tft display vs capacitive touch screen free sample

There are many types of touch panel technologies available in the market, the popular types are we are going to discuss the two most widely used types, and compare resistive vs capacitive touch screen

Projected Capacitive Touch Panel (PCAP) was actually invented 10 years earlier than the first resistive touchscreen.  But it was no popular until Apple first used it in iPhone in 2007. After that, PCAP dominates the touch market, such as mobile phones, IT, automotive, home appliances, industrial, IoT, military, aviation, ATMs, kiosks, Android cell phones etc.

Projected capacitive touchscreen contains X and Y electrodes with insulation layer between them.  The transparent electrodes are normally made into diamond pattern with ITO and with metal bridge.

Human body is conductive because it contains water. Projected capacitive technology makes use of conductivity of human body. When a bare finger touches the sensor with the pattern of X and Y electrodes, a capacitance coupling happens between the human finger and the electrodes which makes change of the electrostatic capacitance between the X and Y electrodes.  The touchscreen controller detects the electrostatic field change and the location.

Projected capacitive supports multiple touches (Multi-touch), so it supports a lot of gestures: Zoom in and out (pinch/spread), scroll, swipe, drag, slide, hold/press, rotate, tap etc.

With the new development, projected capacitive touch panels can support gloved hand touch with different glove materials and touch with water or even with salt water.

Before 2007, resistive technology was the most popular touch panel market.  From its name, we know that the technology relies on resistance. A resistive touch screen is made of a glass substrate as the bottom layer and a film substrate (normally, clear poly-carbonate or PET) as the top layer, each coated with a transparent conductive layer (ITO: Indium Tin Oxide), separated by spacer dots to make a small air gap. The two conducting layers of material (ITO) face each other. When a user touches the part of the screen with finger or a stylus, the conductive ITO thin layers contacted. It changes the resistance. The RTP controller detects the change and calculate the touch position. The point of contact is detected by this change in voltage.

With the fast development of projected capacitive, resistive touchscreen devices market is shrinking rapidly but it is still widely used in some industrial applications because of the following advantages.

Easily be activated with any touch material as long as the pressure is applied (finger, stylus, glove, pen etc.) (not keys to cause scratches on surface).

The following table shows the comparison of resistive and capacitive touch screens. It is up to your application to select the types of technology to use.

There are types of touch screen，such as resistive touch panel(RTP), capacitive touch panel (CTP), surface acoustic wave touch display, infrared touch screen. RTP and CTP are used more than others. Can you tell the difference between RTP and CTP? If not, you may want to read along.

In resistive touch screens, two very thin layers of material are separated by a thin gap of air. PET film and glass are typically used. Both upper and bottom layers are lined with conductors such as indium tin oxide (ITO). The conducting sides are placed facing one another. So, when you press the screen with finger or stylus, it connects top and bottom layers, creates a change in resistance (an increase in voltage). RTP controller detects this change, and calculates its coordinates, then determines the position of touch.

Capacitive touchscreens, on the other hand, respond directly to the touch of your finger or an input device such as a stylus. On top of LCD panel, lies a thin layer of transparent electrodes. When a human finger touches the screen, some of the electrical charge travels from screen to user. The change of capacitance is then detected by sensors located at screen"s four corners, allowing controller determine the touched location.

Resistive touch screens are effective in a variety of environments. Any object capable of applying force to the screen can trigger a touch event. For example, users wearing gloves can operate RTP with no difficulty.Resistive touch screens work well even when liquids or debris are present on the surface. This makes them especially useful in situations where substances could disrupt the function of other types of touch screens, for example, agricultural equipment, boats and underwater machinery. Due to its mature technology and simple structure, cost of resistive screens is lower.

Supporting of Multiple touches is a clear winner for capacitive touch screens (CTP). Thanks to smartphone and tablet, users are comfortable with using gesture on screen. And capacitive touch screen is what user is familiar with. In more specialized settings, such as multi-player gaming application, capacitiv e touch screens can support more than 10 inputs at a single time. Additionally, CTP needs no calibration and is highly accurate.

Resistive touch display cannot determine the location of a touch if more than one input is present. In terms of visibility, the film substrate commonly used as the top surface in resistive touch screens is less transmissive than glass. This leads to reduced brightness and a certain level of haze compared to touch screens with a top layer of glass. The film layer can also expand or contract based on temperature, which alters the distance between the two layers and affects touch accuracy. Additionally, the film substrates are susceptible to scratches and can start to wear away with repeated use, necessitating occasional recalibration or replacement over time.

Capacitive touch screens depend on variations in an electrical field to operate. While a passive stylus can activate this screen, a non-conductive tool like a pencil can"t. If cost is a top concern for a project, CTP may not align with budget limits. It is a more expensive technology than resistive screens, although it continues to grow more accessible in terms of price as the technology advances and improves.

A surface capacitive touchscreen uses a transparent layer of conductive film overlaid onto a glass sublayer. A protective layer is then applied to the conductive film. Voltage is applied to the electrodes on the four corners of the glass sublayer to generate a uniform electric field. When a conductor touches the screen, current flows from the electrodes to the conductor. The location of the conductor is then calculated based on the activity of the currents. Surface capacitive touchscreens are often used for large screen panels.

Projected capacitive touchscreens are extremely precise and quick to respond and are typically found on smaller devices such as iPhones, iPod touches, or iPads. Unlike the surface capacitive touchscreens, which use four electrodes and a transparent conductive film, the projected capacitive touchscreens use a vast amount of transparent electrodes arranged in a specific pattern and on two separate layers. When a conductor moves near the screen, the electrical field between the electrodes changes, and sensors can instantly identify the location on the screen. Projected capacitive touchscreens can accurately register multi-touch events.

Touchscreen displays are everywhere! Phones, tablets, self-serve kiosks, bank machines and thousands of other devices we interact with make use of touchscreen displays to provide an intuitive user interface.

Today we will learn how touchscreens work, and how to use a common inexpensive resistive touchscreen shield for the Arduino.  Future videos and articles will cover capacitive touchscreens, as well as a touchscreen HAT for the Raspberry Pi.

Although touchscreens seem to be everywhere these days we tend to forget that just a few decades ago these devices were just science fiction for most of us. For many people, the touchscreen concept was introduced 30 years ago in the television seriesStar Trek: The Next Generation.

Eric A Johnson, a researcher at the Royal Radar Establishment in Malvern UK is credited for describing and then prototyping the first practical touchscreen. HIs device was a capacitive touchscreen, and it’s first commercial use was on air traffic control screens. However, the touchscreens used then were not transparent, instead, they were mounted on the frame of the CRT display.

In 1972, a group at the University of Illinois filed for a patent on an optical touchscreen. This device used a 16×16 array of LEDs and phototransistors, mounted on a frame around a CRT display. Placing your finger, or another solid object, on the screen would break two of the light beams, this was used to determine the position and respond accordingly.

The first transparent touchscreen was developed atCERNin 1973. CERN is also home to the Large Hadron Collider, and this is where Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web.

The first resistive touchscreen was developed by American inventor George Samuel Hurst in 1975, although the first practical version was not produced until 1982.

In 1982 theUniversity of Toronto’sInput Research Group developed the first multi-touch touchscreen, a screen that could interpret more than one touch at the same time.  The original device used a video camera behind a frosted piece of glass. Three years later the same group developed a multi-touch tablet that used a capacitive touchscreen instead.

The first commercial product to use a touchscreen was a point-of-sale terminal developed by Atari and displayed at the 1986 COMDEX expo in Las Vegas. The next year Casio launched theCasio PB-1000 pocket computerwith a touchscreen consisting of a simple 4×4 matrix.

LG created the world’s first capacitive touchscreen phone, theLG Pradaused a capacitive touchscreen and was released in early 2007. A few weeks later Apple released its first iPhone.

Most early touchscreen devices were resistive, as this technology is generally less expensive than capacitive screens. However, nowadays capacitive screens are more common, being used in the majority of smartphones and tablets.

Although they were invented after capacitive touchscreens, resistive touchscreens are probably the most common type used by hobbyists. The reason for that is the price and performance, resistive touchscreens are cheaper than capacitive ones and they are generally more accurate.

A resistive touchscreen consists of two thin layers of material, separated by a tiny gap.  Spacers are used to maintain the gap and keep the two sheets apart.

In operation, the resistance between the two sheets is measured at different points. Pressing down upon the tip sheet will change that resistance, and by comparing the measurement points it can be determined where the screen was pressed.  Essentially, it creates a pair of voltage dividers.

In a 4-Wire Analog touchscreen, there are two electrodes or “busbars” on each of the conductive layers.  On one layer these electrodes are mounted on the two X-axis sides, the other layer has them on the two y-axes.

This is the most inexpensive method of designing a resistive touchscreen. The touchscreen display that we will be working with today uses this arrangement.

In a 5-Wire Analog touchscreen, there are four wires, one connected to a circular electrode on each corner of the bottom layer. A fifth wire is connected to a “sensing wire”, which is embedded in the top layer.

Touching any point on the screen causes current to flow to each of the bottom electrodes, measuring all four electrode currents determines the position that the screen was touched.

This 8-Wire Analog touchscreen uses an arrangement of electrodes identical to the 4-Wire variety. The difference is that there are two wires connected to each electrode, one to each end.

Capacitive touchscreens are actually older technology than resistive displays.  They are commonly used in phones and tablets, so you’re probably familiar with them.

The capacitive touchscreen makes use of the conductivity of the human body. The touchscreen itself consists of a glass plate that has been treated with a conductive material.

The surface capacitive touchscreen is the most inexpensive design, so it is widely used. It consists of four electrodes placed at each corner of the touchscreen, which maintain a level voltage over the entire conductive layer.

When your finger comes in contact with any part of the screen, current flows between those electrodes and your finger. Sensors positioned under the screen sense the change in voltage and the location of that change.

This is a more advanced touchscreen technique. In a projected capacitive touchscreen transparent electrodes are placed along the protective glass coating and are arranged in a matrix.

One line of electrodes (vertical) maintain a constant level of current. Another line (horizontal) are triggered when your finger touches the screen and initiates current flow in that area of the screen.  The electrostatic field created where the two lines intersect determine where it was touched.

You can also just use the shield as an LCD display and ignore the two other components, however, if you intend on doing that it would be cheaper just to buy an LCD display without any touchscreen features.

This is a TFT orThin Film Transistordevice that uses liquid crystals to produce a display.  These displays can produce a large number of colors with a pretty decent resolution.

You do need to be looking directly at the display for best color accuracy, as most of these inexpensive LCD displays suffer from distortion and “parallax error” when viewed from the side. But as the most common application for a device like this is as a User Interface (UI) this shouldn’t be a problem.

This shield uses a 4-wire analog resistive touchscreen, as described earlier.  Two of the wires (one X and one Y) are connected to a couple of the analog inputs on the Arduino. The analog inputs are required as the voltage levels need to be measured to determine the position of the object touching the screen.

The microSD card socket is a convenience, it’s normally used for holding images for the display but it can also be used for program storage.  This can be handy for holding things like calibration settings and favorite selections.

The last paragraph regarding the microSD card may make you think that an Arduino Uno is the best choice for the Touchscreen Display Shield.  And it you require the microSD card then it probably is a good choice.

As there are three devices on the shield you will need libraries for each of the ones you want to use.  TheSD Libraryis already installed in your Arduino IDE, so you will just need libraries for the display and touchscreen.

This useful resource contains code, libraries and datasheets for a wealth of LCD displays, both touchscreen and non-touchscreen. You’ll also find code for some common OLED displays as well.

I ran my touchscreen through all of the code samples I obtained from the LCD Wiki. It’s an interesting exercise, and by examining the sketch for each demo you can learn a lot about programming the display.

This test does not make use of any of the extra libraries, it drives the LCD directly. It is only a test of the LCD display, it does not make use of the touchscreen membrane.

You’ll find this example in theExample_02_clear_screenfolder, the sameclear_Screen.inoexample is used for both the Uno and Mega so there are no separate folders.

This example does use the custom libraries, and is a very good way to learn how to use them.  You’ll note that theLCDWIKI_GUI.hlibrary is loaded, which is the graphics library for the LCD display.

When you run this example the results will be similar to the first one, a series of colors will sweep across the screen. In this case the colors are different, and they vary in speed.

A look at the loop will show how this is done. TheLCDWIKI_GUI.hlibrary has a “Fill_Screen” method that fills the screen with an RGB color. You can specify the color in both hexadecimal or decimal format, the example illustrates both ways.

This sketch uses a number of functions from theLCDWIKI_GUI.hlibrary, along with some custom functions to draw geometric shapes. It then displays a cycle of graphs, shapes, and patterns on the LCD display.

One way in which this sketch differs is that most of the graphics routines are executed in the Setup function, so they only run once. The loop then displays some text with a selection of colors and fonts. The orientation is changed as it cycles through the loop.

This example makes use of a second file that contains fonts. The Display Scroll sketch illustrates a number of different methods of scrolling characters, in different fonts, colors and even languages.

One interesting thing about this test is that it illustrates how to display text in different “aspects”, Portrait and Landscape, Right side up and Reversed.

Unlike the previous examples that put the text in with a number of graphics, this example is a pretty simple one with just a block of text in different sizes and colors.  This makes it very simple to understand how the text is positioned on the display.

The result of running the sketch is the display screen fills with rows of hexadecimal values while the background alternates between blue and black and the orientation (or “aspect”) changes.  If you stand back to see the “big picture” you’ll note that the color values form “number patterns”.

The Display Phone Call sketch draws a mockup telephone keypad. Pressing one of the keys will display the result on a line of text at the top.  There is also a key to delete your entries, as well as ones to send and disconnect the call – the latter two are “dummy” functions of course as it’s only a demo.

In addition to the graphics and “helper” libraries that have been used in the previous examples this sketch also uses theTouchScreenlibrary to read screen interaction.  This was one of the libraries included in the original ZIP file.

As its name would imply, this sketch displays a bitmap image on the display. The images need to be placed onto the root of a microSD card, which in turn is plugged into the socket on the display shield.

The images will show off the display resolution, which is reasonably impressive. You’ll also note that to see them at their best, you need to be directly in front of the display, viewing the display at an angle causes the display to distort colors.

This example draws some small “switches” on the display. The switches are active and respond to touch.  There are slide switches, a push button, some radio buttons and some text-based expandable menus to test with.

The Touch Pen example is actually a pretty decent little drawing application. You can draw whatever you want on the main screen area. A set of buttons allow you to set the stylus color and pen width.

While the sample code is a bit difficult to follow it’s worth the effort, as it shows you how to create a dynamic menu system. Touching the stylus color button, for example, will open a new menu to select colors.  This is a handy technique that you’ll need to know when developing your own user interfaces.

The Calibration utility lets you calibrate the resistive touchscreen.  It achieves this by placing a number of crosses on the screen. You can calibrate the screen by using the stylus to touch the center of one of the crosses as accurately as you can.

After you touch one of the cross points the sketch runs through a calibration sequence, during which time you need to continue to touch the cross point. You’ll be informed when it is finished.

After calibration, the sketch will display a number of calibration values for the resistive touchscreen. These values can be used in your future sketches to make the touchscreen more accurate.

The examples are a great way to demonstrate the capabilities of your touchscreen. But to really put your interface to work you’ll need to write your own interface code.

Writing a touchscreen interface can be challenging. I would suggest that you start by modifying one of the example codes, one that is closest to your desired interface.

The digital I/O connector at the back of the Mega is still accessible even when the touchscreen display shield is installed, so I used three of those connections for the LEDs. I hooked up each LED anode through a 220-ohm dropping resistor and connected them as follows:

The sketch is based upon the telephone keypad sketch. I modified it to eliminate the other functions and just display three buttons.  Then I added code to toggle the LEDs.

TheAdafruit GFX Libraryis a comprehensive graphics library that can be used in a variety of display applications.  It is a “core library”, meaning that it is called by other Adafruit libraries.

TheAdafruit TFTLCD Libraryis used. It uses the previous library to provide an easy method of drawing on the LCD display.  It works with LCD displays that use driver chips like the ILI9325 and ILI9328.

TheTouchScreenlibrary comes in the code that you downloaded from the LCD Wiki or from the CD ROM included with your touchscreen shield.  As its name implies it is used to interface with the touchscreen.

TheMCUFRIEND_kbvlibrary is also included in the software you obtained for your display shield. It takes care of supplying the correct hardware information for your display shield to the other libraries.

Next, we define some touchscreen parameters. You can ‘fine-tune” your code here by using parameters from your own display, which you can obtain from the Calibration Sketch we ran from the sample code.  Otherwise, just use the values here and you should be fine.

Next, we reset the display and try to identify it. This will run through a list of display chip drivers in the MCUFRIEND_kbv library and will attempt to select the correct one.

Now, still in the Setup, we set up the LCD display rotation and fill the background in black. Next step is to draw our buttons. Once we are done that the Setup is finished, and our screen should be displaying the three buttons on a black background.

The loop is where we will be monitoring the screen for keypresses. If we get one, and if its position corresponds to a button location, then we need to toggle the correct LED.

We start by triggering the touchscreen, which is done by toggling pin 13 on the Arduino high. If something is touching the screen we read it and assign it to a TSPoint object named “p”.

We then need to reset the pin modes for two of the touchscreen pins back to outputs. This is done as these pins get shared with other LCD display functions and get set as inputs temporarily.

Now we check to see if the pressure on the screen was within the minimum and maximum pressure thresholds we defined earlier.  If it makes the grade then we determine where exactly the screen was pressed.

Now that we know where the screen was pressed we need to see if the pressure point corresponds to one of our buttons.  So we cycle through the button array and check to see if the pressure point was within 10 pixels of our button location.

Touchscreen interfaces are used in a number of products, and now you can design your own devices using them. They can really make for an intuitive and advanced display and will give your project a very professional “look and feel” if done correctly.

This is not the only time we will look at touchscreen displays. Next time we’ll examine a capacitive touchscreen and we’ll explore the Adafruit Graphics libraries further to create some very fancy displays with controls and indicators.

Let"s learn how to use a touchscreen with the Arduino. We will examine the different types of touchscreens and will then create a simple interface using an inexpensive Arduino touchscreen shield.

The Capacitive touch panel is activated with anything containing an inductive load such as a finger or stylus. It allows for multi-touch options. When using the capacitive touch screen, the display needs a separate controller to interface with the touch panel. The display for capacitive touch is brighter since the touch panel is transparent.

The Transmissive polarizer is best used for displays that run with the backlight on all the time. This polarizer provides the brightest backlight possible. If you have a need for a bright backlight with lower power drain, transmissive is a good choice for this TFT LCD display.

Focus LCDs can provide many accessories to go with your display. If you would like to source a connector, cable, test jig or other accessory preassembled to your LCD (or just included in the package), our team will make sure you get the items you need.Get in touch with a team member today to accessorize your display!

Focus Display Solutions (aka: Focus LCDs) offers the original purchaser who has purchased a product from the FocusLCDs.com a limited warranty that the product (including accessories in the product"s package) will be free from defects in material or workmanship.

Capacitive Touch Panel, WHITE LED backlight, All Viewing Angles, Wide temperature range, Transmissive polarizer, 450 NITS, CTP controller: FT6236, RoHS Compliant

The Capacitive touch panel is activated with anything containing an inductive load such as a finger or stylus. It allows for multi-touch options. When using the capacitive touch screen, the display needs a separate controller to interface with the touch panel. The display for capacitive touch is brighter since the touch panel is transparent.

The Transmissive polarizer is best used for displays that run with the backlight on all the time. This polarizer provides the brightest backlight possible. If you have a need for a bright backlight with lower power drain, transmissive is a good choice for this thin-film transistor.

Focus LCDs can provide many accessories to go with your display. If you would like to source a connector, cable, test jig or other accessory preassembled to your LCD (or just included in the package), our team will make sure you get the items you need.Get in touch with a team member today to accessorize your display!

Focus Display Solutions (aka: Focus LCDs) offers the original purchaser who has purchased a product from the FocusLCDs.com a limited warranty that the product (including accessories in the product"s package) will be free from defects in material or workmanship.

Are you looking for a small LCD touchscreen display for your device or product? We carry a number of touch screen TFTs, OLEDs, and STN displays. If you need a capacitive or a resistive touch screen we have both available.

The CFAF800480E0-050SC is a 5-inch color TFT LCD graphic display module with high-brightness, sunlight-readable backlight and a capacitive touch panel (CTP).

The touch panel can detect up to 5 separate touch points. This TFT display is suitable for industrial, media, embedded and other general-purpose display applications.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 (18 white-LED backlight) and colorful 800x480 pixels with individual pixel control. As a bonus, this display has a capacitive touch panel attached on screen by default.

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!

Touchscreens have changed the way people expect to interact with their devices. When it comes to smartphones and tablets, touch is the way to go. Even handheld game consoles, laptops, and car navigation systems are moving towards touch. Manufacturers of these devices need to give their respective consumers the responsiveness these consumers are looking for. Selecting the right TFT-LCD display to use for different devices is important.

For touch-sensitive displays, two types of technologies are used: resistive and capacitive. The main difference is in how they respond to touch. Mobile phone comparison site Omio indicates that resistive technology is more accurate but capacitive technology is more responsive.

To elaborate on that, resistive touchscreens allow input from fingers and non-finger objects, like a stylus. A stylus has a smaller point than a finger and makes interaction on a resistive screen more accurate. This makes the technology suitable for devices whose applications require high accuracy, like sketching and pinpoint games. Mobile devices that use a stylus typically have resistive touchscreens.

Capacitive touchscreens, on the other hand, offer more responsiveness with better optical clarity and multi-touch performance. They detect more complex finger gestures. These qualities are shown to be more important for general interaction so it’s more dominant in smartphones and tablets, as well as in other devices with small to medium screen sizes.

As you can see, capacitive screens get general usage while resistive screens cater to more specific applications. With this, TFT-LCD module manufacturers, like Microtips Technology, focus on continuously improving capacitive screen technology.

Electronic Design states that many technological advances can be used to integrate touch sensors directly into the display. In some, manufacturers stack-up the touch sensors and integrate the controller with the display driver ICs. These advances allowed thinner and smarter capacitive touchscreens – a trend that you see in many devices today. For example, Windows phones originally worked exclusively with resistive touchscreen technology but later on moved over to capacitive. If the continuous development of capacitive touchscreen technology becomes successful, these screens may soon have abilities they don’t possess at the moment, such as hover support, non-finger support, and many more.

ER-TFT028A3-4 is 240x320 dots 2.8" color tft lcd module display with ST7789V controller and optional capacitive touch panel and 4-wire resistive touch panel,superior display quality,super wide viewing angle and easily controlled by MCU such as 8051, PIC, AVR, ARDUINO ARM and Raspberry PI.It can be used in any embedded systems,industrial device,security and hand-held equipment which requires display in high quality and colorful image.It supports 8080 8-bit,9-bit,16-bit,18-bit parallel,3-wire,4-wire serial spi interface. FPC with zif connector is easily to assemble or remove.Lanscape mode is also available.

Of course, we wouldn"t just leave you with a datasheet and a "good luck!".Here is the link for 2.8"TFT Touch Shield with Libraries, Examples.Schematic Diagram for Arduino Due,Mega 2560 and Uno . For 8051 microcontroller user,we prepared the detailed tutorial such as interfacing, demo code and development kit at the bottom of this page.

Point of Sales Machines, Multi-function Printers, Instrumentation, Home Security Systems, Graphic touch pad – remote, dial pad, Tele/Video Conference Systems, Phones and Switchboards, Medical Appliances, Breathalyzers, Gas chromatographs, Power meter, Home appliance devices, Set-top box, Thermostats, Sprinkler system displays, GPS / Satnav, Vending Machine Control Panels, Elevator Controls, and many more.

Shenzhen Wanty Photoelectric Co., Ltd is a factory manufacturer and one stop customization solution provider specializing in R&D and producing Capacitive Touch Screen and TFT LCD Display up to 23.8 inch since established in 2012.

As an one stop customization solution provider, we mainly provide domestic and overseas customers with the customization services on regular or irregular PCAP capacitive touch panel, TFT LCD Display with different brightness, Touch display with HD-MI & USB interface which compatible with raspberry pi etc from 0.91 inch to 23.8 inch.

In contrast to PCAP (capacitive touch panels), resistive touch panels are much more reliable in their response behavior. Where with PCAP (cell phone etc.) you sometimes try a second or third time "to hit a key", the resistive touch panel reacts immediately - provided that the corresponding evaluation is done. We have summarized further differences in a table below.

Dr Pan: Hello, Greg. TFT LCD module is one of the best LCD technology. We can simply consider it as TFT+LCD+LED backlight, and monochrome LCD module consists of LCD+LED backlight. An image on an LCD we can see is composed of pixels. TFT is the abbreviation for thin film transistor and it controls the R, G, B colors of each pixel respectively on the surface of LCD.

TFT LCD is a high standard product and it is not well customized as monochrome LCD. But still, it has a variety of options to meet the customers’ requirements.The sizes range from 1.44 inch to 130.0 inch;