mcufriend tft lcd shield library brands

This note introduces a low-cost Thin Film Transistor (TFT) display to enhance the operation and usefulness of Liquid Crystal Display(LCD) devices. TFT technology controls the pixel element on the glass surface thereby greatly reducing image blurring and improving viewing angles.

The test board chosen for this exercise is the Elegoo Arduino UNO board from the corresponding Super Starter Kit. The kit already has several simple numeric and text displays. The TFT display may perhaps provide better ways to interact in applications.

The controller for the illustrated model of the TFT display is SSD1297.This information is important because the display (owing to its low cost and high popularity) has many different manufacturers who may not leverage the same controller instruction set. The specification of the controller in the coding exercises is examined in the Appendix section of this note.

Of course, the display can be mounted elsewhere and the pins connected to the Arduino directly or indirectly using, for example, a breadboard. Other components can then use the breadboard in lieu of a shield with custom connectors. Of course, without access to such anon-standard or readily available breadboard, it is impossible to illustrate this arrangement in this note.

The Examples folder for the library provides the starter files for the tests. If you are using a newer display you will need the updated libraries from the GitHub repository (see link in References below)and using the#definestatement to identify the display model.

The output from the diagnostic program, LCD_ID_reading.ino, is shown below:Read Registers on MCUFRIEND UNO shieldcontrollers either read as single 16-bite.g. the ID is at readReg(0)or as a sequence of 8-bit valuesin special locations (first is dummy)reg(0x0000) 97 97ID: ILI9320, ILI9325, ILI9335, ...reg(0x0004) 97 97 97 97Manufacturer IDreg(0x0009) 97 97 97 97 97Status Registerreg(0x000A) 97 97Get Power Modereg(0x000C) 97 97Get Pixel Formatreg(0x0061) 97 97RDID1 HX8347-Greg(0x0062) 97 97RDID2 HX8347-Greg(0x0063) 97 97RDID3 HX8347-Greg(0x0064) 97 97RDID1 HX8347-Areg(0x0065) 97 97RDID2 HX8347-Areg(0x0066) 97 97RDID3 HX8347-Areg(0x0067) 97 97RDID Himax HX8347-Areg(0x0070) 97 97Panel Himax HX8347-Areg(0x00A1) 97 97 97 97 97RD_DDB SSD1963reg(0x00B0) 97 97RGB Interface Signal Controlreg(0x00B4) 97 97Inversion Controlreg(0x00B6) 97 97 97 97 97Display Controlreg(0x00B7) 97 97Entry Mode Setreg(0x00BF) 97 97 97 97 97 97ILI9481, HX8357-Breg(0x00C0) 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97Panel Controlreg(0x00C8) 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97GAMMAreg(0x00CC) 97 97Panel Controlreg(0x00D0) 97 97 97Power Controlreg(0x00D2) 97 97 97 97 97NVM Readreg(0x00D3) 97 97 97 97ILI9341, ILI9488reg(0x00D4) 97 97 97 97Novatek IDreg(0x00DA) 97 97RDID1reg(0x00DB) 97 97RDID2reg(0x00DC) 97 97RDID3reg(0x00E0) 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97GAMMA-Preg(0x00E1) 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97GAMMA-Nreg(0x00EF) 97 97 97 97 97 97ILI9327reg(0x00F2) 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97Adjust Control 2reg(0x00F6) 97 97 97 97Interface Control

Many thanks toDavidPrenticefor the display driver library and the guidance, support and advice during the tests for this display. I would have failed at the starting block without his generous assistance. He is an authority on the drivers for this class of displays.

I bought four MCU Friend 3.5″ TFT shields.  And, unfortunately, they have spiraled me into a deep, dark place trying to figure out how to use them.  The the documentation consists of a sticker on the antistatic bag, a picture of the shield with a list of 5 different possible LCD drivers, a pinout, and a block of code that supposedly represents the startup code.  The unfortunate part is that none of these have been exactly right – they all have errors.  This article is a description of the journey to figuring out how to use them.

It also has a picture which says the LCD has one of several different controllers (and after digging in I know for a fact that two of mine were made by Raydium and are not on the list)

And finally a table of pins.  Which is interesting as it lists 37 pins when the shield has no where near that number.  And it shows the shield as  16-bit interface which it isnt … and it shows some LEDs which aren’t there either.

I bought 4 different shields.  One came broken.  The other three are all different.  When you look at the boards there are two visibly different configurations

The first thing I did was try to use the MCUFRIEND_kbv library to see if the screens worked.  The first board identified as ID=0x9403 and did not work.  Apparently, the tool just spits out the ID if it doesn’t know it, which it did not.

One of the boards identified as ID=0x6814 worked perfectly, and one had a blue cast to all of the screens.  The crazy part is the two boards that identified as ID=0x6814 had different PCBs.  According to the comments in the MCUFRIEND_kbv.cpp ID=0x6814 is an RM68140 and ID=9403 is unknown.

Next, I started down the path of trying to figure out what the controllers were by using register reads.  David Prentice (the guy who wrote/maintains the MCU Friend_kbv Arduino library) has an absolute ton of responses on the Arduino forum trying to help people figure out what their shield is.  He asks them to post the register report from his example program LCD_ID_readnew which is included as an example in the library.

When you look at these LCD controllers they all have some variant of “Read ID” which responds with 1-6 bytes.  The basic idea of this program is to look at what bytes are returned to try to identify the controller.  Here is an example of what I got when I ran the LCD_ID_readnew program on my shields:

The key thing to see in this output is the register 0x04 which says 54,80,66 which identifies this as a Raydium RM68140 LCD controller.  Here is a snapshot from the data sheet.

After digging some more, I decided that it is super ugly out there, as you find that there are a significant number of LCD controllers that are clones, copies, pirated etc… and that they all present themselves differently.  And, in hindsight I think that this is the reason that my ILI9341 from the previous article doesnt quite work correctly.

The next thing that I did was try out the startup code that MCUFriend_kbv generates.  I used the same technique from PSoC 6 + Segger EmWin + MCUFriend 2.4″ Part 1 and spit out the startup bytes.  Here they are:

At this point I have spent a frightening amount of time figuring out how these screens work.  Although it has been a good learning experience, I have generally decided that using unknown displays from China with LCD drivers of questionable origin is not worth the pain of trying to sort out the interface.  Beyond that:

[uno242628.rar](http://"http://"http://"http://"http://"https://web.archive.org/web/20141126174431/http://www.mcufriend.com/download.htm uno242628.rar""""")

They works but it seems that there is an error since the same sketch use the double of flash than using the Adafruit library. The bmp example doesn’t fit on a UNO.

Library by JoaoLopesF for SPFD5408 (need to change #include "pin_magic.h" into #include "pin_magic_UNO.h" in SPFD5408_Adafruit_TFTLCD.cpp to compile) EDIT:Joao fixed the error!

I have one of these TFT LCD shields, but mine is a ILI9335. It has taken me nearly 2 weeks to find a working Library and code for my 9335 driver and I am now setting about creating sketches based around my working Library.

Unfortunately most sellers of these shields (excluding good reputable companies) do not adivise of which Driver is onboard the shield and it becomes difficult to locate a working Library for the driver of the purchased shield.

If there is no Library specific to your 6767 Driver (and I must say I have not seen one in my searches for the 9335 Driver) then you may have to download as many different Libraries to locate a sketch that works for yours.

Im new to Arduino myself but i do have the same screen which works perfect,your problem is probably that the TFT shield is shorting off the top off the arduino usb put something non conductive there and reset. if your still having trouble, try removing the shield and watch each pin as you insert it to make sure they are all inserted in the correct pins, LCD_02 should be in Dig pin 2.

One major issue: the LCD driver seems not to be ILI9341. After trying many libraries for Arduino I checked the web address on the back of LCD PCB, the mcufriend. From there I found a couple of links to library files for 2.4 inch LCD. The library which worked for my LCD is MCUFRIEND_kbv, but that is not all... the library has a sketch named "diagnose_TFT_support", which reported via terminal that the LCD chip ID is 0x9595, which means that the line "#define SUPPORT_8347D" must be uncommented in MCUFRIEND_kbv.cpp file in library folder (see mcufriend_how_to.txt file for explanation). Thats it, my LCD works, even the touch panel.

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.

The2.4 inch TFT LCD Shield Touch Screen Module For 2.4 inch TFT LCD display screenhas excellent vivid colour contrast. This Arduino Uno TFT display is big (2.4″ diagonal) bright (4 white-LED backlights) and colourful (18-bit 262,000 different shades). 240×320 pixels with individual pixel control.

As with all Arduino Shields, connecting to the Arduino is simply a matter of plugging the shield in. Take care to align the pins correctly, and ensure the bottom of the shield does not make contact with the Arduino USB port.

1 Adafruit have disabled old model LCD’s support so please install Adafruit_GFX older version 1.5.3 from Sketch--> Include Libraries --> Manage Libraries.

The demos are developed based on the HAL library. Download the program, find the STM32 program file directory, and open the STM32 with four project folders: DisplayString, DrawGraphic, ShowImage, and Touchscreen.

This TFT display is big (2.8" diagonal) bright (4 white-LED backlight) and colorful (18-bit 262,000 different shades)! 240x320 pixels with individual pixel control. It has way more resolution than a black and white 128x64 display. As a bonus, this display has a resistive touchscreen attached to it already, so you can detect finger presses anywhere on the screen.

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. Solder three jumpers and you can use it at full speed on a Leonardo or Mega as well.

This display shield has a controller built into it with RAM buffering, so that almost no work is done by the microcontroller. This shield needs fewer pins than our v1 shield, so you can connect more sensors, buttons and LEDs: 5 SPI pins for the display, another pin for the SPI touchscreen controller and another pin for uSD card if you want to read images off of it.