 218 or 262,144 colors.

Used to describe a clocked parallel TFT connection that uses 24 data lines (8 for Red, 8 for Green, 8 for Blue) as well as Hsync, Vsync data enable, and pixel clock to transfer data to the TFT. Theoretical color depth is 224or 16,777,216 colors.

6800 is a parallel interface that uses Read/Write signal and an Enable signal to control the data bus. Communications with a display are only enabled when the enable signal is pulled high. The level of the Read/Write signal then determines whether data will be read from the display or written to the display. If the Read/Write signal is high, data will be read from the display whereas if the Read/Write signal is low, data will be written to the display. Sometimes the Write will be shown as a “notted” signal. For instance, there may be a bar over the name, a preceding exclamation mark, slash, or dash. While this looks like negation notation, in this context it simply means the signal is active low.

In theory, a material that perfectly reflects all light energy at every visible wavelength. In practice, a solid white (with known spectral data) that is used as the “reference white” for all measurements of absolute reflectance.

A liquid crystal display structure in which switching transistors or diodes are attached to each pixel to control the on/off voltage. It produces a brighter and sharper display with a broader viewing angle than a passive matrix display. Also known as AMLCD (active matrix liquid crystal display). See TFT (thin film transistor).

AF (Anti-fingerprint) is a surface coating agent containing a fluorinated polyether. Excellent water and oil repellency, as well as anti-fouling properties, are achieved without altering the appearance, by forming a thin monomolecular layer on a surface such as glass. Normally using wet coating, spray coating, dip coating and spin coating process.

This is often described as a matte coating as it is non-reflective to the user since it diffuses rather than reflects ambient light. It provides a method for manufacturers to avoid glare on the viewing surface from other light sources and has been used in the LCD monitor market for many years since the first TFT displays started to emerge. The matte coating is included as an outer polarizing later which has been coarsened by mechanical or chemical processes. This achieves a surface coating which is not smooth and so can diffuse ambient light rather than reflect it.

An adhesive is applied between the display and touch panel using the inactive area around the perimeter of the module. This bonding method results in some inactive space ‘air gap’ between the touch panel substrate and the display. This is the most cost-effective and common solution.

AMOLED is Active Matrix OLED. An Active Matrix OLED uses a TFT (Thin Film Transistor) transistor-per-pixel architecture. Using a transistor-per-pixel allows higher resolution displays to be made and avoids the problems associated with high duty cycle passive displays.

An anti-reflection (AR) coating is a type of optical coating applied to the surface touch panel to reduce reflection. Many coatings consist of transparent thin film structures with alternating layers of contrasting refractive index. Layer thicknesses are chosen to produce destructive interference in the beams reflected from the interfaces, and constructive interference in the corresponding transmitted beams.This makes the structure’s performance change with wavelength and incident angle, so that color effects often appear at oblique angles. Good performance can often be achieved for a relatively wide range of frequencies: usually a choice of IR, visible, or UV is offered.

A backlight is used behind the LCD glass to allow the LCM to be read in dark conditions. The vast majority of backlights are now LED. Historically there were also EL (electroluminescent) and CCFL (Cold Cathode Fluorescent Light) backlights, but as LED efficiency has increased and cost has decreased, EL and CCFL backlights have all but disappeared.

A frame of plastic or metal, fitting over the LCD glass, to protect the edges of the glass and actas a pressure device, compressing the elastomer connector between the PCB and LCD glass.

BGA stands for Ball Grid Array. A type of high-density electronic component package for integrated circuits. The BGA has solder balls on its backside, which line up with corresponding contacts on the front side of the PCB.The part and PCB are heated until the solder balls melt.

Normally an LCD’s backlight is set to the brightness that will make a white pixel fully illuminated. CABC automatically dims the backlight to the lowest level required for the brightest pixel on the display.

Character LCDs include a fixed CGROM to define the bulk of the characters they display. However, since the CGROM cannot be changed the designers also included the CGRAM — a small number of characters (typically 8) that can be redefined at run-time. These eight characters are usually mapped to characters 0DEC (0x00HEX) to 7DEC (0x07HEX). The CGRAM definitions can be used to make small animations, bar graphs, and similar small graphic or sprite images. This term very likely has its beginning in the granddaddy of all LCD controllers, the venerable Hitachi HD44780.

The CGROM stores the font that is displayed on a character LCD. When you tell a character LCD to display the letter ‘A’, it needs to know which dots to turn on so that we see an ‘A’. This information is stored in the CGROM. By definition, (since it is a ROM) the font that is stored in the CGROM cannot be changed. Be sure to check the datasheet of the character LCD module to make sure that it can display the characters you need. Typically, a CGROM for a character display module has 240 characters defined. The lower half of the CGROM maps to the normal ASCII characters. Since the early character display controllers were designed in Japan, many CGROM have Japanese characters in the upper 128 positions. There are also some CGROMs that have European or Cyrillic characters in these upper locations.

The WS0010 is a more modern character OLED controller, and the designers have included several CGROMs that can be chosen at run-time, so there is not the need to lock in a particular character set at design time. Since the CGROM is completely determined at the time of manufacture of the LCD controller, the designers also included a CGRAM, which allows the bitmaps of a few characters to be redefined at run-time. This term very likely has its beginning in the granddaddy of all LCD controllers, the venerable Hitachi HD44780).

Cross – Talk is the defect produced by the interference of the adjacent pixels. The contrast of these crosstalk areas is different from other areas. Crosstalk can appear only with certain display patterns.

Color STN Technology. Each pixel of a CSTN display is actually 3 separate colored pixels of Red / Green / Blue. Each of those colors are controlled individually by the graphic controller chip. In fact, a 320 by 240 pixel CSTN display actually contains 960 by 240 individually colored pixels

A capacitive touchscreen panel consists of an insulator such as glass, coated with a transparent conductor such as indium tin oxide (ITO). As the human body is also an electrical conductor, touching the surface of the screen results in a distortion of the screen’s electrostatic field,measurable as a change in capacitance. Different technologies may be used to determine the location of the touch. The location is then sent to the controller for processing.

A DC-to-DC converter is an electronic circuit which converts a source of direct current (DC) from one voltage level to another. It is a class of power converter. DC-to-DC converters are important in portable electronic devices such as cellular phones and laptop computers, which are supplied with power from batteries primarily. Such electronic devices often contain several sub-circuits, each with its own voltage level requirement different from that supplied by the battery or an external supply (sometimes higher or lower than the supply voltage). Additionally, the battery voltage declines as its stored energy is drained. Switched DC-to-DC converters offer a method to increase voltage from a partially lowered battery voltage thereby saving space instead of using multiple batteries to accomplish the same thing.

The Display Data RAM holds the letters that get shown on the LCD of a character LCD module. For instance, the letter ‘A’ is stored in its ASCII equivalent 65DEC (0x41HEX) in the DDRAM.

So a 20×2 character LCD would have enough DDRAM to store 40 letters. The value in the DDRAM is used to find the correct bitmap in the CGROM (Character Generator ROM) or CGRAM (Character Generator RAM), it is this small bitmap that gets displayed on the LCD. This term very likely has its beginning in the granddaddy of all LCD controllers, the venerable Hitachi HD44780.

Translucent material used for light diffusion placed between backlight lighting sources and the back side of an LCD. This material will create a more uniform backlight for an LCD from several unique sources of light.

Apple has been granted a patent in 2011 that describes a method for fabricating thin DITO (Double-Sided Indium Tin Oxide) or SITO (Single-Sided Indium Tin Oxide) touch sensor panels with a thickness less than a minimum thickness tolerance of existing manufacturing equipment. In one embodiment, a sandwich of two thin glass sheets is formed such that the combined thickness of the glass sheets does not drop below the minimum thickness tolerance of existing manufacturing equipment when a thin film process is performed on the surfaces of the sandwich during fabrication. The sandwich may eventually be separated to form two thin SITO/DITO panels.

ESD can create spectacular electric sparks (lightning, with the accompanying sound of thunder, is a large-scale ESD event), but also less dramatic forms which may be neither seen