raspberry pi 1.8 tft display free sample

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.

The 1.8" TFT LCD SPI-bus display modules available from Adafruit and SainSmart are functionally equivalent, except that the SainSmart unit can be driven at a much faster SPI bus rate than the Adafruit (32 MHz vs. 4 MHz in my testing). Fabien Royer has shown that this is due to a slow level shifter in the Adafruit unit.

The original st7735fb kernel driver was by Matt Porter, and was enhanced by Lady Ada, Neil Greatorex, and myself. I started with Neil"s proposed version of Matt"s st7735fb driver, which I extracted from Lady Ada"s raspberrypi kernel repo. I applied Neil"s version to the current raspberrypi 3.2.27+ kernel, then I made multiple enhancements to the st7735fb driver (and fixed a glitch in the bcm2708 SPI driver). I"ve since collaborated with Neil to develop further enhancements, and ported the driver to the upcoming 3.6.y Raspberry Pi kernel.

* My version of the st7735fb_map driver allows either CE0 (SPI 0.0) or CE1 (SPI 0.1) to be configured. ** My version allows the configuration of any GPIO pin for D/C and RESET. *** Since I"m not using the MicroSD card device on the back of the display modules, the remaining pins are left unconnected.

Clone my raspberrypi-linux repo, then select either the 3.2.27-based branch or the 3.6.y-based branch (run "uname -a" on your Pi if you"re not sure which you need):

The st7735fb driver supports fbcon which attaches the display as tty1 and/or other VT"s so the standard getty login will appear without any additional configuration. The following alternate method using fbterm also works, but is more complex to configure.

The board supports multiple different 1.8" panel pinouts including Adafruit and SainSmart, and sports mounting pads for three GPIO buttons. Very nice!

This new library is a standalone library that contains the TFT driver as well as the graphics functions and fonts that were in the GFX library. This library has significant performance improvements when used with an UNO (or ATmega328 based Arduino) and MEGA.

Examples are included with the library, including graphics test programs. The example sketch TFT_Rainbow_one shows different ways of using the font support functions. This library now supports the "print" library so the formatting features of the "print" library can be used, for example to print to the TFT in Hexadecimal, for example:

To use the F_AS_T performance option the ILI9341 based display must be connected to an MEGA as follows:MEGA +5V to display pin 1 (VCC) and pin 8 (LED) UNO 0V (GND) to display pin 2 (GND)

TFT_ILI9341 library updated on 1st July 2015 to version 12, this latest version is attached here to step 8:Minor bug when rendering letter "T" in font 4 without background fixed

New functions have been added to draw smooth (antialiased) arcs, circles, and rounded rectangle outlines. New sketches are provided in the "Smooth Graphics" examples folder. Arcs can be drawn with or without anti-aliasing (which will then render faster). The arc ends can be straight or rounded. The arc drawing algorithm uses an optimised fixed point sqrt() function to improve performance on processors that do not have a hardware Floating Point Unit (e.g. RP2040). Here are two demo images, on the left smooth (anti-aliased) arcs with rounded ends, the image to the right is the same resolution (grabbed from the same 240x240 TFT) with the smoothing diasbled (no anti-aliasing):

An excellent new compatible library is available which can render TrueType fonts on a TFT screen (or into a sprite). This has been developed by takkaO, I have created a branch with some bug fixes here. The library provides access to compact font files, with fully scaleable anti-aliased glyphs. Left, middle and right justified text can also be printed to the screen. I have added TFT_eSPI specific examples to the OpenFontRender library and tested on RP2040 and ESP32 processors, the ESP8266 does not have sufficient RAM due to the glyph render complexity. Here is a demo screen where a single 12kbyte font file binary was used to render fully anti-aliased glyphs of gradually increasing size on a 320x480 TFT screen:

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.

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.

The use of PIO for SPI allows the RP2040 to be over-clocked (up to 250MHz works on my boards) in Earle"s board package whilst still maintaining high SPI clock rates.

A feature rich 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 RP2040, STM32, ESP8266 and ESP32 types, other 32 bit processors may be used but will use the slower generic Arduino interface calls. 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 (8 and 16 bit) is only supported with the RP2040.

The screen controller, interface pins and library configuration settings must be defined inside the library. They can NOT be defined in the Arduino sketch. See the User_Setup_Select.h file for details. This approach has significant advantages, it keeps the examples clean from long configuration options and once the setup is defined any example can be run without modification. PlatformIO users can define these settings on a per project basis within a platformio.ini file, see Docs folder in library.

Lots of example sketches are provided which demonstrate using the functions in the library. Due to the popularity of the library there are lots of online tutorials for TFT_eSPI that have been created by enthusiastic users.

For other (generic) processors only SPI interface displays are supported and the slower Arduino SPI library functions are used by the library. Higher clock speed processors such as used for the Teensy 3.x and 4.x boards will still provide a very good performance with the generic Arduino SPI functions.

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).

Support for the XPT2046 touch screen controller is built into the library and can be used with SPI interface displays. Third party touch support libraries are also available when using a display parallel interface.

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 (125MHz with overclocked RP2040, 55MHz with STM32 and 40MHz with ESP8266). The MHS-3.5 inch RPi ILI9486 based display is also supported, however the MHS ILI9341 based display of the same type does NOT work with this library.

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 supports Waveshare 2 and 3 colour ePaper displays using full frame buffers. This addition is relatively immature and thus only one example has been provided.

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.

The .vlw files must be uploaded to the processors FLASH filing system (SPIFFS, LittleFS or SD card) for use. Alternatively the .vlw files can be converted to C arrays (see "Smooth Font -> FLASH_Array" examples) and stored directly in FLASH as part of the compile process. The array based approach is convenient, provides performance improvements and is suitable where: either use of a filing system is undesirable, or the processor type (e.g. STM32) does not support a FLASH based filing system.

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.:

The 1.8″ display has 128×160 color pixels. Unlike the low cost “Nokia 6110″ and similar LCD displays, which are CSTN type and thus have poor color and slow refresh, this display is a true TFT! The TFT driver (ST7735R) can display full 18-bit color (262,144 shades!). And the LCD will always come with the same driver chip so there’s no worries that your code will not work from one to the other.

The breakout has the TFT display soldered on (it uses a delicate flex-circuit connector) as well as a ultra-low-dropout 3.3V regulator and a 3/5V level shifter so you can use it with 3.3V or 5V power and logic. There is a microSD card holder on the back so you can easily load full color bitmaps from a FAT16/FAT32 formatted microSD card.

The Adafruit 1.8” TFT LCD Breakout Board also features an EYESPI connector for a simpler connection to the LCD. EYESPI is a single 18-pin FPC used as a quick way to connect displays.

The unit is a Waveshare 3.2inch, and here is some discussion on the drivers being built into the kernel issue https://github.com/notro/rpi-firmware/issues/6

So, is anyone able to recommend similar sized TFT that I will be able to use without proprietary kernels, so I can get cracking with my first project?

I did this and it worked, but when i restarted the pi it went back to the screen not working.......is there a way to save these setting so I don"t have to type all this when ever I switch on the pi?

I did this and it worked, but when i restarted the pi it went back to the screen not working.......is there a way to save these setting so I don"t have to type all this when ever I switch on the pi?

But, to get anything on the TFT, I have F4 out of Emulation Station into Shell, and type FRAMEBUFFER=/dev/fb1 startx to bring up anything, and that only bring up Raspbian? desktop not the GUI for Emulation Station.

I"m trying to get a SainSmart St7735 working with my Pi. I"m following the steps but I don"t have a /dev/fb1 directory. Just /dev/fb0. Should I have both if its installed properly?

First, I"d suggest that you get a network connection working, and then make sure that you can ssh to the pi, so that you have command line access from another computer. Then install:

The board comes with a CD that has a 4GB image that can be copied to an SD Card and the pi can run off of it. It shows a desktop, and *does* have a working touchscreen interface. Unfortunately, it seems buggy, and incompletely implemented. The method of making it work as described above seems to have a lot more future to it.

Can anybody suggest where I"m going wrong?? My Linux troubleshooting chops are not very good. I"m trying to figure out whats not installed. The firmware update installs. I"m using sudo modprobe fbtft_device name=flexfb because I have a SainSmart 1.8 ST7735. The command executes so I know the fbtft module is loaded. However, I don"t have a /dev/fb1. I"m not sure if thats a hardware or software issue. Does anyone have any troubleshooting tips?

First, I"d suggest that you get a network connection working, and then make sure that you can ssh to the pi, so that you have command line access from another computer. Then install:

The image I"m using on the SD card is RetroPie by default boots into a program called "Emulation Station", so you can boot right into paying video games with nothing but a USB controller plugged in, bypassing the desktop environment.

Its quite strange, when my Pi is connected to an external monitor via HDMI and power up its show "emulation station" (witch is good, as I want to to boot into this, Just on the TFT), BUT..... the TFT is black.

So guess my questions are, why is the HDMI showing what I want the TFT to show, and why do I see a totally different environment when also connected via VNC?

I"ve got the exact same screen as you on its way to me, and I"m intending to use it with retropie as well. Just curious if rpi-fbcp fixed your issues?

The issue I have is, this means the emulator runs via framebuffer /dev/fd0 (the HDMI port) as primary and fbcp = FrameBufferCopy is duplicating the buffer from the HDMI to /dev/fb1 (the LCD GPIO port). At first glace, my screen seems slow.

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Hi, i am using 1.8 TFT 128*160 LCD with spi communication. I am using esp32 microcontroller and trying to upload the image to the LCD but i am facing issues with the TFT library.

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The display is driven by a ST7735R controller ( ST7735R-specifications.pdf (2.1 MB) ), can be used in a “slow” and a “fast” write mode, and is 3.3V/5V compatible.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Below the code parts for a LOW SPEED display (pay attention to the highlighted lines) – keep in mind that the names of the pins in the code are based on the Adafruit display:

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

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

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

This function is used to indicate what corner of your display is considered (0,0), which in essence rotates the coordinate system 0, 90, 180 or 270 degrees.

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

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

Perfect I have tested with an ST7735 greentab and connected to an ESP32 (38pin), and it works all only i had to adapt few lines in order to use my own hardware.

Only an small advice for those who want to rotate to rotate the text you have to use the instruction tft.setRotation (2); the number can be 0,1,2,3

//#define ILI9488_DRIVER // WARNING: Do not connect ILI9488 display SDO to MISO if other devices share the SPI bus (TFT SDO does NOT tristate when CS is high)

In one previous blog postwe had first connected LCDs to the Raspberry Pi via GPIO pins as well as via I2C. However, these robust displays, each with 16 characters in two lines or 20 characters in four lines, are character-oriented. Thus, we can neither display an analog clock, or a pointer instrument for measured values, nor images. For this, we need either an OLED or a TFT display in mobile use. Here is a small overview:

Let"s start with the easier to handle bus system I2C and thus the OLED displays. The abbreviation OLED stands for organic light emitting diode. It is a luminous thin-film device made of organic semiconducting materials. The electrical current density and luminance are lower than those of conventional LEDs.

In the Raspberry Pi configuration the I2C interface is activated and then we first check the I2C addresses of the connected devices. For this the tooli2cdetectwith the parameters-y 1called in the terminal.

All OLED displays have the I2C address 0x3C. The second address 0x76 shown here belongs to the sensor BME-280, which is still connected from the last attempts.

For programming the display, you are well advised to install a program library for Python. The recommendation isluma.oledby Richard Hull and many others. This constantly evolving, very comprehensive collection of Python modules is suitable for a wide range of displays, which may differ in resolution and image controller. Those with a current Raspberry Pi OS can install the Python modules and a collection of sample programs directly on the Raspberry Pi (description follows). For those who want to go deeper or use other hardware configurations, the following links are recommended:

This library has also found its way into PyPi (The Python Package Index (PyPI) is a repository of software for the Python programming language.) and you can therefore install it directly on the Raspi with the tool pip.

Without reading it explicitly, it seems that Python 2.7 is no longer used, so pip instead of pip3 and python instead of python3 can be used just as well.

The documentation says that first you have to install more libraries (dependencies) and second for the user (so far pi, today self chosen user name) withsudo usermod -a -G spi,gpio,i2cusermust grant the user access rights for the interfaces. Both are no longer necessary with a current Raspberry Pi OS.

The library works with presets, namely I2C interface, address 0x3C, the image controller SSD1306 and the resolution 128x64. All these defaults apply to the 0.96" OLED display, which is displayed with the demo programdemo.pyworks right away. Simply in the terminal

This applies e.g. to the 1.3" OLED display, which uses the SH1106 as image controller. How to pass which parameters can be found out by using the help function. So first enter the parameter --help or -h. The program call for the 1.3" OLED display is therefore:

The 0.91" OLED display also uses the SSD1306, but it only has a resolution of 128x32 pixels. Before you connect this narrow displayn eshort warning:mn most cases the pin order on I2C devices is VCC-GND-SCL-SDA, not on the 0.91" OLED! The order here is GND-VCC-SCL-SDA. The program call is done with the parameter--height 32

If you need to pass several parameters permanently, you can also save them in a configuration file (file extension .conf). There is even a subdirectory conf under luma.examples, where for a number of displays these files already exist. I discover the file st7735.conf, i.e. for the image controller ST7735, which is installed in the 1.8" TFT display with SPI interface.

After everything had worked on the first try so far, I now get the error message that st7735 does not belong to the known displays, just the different OLED image controllers.

After some research - the documentation is unfortunately neither up to date nor complete - I find a hint in a forum that the examples work for almost all displays, but the library luma.oled only for the listed OLED displays. So install another library with pip:

After I have also installed the example programclock.pywith all displays in the terminal and tested it successfully, I would like to try out how these programs work in the Python environment, e.g. Thonny or IDLE.

As described above, there were no difficulties for the 0.96" OLED display, since there are no parameters to pass here. The example programs demo.py and clock.py work as desired.

Despite intensive study of the modules, I have not figured out how to enable GPIO control of the backlight. Permanently connecting to 3.3V does result in an image, but when inactive, the backlight glows very brightly.

High level commands set (61 commands total) are easy to remember and understand, eg.: send 5 bytes: "CCabc" will draw a ratio=c pixels circle at coordinate (a,b) on the screen; 5 bytes "DNALL" will put the module to sleep mode(<0.1mA), and more...