arduino 3.5 tft display graphing calculator price

Arduino development boards always help us to build a project easily and make it look more attractive. Programming an LCD with touch functionality may sound like a complicated task, but it can be made very easy by using Arduino libraries and extension modules. In this project, we will use a 3.5" Arduino TFT LCD to build an Arduino touchscreen calculator that can perform all basic calculations such as addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication.

Before we dive into the project, it is important to understand how this 3.5" TFT LCD module works and the model number used. Let"s take a look at the pinout of this 3.5" TFT LCD module.

As you can see, the module has 28 pins and fits perfectly into any Arduino Uno / Arduino Mega development board. The table below gives a description of these pins.

As you can see, the module pins can be divided into four main categories, namely LCD command pins, LCD data pins, SD card pins and power pins, we don"t need to know the details of how these pins work because they will be implemented by the Arduino library.

You can also find an SD card slot on the bottom of the module shown above. This slot can be used to load an SD card with bmp image files, which can be displayed on our TFT LCD screen using the Arduino program.

Another important thing to keep in mind is your interface IC. there are many types of TFT modules on the market from Adafruit TFT LCD modules to cheap Chinese clones. A program that fits an Adafruit expansion board may not be the same for a Chinese expansion board. Therefore, it is very important to know which type of LCD LCD you are holding. This detail must be obtained from the supplier. If you have a cheap clone like mine, then it most likely uses driver IC ili9341. You can follow the official Arduino tutorial to try some basic example programs to get familiar with this LCD.

If you intend to use the touch screen function of a TFT LCD module, it must be calibrated to work properly. An LCD screen that is not calibrated is unlikely to work properly; for example, you may touch in one place and the TFT may think it is touching somewhere else. These calibration results are not the same for all boards, so you will have to do this work yourself.

The 3.5" TFT LCD is a great Arduino expansion board. You can push the LCD directly onto the top of the Arduino Uno and have it match the pins perfectly and slide them in. However, for safety reasons, the programming terminals of the Arduino UNO must use small insulating tape in case the terminals come into contact with your TFT LCD screen. the LCD assembled to the UNO development board looks like the following.

We use the SPFD5408 library to ensure that the arduino calculator code works properly. This is a modified Adafruit library that works seamlessly with our LCD TFT module. You can view the full program at the end of this article.

Now, open the Arduino IDE and select Sketch -> Include Librarey -> Add .ZIP library. a browser window will open to navigate to the ZIP file and click "OK". If successful, you should notice "Library added to your Libraries" in the bottom left corner of your Arduino.

Now you can use the following code in the Arduino IDE and upload it to Arduino UNO to get the touchscreen calculator working. Further down the page, I"ll explain the code in small segments.

As we know, TFT LCD screens can display many colors, all of which must be entered as hexadecimal values. To make it more readable, we assign these values to a variable as shown below.

Okay, now we can move on to the programming part. This program involves three parts. One is to create a user interface for the calculator using buttons and displays. Then, detect the buttons based on user touch and finally calculate the results and display them. Let"s go through them one by one.

Here you can get creative to design the user interface of the calculator. I simply made the basic layout of the calculator with 16 buttons and a display unit. You must build the design as if you were drawing something on an MS drawing board. The added libraries will allow you to draw lines, rectangles, circles, characters, strings and more in any of the preferred colors. You can learn about the available features from this article.

Another challenging task is to detect the user"s touch. Every time the user touches something, we are able to know the X and Y position of the pixel he touched. This value can be displayed on the serial monitor using println, as shown below.

The final step is to calculate the results and display them on the TFT LCD screen. The arduino calculator can only perform two numeric operations. These two numbers are named as variables "Num1" and "Num2". The variable "Number" is given and taken from Num1 and Num2, and the result is obtained.

The process of working with this Arduino touch screen calculator is very simple. You need to upload the following code to the Arduino development board and then power it up. At this point, a calculator will be displayed on the LCD screen.

This TFT 3.5 Inch LCD display support 480x320 pixel resolutions. The display uses the ILI9481 graphics controller. The module includes the 5V-3.3V power conversion circuit and no additional level conversion circuitry is required. This Module can be inserted directly into the Arduino Mega2560 Board.

Displays are one of the best ways to provide feedback to users of a particular device or project and often the bigger the display, the better. For today’s tutorial, we will look on how to use the relatively big, low cost, ILI9481 based, 3.5″ Color TFT display with Arduino.

This 3.5″ color TFT display as mentioned above, is based on the ILI9481 TFT display driver. The module offers a resolution of 480×320 pixels and comes with an SD card slot through which an SD card loaded with graphics and UI can be attached to the display. The module is also pre-soldered with pins for easy mount (like a shield) on either of the Arduino Mega and Uno, which is nice since there are not many big TFT displays that work with the Arduino Uno.

The module is compatible with either of the Arduino Uno or the Arduino Mega, so feel free to choose between them or test with both. As usual, these components can be bought via the links attached to them.

One of the good things about this module is the ease with which it can be connected to either of the Arduino Mega or Uno. For this tutorial, we will use the Arduino Uno, since the module comes as a shield with pins soldered to match the Uno’s pinout. All we need to do is snap it onto the top of the Arduino Uno as shown in the image below, thus no wiring required.

This ease of using the module mentioned above is, however, one of the few downsides of the display. If we do not use the attached SD card slot, we will be left with 6 digital and one analog pin as the module use the majority of the Arduino pins. When we use the SD card part of the display, we will be left with just 2 digital and one analog pin which at times limits the kind of project in which we can use this display. This is one of the reasons while the compatibility of this display with the Arduino Mega is such a good news, as the “Mega” offers more digital and analog pins to work with, so when you need extra pins, and size is not an issue, use the Mega.

To easily write code to use this display, we will use the GFX and TFT LCD libraries from “Adafruit” which can be downloaded here. With the library installed we can easily navigate through the examples that come with it and upload them to our setup to see the display in action. By studying these examples, one could easily learn how to use this display. However, I have compiled some of the most important functions for the display of text and graphics into an Arduino sketch for the sake of this tutorial. The complete sketch is attached in a zip file under the download section of this tutorial.

As usual, we will do a quick run through of the code and we start by including the libraries which we will use for the project, in this case, the Adafruit GFX and TFT LCD libraries.

With this done, the Void Setup() function is next. We start the function by issuing atft.reset() command to reset the LCD to default configurations. Next, we specify the type of the LCD we are using via the LCD.begin function and set the rotation of the TFT as desired. We proceed to fill the screen with different colors and display different kind of text using diverse color (via the tft.SetTextColor() function) and font size (via the tft.setTextSize() function).

Next is the void loop() function. Here we basically create a UI to display the youtube subscribe button, using some of the same functions we used under the void setup() function.

The Adafruit library helps reduce the amount of work one needs to do while developing the code for this display, leaving the quality of the user interface to the limitations of the creativity and imagination of the person writing the code.

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 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.

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.

Okay now, we can get into the programming part. There are three sections involved in this program. One is creating a UI of a calculator with buttons and display. Then, detecting the buttons based on the users touch and finally calculating the results and display them. Let us get through them one by one.

This is where you can use a lot of your creativity to design the User Interface of calculator. I have simply made a basic layout of a calculator with 16 Buttons and one display unit. You have to construct the design just like you will draw something on MS paint. The libraries added will allow you to draw Lines, Rectangle, Circles, Chars, Strings and lot more of any preferred colour. You can understand the available functions from this article.

I have used the line and box drawing abilities to design an UI which looks very similar to the 90’s calculator.  Each box has a width and height of 60 pixels.

Another challenging task is detecting the user touch. Every time the user touches somewhere we will able to how where the X and Y position of the pixel he touched. This value can be displayed on the serial monitor using the println 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.

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.

After losing my expensive graphing calculator that was pretty much required for my AP Calculus BC class, I decided that something needed to be done about the extreme prices of the Graphing Calculators on the market. Many of these calculators, while great in many ways (I love my TI-84), are many times over powered as well as large and expensive. With a few design tweeks, I realized I could make a minimalist Arduino-based graphing calculator with cost under $40. After a few design criteria for a minimalist graphing calculator, I have begun to create this.

It has trig functions, basic graphing capability, square and other roots, positive and negative numbers, decimals, e, pi, and parentheses. It is a fully functional scientific calculator with graphing capability.

I love the choice of platform. When put together,  the Arduino + Seeed Touch screen LCD are very versatile. I have personally created a cellphone (with a GPRS Shield), an Enigma Machine Simulator, and a port of one pixel Pac-Man with this platform.

While in theory an Arduino can run any LCD, we believe that some LCDs are particularly suited to being an Arduino LCD display. We"ve currated this list of LCD displays that will make any Arduino-based project shine.

First is the interface. All of these displays support SPI. Builders often ask themselves (or us) "which interface uses the fewest GPIO pins? AND is that interface fast enough to update the screen at an acceptable rate for my application?" When using the relatively small procesor of the Arduino, SPI is usually the best interface because it takes few wires (either 3 or 4) however it does limit the overall size (number of pixels) that can be quickly controlled. I2C is another choice of interface to leave GPIOs open. We tend to recommend SPI over I2C for Arduino displays because SPI is quicker and better at handling more complex data transfer, like pulling image data from an SD card.

Which brings us to the second factor in choosing an Arduino display: the number of pixels. We typically recommend a display with a resolution of 320x240 or less for use with Arduino. Take for example a 320x240 24-bit display. Such a display takes 230,400 bytes *(8 + 2) = 2,304,000 bits for a single frame. Divide that by 8,000,000 (Arduino SPI speed of 8MHZ) = 0.288 seconds per frame or 3.5 frames per second. 3.5 fps is fast enough for many applications, but is not particularly quick. Using fewer bits-per-pixel or a display with fewer pixels will result in higher frame rates. Use the calculator below to calculate the frame rate for a display using SPI with an Arduino.

Third, we want to recommend displays that are easy to connect to an Arduino. Each of these displays has a ZIF tail or easily solderable throughholes, so no fine pitch soldering is needed. These displays can either be brought up on the CFA10102 generic breakout board, or with a custom CFA breakout board.

Most character displays can be run via Parallel connection to an Arduino. You"ll want to make sure you can supply enough current to operate the backlight.

After uploading the code you"ll able to see the calculator running in your display as mine and now you can perform basic mathematics calculations on this. So have fun making your own calculator with Arduino UNO.

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.

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.

The Numworks calculator I am referencing uses a STM32 f7 and it will work at 2.8v, but not my teensy working at 600mhz. And it doesn"t need 5v because it doesn"t have a usb host port. Power supplying a battery powered project the a pain in the ass.