2.4 inch tft lcd shield for arduino uno code made in china

I found that the one I have uses ILI9335 and after some hacking I was able to make it work with UTFT (it uses a non standard pinout using PB[0:1] and PD[2:7] and needs LCD_RD at HIGH) but so far so good.

I have seen this kind of shield almost everywhere the same pintout, red board, etc but I haven"t found any info to check if the logic is only 5V or any working example and of course the provided library only works for UNO boards.

This module is a 2.4-inch TFT LCD module with “320X240” resolution and 65K color display. It is suitable for Arduino Uno and Mega2560 development boards, and also supports SD card expansion function. It uses 8-bit parallel port communication, and the driver IC is ILI9341.

The 2.4-inch display is a ready-made shield for Arduino Uno, which can also be placed on the Arduino Mega. The pins of this shield are designed to be easily installed on the Arduino. The bad point about these modules is that they use all Arduino Uno pins.

Open the downloaded file and upload the main.ino code on your Arduino Board. This code is for testing the display module and comes with full screen calibration.

Spice up your Arduino project with a beautiful touchscreen display shield with built in microSD card connection. This TFT display is 2.4" diagonal and colorful (18-bit 262,000 different shades)! 240x320 pixels with individual pixel control. As a bonus, this display has a optional capacitive touch panel and resistive touch panel with controller XPT2046 attached by default.

The shield is fully assembled, tested and ready to go. No wiring, no soldering! Simply plug it in and load up our library - you"ll have it running in under 10 minutes! Works best with any classic Arduino (UNO/Due/Mega 2560).

This display shield has a controller built into it with RAM buffering, so that almost no work is done by the microcontroller. You can connect more sensors, buttons and LEDs.

Of course, we wouldn"t just leave you with a datasheet and a "good luck!" - we"ve written a full open source graphics library at the bottom of this page that can draw pixels, lines, rectangles, circles and text. We also have a touch screen library that detects x,y and z (pressure) and example code to demonstrate all of it. The code is written for Arduino but can be easily ported to your favorite microcontroller!

If you"ve had a lot of Arduino DUEs go through your hands (or if you are just unlucky), chances are you’ve come across at least one that does not start-up properly.The symptom is simple: you power up the Arduino but it doesn’t appear to “boot”. Your code simply doesn"t start running.You might have noticed that resetting the board (by pressing the reset button) causes the board to start-up normally.The fix is simple,here is the solution.

The shield is fully assembled, tested, and ready to go. No wiring, no soldering! Simply plug it in and load up the library - you"ll have it running in under 10 minutes!

(1) Due to the high risk of package lost recently, we have to stop using the free shipping way these days. Hope for your kind understanding! And the $5 is for tracking number and delivery insurance ^0^ Enjoy order from us.

2) Chinese Holiday Reminder: During annual Chinese holidays, services from certain suppliers and carriers may be affected, and delivery for orders placed around the following times may be delayed by 3 - 7 days: Chinese New Year; Chinese National Day,etc.

After trying for several days trying the solutions I found on the web, and none works 100%. So I decided to do an library specific to this controller.

I changed the Adafruit libraries for TFT: GFX , TFTLCD and TouchScreen. I join all in this one library, the library SPFD5408, to avoid problems with duplicate libraries and enables also have the original library Adafruit ready for use in other projects with another TFT hardware.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to use and set up 2.4″ Touch LCD Shield for Arduino. First, you’ll see some general information about this shield. And after learning how to set the shield up, you’ll see 3 practical projects.

The role of screens in electronic projects is very important. Screens can be of very simple types such as 7 Segment or character LCDs or more advanced models like OLEDs and TFT LCDs.

One of the most important features of this LCD is including a touch panel. If you are about to use the LCD, you need to know the coordinates of the point you touch. To do so, you should upload the following code on your Arduino board and open the serial monitor. Then touch your desired location and write the coordinates displayed on the serial monitor. You can use this coordination in any other project./*TFT LCD - TFT Touch CoordinateBased on Librery Examplemodified on 21 Feb 2019by Saeed Hosseinihttps://electropeak.com/learn/*/#include #include "TouchScreen.h"#define YP A2#define XM A3#define YM 8#define XP 9// For better pressure precision, we need to know the resistance// between X+ and X- Use any multimeter to read it// For the one we"re using, its 300 ohms across the X plateTouchScreen ts = TouchScreen(XP, YP, XM, YM, 300);void setup(void) {Serial.begin(9600);}void loop(void) {TSPoint p = ts.getPoint();if (p.z > ts.pressureThreshhold) {Serial.print("X = "); Serial.print(p.x);Serial.print("\tY = "); Serial.print(p.y);Serial.print("\tPressure = "); Serial.println(p.z);}delay(100);}

Displaying Text and Shapes on Arduino 2.4 LCD/*TFT LCD - TFT Simple drivingmodified on 21 Feb 2019by Saeed Hosseinihttps://electropeak.com/learn/*/#include #include #define LCD_CS A3#define LCD_CD A2#define LCD_WR A1#define LCD_RD A0#define LCD_RESET A4#define BLACK 0x0000#define BLUE 0x001F#define RED 0xF800#define GREEN 0x07E0#define CYAN 0x07FF#define MAGENTA 0xF81F#define YELLOW 0xFFE0#define WHITE 0xFFFF#define ORANGE 0xFD20#define GREENYELLOW 0xAFE5#define NAVY 0x000F#define DARKGREEN 0x03E0#define DARKCYAN 0x03EF#define MAROON 0x7800#define PURPLE 0x780F#define OLIVE 0x7BE0#define LIGHTGREY 0xC618#define DARKGREY 0x7BEFAdafruit_TFTLCD tft(LCD_CS, LCD_CD, LCD_WR, LCD_RD, LCD_RESET);void setup() {Serial.begin(9600);Serial.println(F("TFT LCD test"));#ifdef USE_ADAFRUIT_SHIELD_PINOUTSerial.println(F("Using Adafruit 2.4\" TFT Arduino Shield Pinout"));#elseSerial.println(F("Using Adafruit 2.4\" TFT Breakout Board Pinout"));#endifSerial.print("TFT size is ");Serial.print(tft.width());Serial.print("x");Serial.println(tft.height());tft.reset();uint16_t identifier = tft.readID();if (identifier == 0x9325) {Serial.println(F("Found ILI9325 LCD driver"));} else if (identifier == 0x9328) {Serial.println(F("Found ILI9328 LCD driver"));} else if (identifier == 0x7575) {Serial.println(F("Found HX8347G LCD driver"));} else if (identifier == 0x9341) {Serial.println(F("Found ILI9341 LCD driver"));} else if (identifier == 0x8357) {Serial.println(F("Found HX8357D LCD driver"));} else {Serial.print(F("Unknown LCD driver chip: "));Serial.println(identifier, HEX);Serial.println(F("If using the Adafruit 2.4\" TFT Arduino shield, the line:"));Serial.println(F(" #define USE_ADAFRUIT_SHIELD_PINOUT"));Serial.println(F("should appear in the library header (Adafruit_TFT.h)."));Serial.println(F("If using the breakout board, it should NOT be #defined!"));Serial.println(F("Also if using the breakout, double-check that all wiring"));Serial.println(F("matches the tutorial."));return;}tft.begin(identifier);Serial.println(F("Benchmark Time (microseconds)"));Serial.print(F("Screen fill "));Serial.println(FillScreen());delay(500);tft.setTextColor(YELLOW);tft.setCursor(70, 180);tft.setTextSize(1);tft.println("Electropeak");delay(200);tft.fillScreen(PURPLE);tft.setCursor(50, 170);tft.setTextSize(2);tft.println("Electropeak");delay(200);tft.fillScreen(PURPLE);tft.setCursor(20, 160);tft.setTextSize(3);tft.println("Electropeak");delay(500);tft.fillScreen(PURPLE);for (int rotation = 0; rotation < 4; rotation++) { tft.setRotation(rotation); tft.setCursor(0, 0); tft.setTextSize(3); tft.println("Electropeak"); delay(700); } delay(500); Serial.print(F("Rectangles (filled) ")); Serial.println(testFilledRects(YELLOW, MAGENTA)); delay(500); } void loop() { } unsigned long FillScreen() { unsigned long start = micros(); tft.fillScreen(RED); delay(500); tft.fillScreen(GREEN); delay(500); tft.fillScreen(BLUE); delay(500); tft.fillScreen(WHITE); delay(500); tft.fillScreen(MAGENTA); delay(500); tft.fillScreen(PURPLE); delay(500); return micros() - start; } unsigned long testFilledRects(uint16_t color1, uint16_t color2) { unsigned long start, t = 0; int n, i, i2, cx = tft.width() / 2 - 1, cy = tft.height() / 2 - 1; tft.fillScreen(BLACK); n = min(tft.width(), tft.height()); for (i = n; i > 0; i -= 6) {i2 = i / 2;start = micros();tft.fillRect(cx - i2, cy - i2, i, i, color1);t += micros() - start;// Outlines are not included in timing resultstft.drawRect(cx - i2, cy - i2, i, i, color2);}return t;}

Displaying BMP pictures/*This code is TFTLCD Library Example*/#include #include #include #include #define LCD_CS A3#define LCD_CD A2#define LCD_WR A1#define LCD_RD A0#define SD_CS 10Adafruit_TFTLCD tft(LCD_CS, LCD_CD, LCD_WR, LCD_RD, A4);void setup(){Serial.begin(9600);tft.reset();uint16_t identifier = tft.readID();if (identifier == 0x9325) {Serial.println(F("Found ILI9325 LCD driver"));} else if (identifier == 0x9328) {Serial.println(F("Found ILI9328 LCD driver"));} else if (identifier == 0x7575) {Serial.println(F("Found HX8347G LCD driver"));} else if (identifier == 0x9341) {Serial.println(F("Found ILI9341 LCD driver"));} else if (identifier == 0x8357) {Serial.println(F("Found HX8357D LCD driver"));} else {Serial.print(F("Unknown LCD driver chip: "));Serial.println(identifier, HEX);Serial.println(F("If using the Adafruit 2.4\" TFT Arduino shield, the line:"));Serial.println(F(" #define USE_ADAFRUIT_SHIELD_PINOUT"));Serial.println(F("should appear in the library header (Adafruit_TFT.h)."));Serial.println(F("If using the breakout board, it should NOT be #defined!"));Serial.println(F("Also if using the breakout, double-check that all wiring"));Serial.println(F("matches the tutorial."));return;}tft.begin(identifier);Serial.print(F("Initializing SD card..."));if (!SD.begin(SD_CS)) {Serial.println(F("failed!"));return;}Serial.println(F("OK!"));bmpDraw("pic1.bmp", 0, 0);delay(1000);bmpDraw("pic2.bmp", 0, 0);delay(1000);bmpDraw("pic3.bmp", 0, 0);delay(1000);}void loop(){}#define BUFFPIXEL 20void bmpDraw(char *filename, int x, int y) {File bmpFile;int bmpWidth, bmpHeight; // W+H in pixelsuint8_t bmpDepth; // Bit depth (currently must be 24)uint32_t bmpImageoffset; // Start of image data in fileuint32_t rowSize; // Not always = bmpWidth; may have paddinguint8_t sdbuffer[3 * BUFFPIXEL]; // pixel in buffer (R+G+B per pixel)uint16_t lcdbuffer[BUFFPIXEL]; // pixel out buffer (16-bit per pixel)uint8_t buffidx = sizeof(sdbuffer); // Current position in sdbufferboolean goodBmp = false; // Set to true on valid header parseboolean flip = true; // BMP is stored bottom-to-topint w, h, row, col;uint8_t r, g, b;uint32_t pos = 0, startTime = millis();uint8_t lcdidx = 0;boolean first = true;if ((x >= tft.width()) || (y >= tft.height())) return;Serial.println();Serial.print(F("Loading image ""));Serial.print(filename);Serial.println("\"");// Open requested file on SD cardif ((bmpFile = SD.open(filename)) == NULL) {Serial.println(F("File not found"));return;}// Parse BMP headerif (read16(bmpFile) == 0x4D42) { // BMP signatureSerial.println(F("File size: ")); Serial.println(read32(bmpFile));(void)read32(bmpFile); // Read & ignore creator bytesbmpImageoffset = read32(bmpFile); // Start of image dataSerial.print(F("Image Offset: ")); Serial.println(bmpImageoffset, DEC);// Read DIB headerSerial.print(F("Header size: ")); Serial.println(read32(bmpFile));bmpWidth = read32(bmpFile);bmpHeight = read32(bmpFile);if (read16(bmpFile) == 1) { // # planes -- must be "1"bmpDepth = read16(bmpFile); // bits per pixelSerial.print(F("Bit Depth: ")); Serial.println(bmpDepth);if ((bmpDepth == 24) && (read32(bmpFile) == 0)) { // 0 = uncompressedgoodBmp = true; // Supported BMP format -- proceed!Serial.print(F("Image size: "));Serial.print(bmpWidth);Serial.print("x");Serial.println(bmpHeight);// BMP rows are padded (if needed) to 4-byte boundaryrowSize = (bmpWidth * 3 + 3) & ~3;// If bmpHeight is negative, image is in top-down order.// This is not canon but has been observed in the wild.if (bmpHeight < 0) { bmpHeight = -bmpHeight; flip = false; } // Crop area to be loaded w = bmpWidth; h = bmpHeight; if ((x + w - 1) >= tft.width()) w = tft.width() - x;if ((y + h - 1) >= tft.height()) h = tft.height() - y;// Set TFT address window to clipped image boundstft.setAddrWindow(x, y, x + w - 1, y + h - 1);for (row = 0; row < h; row++) { // For each scanline...// Seek to start of scan line. It might seem labor-// intensive to be doing this on every line, but this// method covers a lot of gritty details like cropping// and scanline padding. Also, the seek only takes// place if the file position actually needs to change// (avoids a lot of cluster math in SD library).if (flip) // Bitmap is stored bottom-to-top order (normal BMP)pos = bmpImageoffset + (bmpHeight - 1 - row) * rowSize;else // Bitmap is stored top-to-bottompos = bmpImageoffset + row * rowSize;if (bmpFile.position() != pos) { // Need seek?bmpFile.seek(pos);buffidx = sizeof(sdbuffer); // Force buffer reload}for (col = 0; col < w; col++) { // For each column... // Time to read more pixel data? if (buffidx >= sizeof(sdbuffer)) { // Indeed// Push LCD buffer to the display firstif (lcdidx > 0) {tft.pushColors(lcdbuffer, lcdidx, first);lcdidx = 0;first = false;}bmpFile.read(sdbuffer, sizeof(sdbuffer));buffidx = 0; // Set index to beginning}// Convert pixel from BMP to TFT formatb = sdbuffer[buffidx++];g = sdbuffer[buffidx++];r = sdbuffer[buffidx++];lcdbuffer[lcdidx++] = tft.color565(r, g, b);} // end pixel} // end scanline// Write any remaining data to LCDif (lcdidx > 0) {tft.pushColors(lcdbuffer, lcdidx, first);}Serial.print(F("Loaded in "));Serial.print(millis() - startTime);Serial.println(" ms");} // end goodBmp}}bmpFile.close();if (!goodBmp) Serial.println(F("BMP format not recognized."));}// These read 16- and 32-bit types from the SD card file.// BMP data is stored little-endian, Arduino is little-endian too.// May need to reverse subscript order if porting elsewhere.uint16_t read16(File f) {uint16_t result;((uint8_t *)&result)[0] = f.read(); // LSB((uint8_t *)&result)[1] = f.read(); // MSBreturn result;}uint32_t read32(File f) {uint32_t result;((uint8_t *)&result)[0] = f.read(); // LSB((uint8_t *)&result)[1] = f.read();((uint8_t *)&result)[2] = f.read();((uint8_t *)&result)[3] = f.read(); // MSBreturn result;}

To display pictures on this LCD you should save the picture in 24bit BMP colored format and size of 240*320. Then move them to SD card and put the SD card in the LCD shield. we use the following function to display pictures. This function has 3 arguments; the first one stands for the pictures name, and the second and third arguments are for length and width coordinates of the top left corner of the picture.bmpdraw(“filename.bmp”,x,y);

Create A Paint App w/ Arduino 2.4 Touchscreen/*This code is TFTLCD Library Example*/#include #include #include #if defined(__SAM3X8E__)#undef __FlashStringHelper::F(string_literal)#define F(string_literal) string_literal#endif#define YP A3#define XM A2#define YM 9#define XP 8#define TS_MINX 150#define TS_MINY 120#define TS_MAXX 920#define TS_MAXY 940TouchScreen ts = TouchScreen(XP, YP, XM, YM, 300);#define LCD_CS A3#define LCD_CD A2#define LCD_WR A1#define LCD_RD A0#define LCD_RESET A4#define BLACK 0x0000#define BLUE 0x001F#define RED 0xF800#define GREEN 0x07E0#define CYAN 0x07FF#define MAGENTA 0xF81F#define YELLOW 0xFFE0#define WHITE 0xFFFFAdafruit_TFTLCD tft(LCD_CS, LCD_CD, LCD_WR, LCD_RD, LCD_RESET);#define BOXSIZE 40#define PENRADIUS 3int oldcolor, currentcolor;void setup(void) {Serial.begin(9600);Serial.println(F("Paint!"));tft.reset();uint16_t identifier = tft.readID();if(identifier == 0x9325) {Serial.println(F("Found ILI9325 LCD driver"));} else if(identifier == 0x9328) {Serial.println(F("Found ILI9328 LCD driver"));} else if(identifier == 0x7575) {Serial.println(F("Found HX8347G LCD driver"));} else if(identifier == 0x9341) {Serial.println(F("Found ILI9341 LCD driver"));} else if(identifier == 0x8357) {Serial.println(F("Found HX8357D LCD driver"));} else {Serial.print(F("Unknown LCD driver chip: "));Serial.println(identifier, HEX);Serial.println(F("If using the Adafruit 2.4\" TFT Arduino shield, the line:"));Serial.println(F(" #define USE_ADAFRUIT_SHIELD_PINOUT"));Serial.println(F("should appear in the library header (Adafruit_TFT.h)."));Serial.println(F("If using the breakout board, it should NOT be #defined!"));Serial.println(F("Also if using the breakout, double-check that all wiring"));Serial.println(F("matches the tutorial."));return;}tft.begin(identifier);tft.fillScreen(BLACK);tft.fillRect(0, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, RED);tft.fillRect(BOXSIZE, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, YELLOW);tft.fillRect(BOXSIZE*2, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, GREEN);tft.fillRect(BOXSIZE*3, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, CYAN);tft.fillRect(BOXSIZE*4, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, BLUE);tft.fillRect(BOXSIZE*5, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, MAGENTA);tft.drawRect(0, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, WHITE);currentcolor = RED;pinMode(13, OUTPUT);}#define MINPRESSURE 10#define MAXPRESSURE 1000void loop(){digitalWrite(13, HIGH);TSPoint p = ts.getPoint();digitalWrite(13, LOW);pinMode(XM, OUTPUT);pinMode(YP, OUTPUT);if (p.z > MINPRESSURE && p.z < MAXPRESSURE) {if (p.y < (TS_MINY-5)) {Serial.println("erase");tft.fillRect(0, BOXSIZE, tft.width(), tft.height()-BOXSIZE, BLACK);}p.x = map(p.x, TS_MINX, TS_MAXX, tft.width(), 0);p.y = map(p.y, TS_MINY, TS_MAXY, tft.height(), 0);if (p.y < BOXSIZE) {oldcolor = currentcolor;if (p.x < BOXSIZE) {currentcolor = RED;tft.drawRect(0, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, WHITE);} else if (p.x < BOXSIZE*2) {currentcolor = YELLOW;tft.drawRect(BOXSIZE, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, WHITE);} else if (p.x < BOXSIZE*3) {currentcolor = GREEN;tft.drawRect(BOXSIZE*2, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, WHITE);} else if (p.x < BOXSIZE*4) {currentcolor = CYAN;tft.drawRect(BOXSIZE*3, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, WHITE);} else if (p.x < BOXSIZE*5) {currentcolor = BLUE;tft.drawRect(BOXSIZE*4, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, WHITE);} else if (p.x < BOXSIZE*6) { currentcolor = MAGENTA; tft.drawRect(BOXSIZE*5, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, WHITE); } if (oldcolor != currentcolor) { if (oldcolor == RED) tft.fillRect(0, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, RED); if (oldcolor == YELLOW) tft.fillRect(BOXSIZE, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, YELLOW); if (oldcolor == GREEN) tft.fillRect(BOXSIZE*2, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, GREEN); if (oldcolor == CYAN) tft.fillRect(BOXSIZE*3, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, CYAN); if (oldcolor == BLUE) tft.fillRect(BOXSIZE*4, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, BLUE); if (oldcolor == MAGENTA) tft.fillRect(BOXSIZE*5, 0, BOXSIZE, BOXSIZE, MAGENTA); } } if (((p.y-PENRADIUS) > BOXSIZE) && ((p.y+PENRADIUS) < tft.height())) {tft.fillCircle(p.x, p.y, PENRADIUS, currentcolor);}}}

Final NotesIf you want to display pictures without using an SD card, you can convert it to code and then display it. You can display even several photos sequentially without delay to create an animation. (Check this)But be aware that in this case, Arduino UNO may not be suitable (because of low processor speed). We recommend using the Arduino Mega or Arduino DUE.

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:

Arduino has always helped to build projects easily and make them look more attractive.  Programming an LCD screen with touch screen option might sound as a complicated task, but the Arduino libraries and shields had made it really easy. In this project we will use a 2.4” Arduino TFT LCD screen to build our own Arduino Touch Screen calculator that could perform all basic calculations like Addition, Subtraction, Division and Multiplication.

Before we actually dive into the project it is important to know, how this 2.4” TFT LCD Module works and what are the types present in it. Let us take a look at the pinouts of this 2.4” TFT LCD screen module.

As you can see there are 28 pins which will perfectly fit into any Arduino Uno / Arduino Mega Board. A small classification of these pins is given in the table below.

As you can see the pins can be classified in to four main classifications such as LCD Command Pins, LCD Data Pins, SD Card Pins and Power Pins, We need not know much about the detailed working of these pins since they will be take care by our Arduino Library.

You can also find an SD card slot at the bottom of the module shown above, which can be used to load an SD card with bmp image files, and these images can be displayed in our TFT LCD screen using the Arduino Program.

Another important thing to note is your Interface IC. There are many types of TFT modules available in the market starting from the original Adafruit TFT LCD module to cheap Chinese clones. A program which works perfectly for your Adafruit shield might not work the same for Chinese breakout boards. So, it is very important to know which types of LCD display your are holding in hand. This detail has to be obtained from the vendor. If you are having a cheap clone like mine then it is most probably using the ili9341 driver IC.You can follow this TFT LCD interfacing with Arduino tutorial to try out some basic example programs and get comfortable with the LCD screen. Also check out our other TFT LCD projects with Arduino here:

If you planning to use the touch screen function of your TFT LCD module, then you have to calibrate it to make it work properly.  A LCD screen without calibration might work unlikely, for instance you might touch at one place and the TFT might respond for a touch at some other place. These calibrations results will not be similar for all boards and hence you are left on your own to do this.

The best way to calibrate is to use the calibration example program (comes with library) or use the serial monitor to detect your error.  However for this project since the size of buttons is large calibration should not be a big problem and I will also explain how you can calibrate your screen under the programming section below.

The 2.4” TFT LCD screen is a perfect Arduino Shield. You can directly push the LCD screen on top of the Arduino Uno and it will perfectly match with the pins and slid in through. However, as matters of safety cover the Programming terminal of your Arduino UNO with a small insulation tape, just in case if the terminal comes in contact with your TFT LCD screen. The LCD assembled on UNO will look something like this below.

We are using the SPFD5408 Library to get this arduino calculator code working. This is a modified library of Adafruit and can work seamlessly with our LCD TFT Module. You can check the complete program at the end of this Article.

Now, open Arduino IDE and select Sketch -> Include Librarey -> Add .ZIP library. A browser window will open navigate to the ZIP file and click “OK”. You should notice “Library added to your Libraries” on the bottom-left corner of Arduino, if successful. A detailed guide to do the same is given in the Interfacing Tutorial.

Now, you can use the code below in your Arduino IDE and upload it to your Arduino UNO for the Touch Screen Calculator to work. Further down, I have explained the code into small segments.

We need three libraries for this program to work; all these three libraries were given in the ZIP file you downloaded from the above provided link. I have simply included them in the code as shown below.

As said earlier we need to calibrate the LCD screen to make it work as expected, but don’t worry the values given here are almost universal. The variables TS_MINX, TS_MINY, TS_MAXX, and TS_MAXY decide the calibration of the Screen. You can toy around them if you feel the calibration is not satisfactory.

As we know the TFT LCD screen can display a lot of colours, all these colours have to be entered in hex value. To make it more human readable we assign these values to a variable as shown below.

Since we have designed the box with width and height of 60 pixel each and have four Rows and for columns starting from (0,0). The position of each box can be predicted as shown in below picture.

Now, since we know the position of all the boxes. When a user touches anywhere we can predict where he has touched by comparing his (X,Y) values with the value for each box as shown below.

The final step is to calculate the result and display them on TFT LCD Screen. This arduino calculator can perform operation with 2 numbers only. These two numbers are named as variables “Num1” and “Num2”. The variable “Number” gives and takes value from Num1 and Num2 and also bears the result.

When a use presses a button, one digit is added to number. When another button is pressed, the previous one digit is multiplied with 10 and the new number is added with it. For example, if we press 8 and then press 5 and then press 7. Then first the variable will hold 8 then (8*10)+5=85 then (85*10)+7 = 857. So finally the variable will have the value 857 with it.

When we perform any operation like addition, when the users presses the addition button the value from Number will be transferred to Num1 and then Number will be made zero so that it gets ready to take the input for second number.

The working of this Arduino Touch Screen Calculator is simple. You have to upload the below given code on your Arduino and fire it up. You get the calculator displayed on your LCD screen.

Now, you can enter any number and perform your calculations. It is limited to only two operand and only operator for now. But, you can tweak the code to make it have lots of option.

You have to press the “C” to clear the value on screen each time after performing a calculation. Hope you understood the project and enjoyed building something similar. If you have any doubts feel free to post them on forums or on the comment section below. See you next time with another interesting project until then happy computing!!

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Note: The following picture is the connection diagram of the 2.8-inch TFT screen and Arduino uno, but this product is connected in exactly the same way.

If the Arduino board has an ICSP interface, set the SPI Config switch on the display module to the ICSP direction (by default) (the company"s Arduino UNO motherboard has an ICSP interface, just plug it in directly.).

This product uses the same LCD control chip and touch panel control chip as the 3.5-inch TFT screen of the same series of our company, so the code is completely compatible. The following takes 3.5-inch TFT as an example to introduce.

LCD_Show can display colorful patterns with different shapes and times. LCD_ShowBMP is for displaying the picture in BMP, and LCD_Touch is for using the touching function.

The display controller used in this product is ILI9486, and we need to initialize the controller through the SPI communication protocol, and the initialization functions are written in LCD_Driver.cpp.

The function functions related to the screen display are written in LCD_GUI.cpp. The function of each function and the parameters passed are explained in the source code. You can call it directly when you need to use it.

Before using LCD_ShowBMP to display pictures, first copy the pictures in the PIC folder in the data to the root directory of the SD card (you should understand that in the root directory, that is to save the pictures directly to the SD card, do not put them in any subfolders folder.).

Here is an explanation. This demo shows that the BMP picture first reads the picture data in the BMP format in the SD card through the SPI protocol, and then displays the data as an image.

These functions are all written in LCD_Bmp.cpp. In fact, the image data in BMP format with a specific file name is read from the SD card, and then the display function written by us is called to re-express the data as an image.

No matter which platform this method is on, the principle is similar. Interested friends can check the relevant information and study the relevant code carefully.

In fact, you can also use Image2Lcd image modulo software to convert images of different sizes and formats into array data, and then use the functions we wrote to display them.

The data sheets of all control chips are given in the information for your reference. If you want to know more about why the underlying functions are written like this, go to the data sheets and look at them!

Note: The following picture is the connection diagram of the 2.8-inch TFT screen and XNUCLEO-F103RB, but this product is connected in exactly the same way.

The demos are developed based on the HAL library. Download the program, find the STM32 program file directory, and open STM32\XNUCLEO-F103RB\lcd4in-demo\MDK-ARM\ lcd4in-demo.uvprojx.

This product uses the same LCD control chip and touch panel control chip as the 3.5-inch TFT screen of the same series of our company, so the code is completely compatible. The following takes 3.5-inch TFT as an example to introduce.

After running the demo, it displays some characters and patterns at first, then displays four pictures, and finally displays the touch sketchpad function. Actually, three projects in the Arduino platform code are integrated in the main function, we place the three main functions in sequence and place TP_DrawBoard(); in an infinite loop to achieve the above functions.

Before using LCD_ShowBMP to display pictures, copy the pictures in the PIC folder in the data to the root directory of the SD card, and then insert the SD card into the SD card slot on the back of the screen to start the download program verification.

It should be noted here that the SD card should be in the FAT format, and the picture should be 480*320 pixels with 24-bit color depth and BMP format.

In fact, you can also use Image2Lcd image modulo software to convert images of different sizes and formats into array data, and then use the functions we wrote to display them.

The data sheets of all control chips are given in the information for your reference. If you want to know more about why the underlying functions are written like this, go to the data sheets and look at them!

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.