3.5 tft lcd shield library manufacturer

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.

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.

Unzip the compressed package, and then open the folder, then open the Arduino folder, you can see three project folders LCD_Show, LCD_ShowBMP, LCD_Touch.

LCD_Show is used to display some patterns of different color shapes and time, LCD_ShowBMP is used to display pictures in BMP format, LCD_Touch is used to use touch function.

The display controller used in this product is ILI9486, 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).

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.

If you need characters of different sizes and fonts, you can generate the font library you want according to the font extraction software provided in the data.

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.

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, open STM32\XNUCLEO-F103RB\lcd3in5-demo\MDK-ARM\ lcd3in5-demo.uvprojx

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, and then insert the SD card into the SD card slot on the back of the screen to start the download program verification.

If you need characters of different sizes and fonts, you can generate the font library you want according to the font extraction software provided in the data

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.

This module is a 3.5-inch TFT LCD module with “320X480” 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 ILI9486.

The 3.5-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.

my_lcd.Fill_Triangle(x_spec+i*side_len-1,y_spec+(i+1)*h_len-1,x_spec+side_len/2+i*side_len-1,y_spec+i*h_len-1,x_spec+(i+1)*side_len-1,y_spec+(i+1)*h_len-1);

my_lcd.Fill_Triangle(x_spec+i*side_len-1,y_spec+(5-i)*h_len-1,x_spec+side_len/2+i*side_len-1,y_spec+(4-i)*h_len-1,x_spec+(i+1)*side_len-1,y_spec+(5-i)*h_len-1);

my_lcd.Draw_Line(2+random(my_lcd.Get_Display_Width()-4),17+random(my_lcd.Get_Display_Height()-34),2+random(my_lcd.Get_Display_Width()-4),17+random(my_lcd.Get_Display_Height()-34));

my_lcd.Draw_Rectangle(2+random(my_lcd.Get_Display_Width()-4),17+random(my_lcd.Get_Display_Height()-34),2+random(my_lcd.Get_Display_Width()-4),17+random(my_lcd.Get_Display_Height()-34));

my_lcd.Draw_Round_Rectangle(2+random(my_lcd.Get_Display_Width()-4),17+random(my_lcd.Get_Display_Height()-34),2+random(my_lcd.Get_Display_Width()-4),17+random(my_lcd.Get_Display_Height()-34),5);

my_lcd.Draw_Triangle(2+random(my_lcd.Get_Display_Width()-4),17+random(my_lcd.Get_Display_Height()-34),2+random(my_lcd.Get_Display_Width()-4),17+random(my_lcd.Get_Display_Height()-34),2+random(my_lcd.Get_Display_Width()-4),17+random(my_lcd.Get_Display_Height()-34));

my_lcd.Fill_Round_Rectangle(my_lcd.Get_Display_Width()/2-1-120+1, my_lcd.Get_Display_Height()/2-1-60+1, my_lcd.Get_Display_Width()/2-1+120-1, my_lcd.Get_Display_Height()/2-1+60-1,5);

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.

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.

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:

Spice up your Arduino project with a beautiful large touchscreen display shield with built in microSD card connection. This TFT display is big (5" diagonal) bright (12 white-LED backlight) and colorfu 480x272 pixels with individual pixel control. As a bonus, this display has a optional resistive touch panel attached on screen 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!

For 5 inch screen,the high current is needed.But the current of arduino uno or arduino mega board is low, an external 5V power supply is needed. Refer to the image shows the external power supply position on shield ER-AS-RA8875.

Spice up your Arduino project with a beautiful large touchscreen display shield with built in microSD card connection. This TFT display is big (3.2" diagonal) bright (5 white-LED backlight) and colorful (18-bit 262,000 different shades)! 240x320 pixels with individual pixel control. As a bonus, this display has a optional resistive touch panel with controller XPT2046 attached by default and a optional capacitive touch panel with controller FT6206 attached by default, so you can detect finger presses anywhere on the screen and doesn"t require pressing down on the screen with a stylus and has nice glossy glass cover.

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!

As it stands I am not able to use the LCD screen. When I run the program graphictest_kbv I get an "image" but it is full static (like an old VCR player)

I bought online this LCD Touchscreen Kuman SC3A-NEW-UK. It uses ILI9486 drivers, but it didn"t include any instructions manual, and kumantech.com seems to be devoid of complete technical documentation about SC3A-NEW-UK model.

Just in case it wasn"t noticable: I am trying to make a "Hello World" for my SC3A-NEW-UK"s LCD Touchscreen from an Arduino UNO board. In other words: just print "Hello World" to see if it works.

To see if I can use it, I tried downloading a whole ZIP from this Github project, and inside the Arduino IDE, I tried adding the downloaded library using the option "Include .ZIP library". If I copy-paste the code example provided within README.md (the following) and compile:

...and I have no idea what this FS library is supposed to be, so I don"t think I can use that Github project at all... I am tempted to assume that Github"s project is dead.

This compiled in Arduino IDE, no problem, but I still don"t know if it will work well with my screen. I am also confused about initialization of the TFT object and how would I have to wire the LCD screen to the Arduino depending on this initialization:

...i mean, my LCD screen has CS and RESET pins, but what is DC supposed to be here? (in this context, I don"t think it stands for "Direct Current"... but there"s no DC pin reference in my LCD screen written "AS IS"... ?? This brings me more confusion...

...specially having in mind that I don"t know how am I supposed to wire the LCD screen to the Arduino yet. It seems the LCD pins have been designed to fit in directly to the Arduino board without thinking too much about it (like the shape is the same), but that would make the screen getting all the Arduino UNO"s pins for itself, so I don"t think so...

...so, powering the screen shouldn"t be a big deal, but, how am I supposed to connect everything else? I am completely misguided about how am I supposed to interact with the screen from Arduino code... what is RS pin for? Should I use 4-bit or 8-bit mode? (I think 4-bit would imply connecting 4 digital pins for the screen, and 8-bit the whole 8 pins from screen to the Arduino UNO board)? Should I use LCD_RD and LCD_WR? Well you have a picture of my confusion.

Even though I know how to control Input/Output in Arduino code to interact with analog/digital input and output pins at will with C++ in Arduino code (but even so, I think I"m still an Arduino n00b), this LCD screen"s physical interface is very confusing to me...

PD: I have read somewhere that this SC3A-NEW-UK Touchscreen is made to shield Arduino MEGA boards (by fitting the PINs directly into it), but mine is an Arduino UNO Board! (perhaps I shouldn"t have bought This LCD model, then?)... but I have sets of wires, pinboards and stuff... I don"t want to give up the idea of harnessing this LCD screen using an Arduino UNO. I don"t care about shielding feature, I just want to wire it and make it work. I will figure out how to shield electronics later on.

Based on VE7JRO"s answer, I managed to map the connections by seeing where the connections would go if I just fit the connections shielding the Arduino UNO, the way VE7JRO suggested:

I put NONE for A5 input, because that pin of LCD screen doesn"t have any name on it. There are another ones without name as well, that I didn"t include in this table. I believe (perhaps I"m wrong believing it, I don"t know) that those pins without name have no use.

I still don"t know much of the details about what pins do what for the screen, but I have read somewhere that LCD_D0 to LCD_D7 are meant to receive digital data in some kind of 8-bit parallel mode. But I also heard that there is a 4-bit mode. If I could use that mode with this screen, I would be able to have 4 free digital pins for anything else...

I tested VE7JRO"s code. LCD Screen did draw the interface as expected. But buttons didn"t respond. I found out the code sample needs further calibration.

There are 22 test sketches that come with the MCUFRIEND_kbv library. One of them scans your display and outputs configuration information (sorry, it"s been a while since I tested my screen). Another sketch will draw little boxes in each corner and sides. This is used to get the x y coordinates of the edges of your particular screen (it might be called TouchScreen_Calibr_native.ino).

The fifth parameter is supposed to be the resistance measured between LCD_D6 and LCD_RS with the screen unplugged. Unfortunately, my multimeter can"t measure it for some reason (I put it in 2000 Ohms mode for reading resistance: I always get "1", the same than when I don"t connect anything... like if multimeter"s contacts aren"t working well, I don"t know)... so I left the default 300 value.