esp8266 tft display supplier

What you’ll build in less that 20 minutes of soldering is a device, that (with demo sketch for Arduino IDE) is able to connect to your WiFi and fetch current WeatherStation data for pre-defined location. On first start, it will require to calibrate touch display used to control the device.

Even though it might not be visible at first sight, there’s a tremendous amount of work behind this thing (and by ‘thing’ is meant a combination of software and hardware). When you start installing the sample Weather Station sketch, it appears that you need to install some libraries, all of them by Daniel Eichhorn: ESP8266 WeatherStation which is a WeatherUnderground client, Json Streaming Parser that helps keeping low memory profile while getting huge API responses, and Mini Grafx library that implements a VSYNC equivalent through framebuffer for embedded devices.

The Arduino sketch has 438k built so there’s still plenty of room to add more features. However, I’m looking to dive deeply into existing example code in order to reuse as much as possible. There’s NNTP, visual WiFi display, display carousel, icons, fonts, colours and last but not least the touch screen support.

The IoD-09 modules feature a full colour 0.9” TFT LCD display. They are powered by the WiFi enabled ESP8266, which offers an array of functionality and options for any Designer / Integrator / User.

This range of modules has been designed to minimise the impact of display related circuitry, and provide a platform suitable for integration into a product.

The IoD-09 modules can act as master or slave devices, they can be effortlessly connected to the internet, can display a raft information and graphics, along with the capability to communicate to SPI, I2C, and/or 1-wire devices, as well as having general GPIO for digital control/input.

Due to the planned game being more advanced than Space Invaders I needed a processor with more memory and speed than the Arduino could offer. Enter the ESP8266 processors which offer faster speeds and lots and lots more memory. Wifi is also available but will not be required for this project unless we implemented a World High Score Table perhaps! There are newer versions, ESP32, available with even more power but are more expensive and we don’t need that level of performance for this project. I’m using a NodeMCU from Lolin, which is basically a breakout board for the ESP8266 so that you can use it easily on breadboards or small production runs using through hole.

Connections – very careful now!Looking at the back we can see +3v3 (this screen can be powered from 5v as well), several grounds (Gnd) and SCL/SDA. This shouldmean that this device is an I²C device and can be easily connected to our Arduino. Err… Think  again. This screen gave me no end of problems as connecting it to the  I²C connections and running any demo I could find on the internet did not get anything on the display. I went back and looked at the listing for this device, it stated SPI Bus not I²C ! So it began to become apparent that this screen had an SPI interface. SCL and SDA would logically seem to be SPI clock and data (MOSI) respectively but other pin labels didn’t match normal SPI protocol labels. Reading several resources for other different screens and looking at the source code for the examples in the Arduino IDE Examples library lead me to find the correct connections to power and use this screen.

Power is self explanatory. LED adds a little extra brightness to the screen but it does still work if not connected. I’ve seen resistors added in series here and even variable ones to vary the brightness but I’ve ran it directly connected on this screen with no issues and wouldn’t want it dimmer as its not ultra bright. It is actually on even when not connected giving adequate brightness in my opinion. SCL is the SPI clock and goes to the NodeMCU’s hardware SPI pin (pin D5). SDA is actually the SPI MOSI connection and goes to the NodeMCU’s SPI MOSI pin (D7). RS is a Regsiter Select pin for ST7735 driver chips, this maps to a variable called TFT_DC in the Adafruitcode (explained later) that I was using for testing. This controls whether we are sending a command to the ST7735 chip or actual data. I think that Adafruit call it DC meaning Data Control, but I’m not sure. On some boards it may even be referred to as A0. For our purposed we connect it to D4. RST is the screen reset and and is connected to pin D3. These last two can connect to any NodeMCU pins that are not used for other functions. CS is Chip Select (usually referred to as Slave Select in the SPI protocol) and again can connect to any pin but I use D2. If this is pulled low then this device can receive or send data on the SPI bus. If only one device in your design you could pull this low permanently and not use D2.

Driver CodeWhen presented with this board (as mentioned above) it was difficult to work out where wires should go and what driver software I needed for the display. Looking at the solitary chip on the board and Googling revealed nothing. So I went back to the sellers listing and found buried deep in a sub-page description the phrase “7735 drive”. Googling this revealed Adafruit had written some drivers for this chip for a board they had created (which also had an SD card slot on it as well). It was not surprising I didn’t find the 7735 chip on the board as this chip is designed to by embedded onto the back of the screen. It was being armed with this source code and other web pages dealing with different chip sets but similar displays that I managed to work out (with a little trial and error) the connections talked about previously above. Initially I used the Adafruit driver code but gave issues with this screen (as it was designed to work with the one they sell). Look below.

Also when the screen orientation is rotated (in software) so you can write to the display any way up then more things either correct themselves or mess up again.

Fixing the ST7735 driver to work with this screen.So we have some work to do still to make this work well with our display. The driver we have used to get this up and running was not designed for this display exactly. Things appear clipped and off screen. There were other issues with colour (i.e. red was blue and blue was red amongst other colour problems) and other graphics routines were not correct. I won’t bore you with all the tiny re-writes I did but just supply you with the new driver for this particular display. This driver is very specific, i.e. only targeting this display and resolution but it may well work with many other similar displays. At the time of writing I have no other displays to test with but will be expanding the driver code as and when required. The full driver code is available from the link below, add it into your Arduino in the usual manner (Adding libraries to the Arduino IDE.)

Load up the example code that should now be available at “Files->Examples->XTronical ST7735 Library->GraphicsTestESP8266”. This is basically the Adafruit example with just some tiny changes (It goes through all the tests for each rotational position of the screen) so that it uses the new driver file and slightly altered initialisation routine.

We have used Liquid Crystal Displays in the DroneBot Workshop many times before, but the one we are working with today has a bit of a twist – it’s a circle!  Perfect for creating electronic gauges and special effects.

LCD, or Liquid Crystal Displays, are great choices for many applications. They aren’t that power-hungry, they are available in monochrome or full-color models, and they are available in all shapes and sizes.

Today we will see how to use this display with both an Arduino and an ESP32. We will also use a pair of them to make some rather spooky animated eyeballs!

There are also some additional connections to the display. One of them, DC, sets the display into either Data or Command mode. Another, BL, is a control for the display’s backlight.

The above illustration shows the connections to the display.  The Waveshare display can be used with either 3.3 or 5-volt logic, the power supply voltage should match the logic level (although you CAN use a 5-volt supply with 3.3-volt logic).

Another difference is simply with the labeling on the display. There are two pins, one labeled SDA and the other labeled SCL. At a glance, you would assume that this is an I2C device, but it isn’t, it’s SPI just like the Waveshare device.

This display can be used for the experiments we will be doing with the ESP32, as that is a 3.3-volt logic microcontroller. You would need to use a voltage level converter if you wanted to use one of these with an Arduino Uno.

The Waveshare device comes with a cable for use with the display. Unfortunately, it only has female ends, which would be excellent for a Raspberry Pi (which is also supported) but not too handy for an Arduino Uno. I used short breadboard jumper wires to convert the ends into male ones suitable for the Arduino.

Once you have everything hooked up, you can start coding for the display. There are a few ways to do this, one of them is to grab the sample code thatWaveshare provides on their Wiki.

The Waveshare Wiki does provide some information about the display and a bit of sample code for a few common controllers. It’s a reasonable support page, unfortunately, it is the only support that Waveshare provides(I would have liked to see more examples and a tutorial, but I guess I’m spoiled by Adafruit and Sparkfun LOL).

Open the Arduino folder. Inside you’ll find quite a few folders, one for each display size that Waveshare supports. As I’m using the 1.28-inch model, I selected theLCD_1inch28folder.

You can see from the code that after loading some libraries we initialize the display, set its backlight level (you can use PWM on the BL pin to set the level), and paint a new image. We then proceed to draw lines and strings onto the display.

After uploading the code, you will see the display show a fake “clock”. It’s a static display, but it does illustrate how you can use this with the Waveshare code.

This library is an extension of the Adafruit GFX library, which itself is one of the most popular display libraries around. Because of this, there isextensive documentation for this libraryavailable from Adafruit.  This makes the library an excellent choice for those who want to write their own applications.

As with the Waveshare sample, this file just prints shapes and text to the display. It is quite an easy sketch to understand, especially with the Adafruit documentation.

The sketch finishes by printing some bizarre text on the display. The text is an excerpt from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, and it’s a sample of Vogon poetry, which is considered to be the third-worst in the Galaxy!

Here is the hookup for the ESP32 and the GC9A01 display.  As with most ESP32 hookup diagrams, it is important to use the correct GPIO numbers instead of physical pins. The diagram shows the WROVER, so if you are using a different module you’ll need to consult its documentation to ensure that you hook it up properly.

The TFT_eSPI library is ideal for this, and several other, displays. You can install it through your Arduino IDE Library Manager, just search for “TFT_eSPI”.

There is a lot of demo code included with the library. Some of it is intended for other display sizes, but there are a few that you can use with your circular display.

To test out the display, you can use theColour_Test sketch, found inside the Test and Diagnostic menu item inside the library samples.  While this sketch was not made for this display, it is a good way to confirm that you have everything hooked up and configured properly.

A great demo code sample is theAnimated_dialsketch, which is found inside theSpritesmenu item.  This demonstration code will produce a “dial” indicator on the display, along with some simulated “data” (really just a random number generator).

One of my favorite sketches is the Animated Eyes sketch, which displays a pair of very convincing eyeballs that move. Although it will work on a single display, it is more effective if you use two.

The first thing we need to do is to hook up a second display. To do this, you connect every wire in parallel with the first display, except for the CS (chip select) line.

The Animated Eyes sketch can be found within the sample files for the TFT_eSPI library, under the “generic” folder.  Assuming that you have wired up the second GC9A01 display, you’ll want to use theAnimated_Eyes_2sketch.

The GC9A01 LCD module is a 1.28-inch round display that is useful for instrumentation and other similar projects. Today we will learn how to use this display with an Arduino Uno and an ESP32.

A 80*160 pixel color display has the particular advantage that it is small: screen diagonal of 0.96 inch. This makes it attractive for use in (literally) small applications, particularly in scale models: railways, homes, cities. Attached to a ESP8266 and ESP32 microcontroller these displays can produce animations or day/night scenes, illuminated shop windows, traffic boards, advertisement panels and so forth. Here we wire a 0.96’ TFT with ST7735S controller to ESP8266 and ESP32 microcontroller boards

Model railway displays can be made more attractive by the addition of ‘live’ decoration: train station arrival/departure boards, information screens, advertisement boards, etcetera. Another type of decoration is animated shop windows. For this genre of application a miniature display can be an interesting option. All these applications have in common that any display used needs to be small, flat, economical and easy to fit, sometimes as retrofit, into the interior of plastic model structures such as model railway homes and Lego buildings. They even may be placed in structures belonging to model Christmas or Easter villages. The market supplies small monochrome displays, e.g. 0.91 inch diameter, 128*32 pixel OLED, the slightly bigger (0.96 inch), 64*128 pixel OLED, and the recently introduced 0.96’ 160*80 TFT. The OLEDS can be found in different versions (white, blue, yellow monochrome color). Very attractive is the 0.96’ TFT because it is capable of displaying 64k colors. Driven by a powerful ESP8266 or ESP32, animations can be run such as miniature billboards and advertisement boards. Static displays that change between day and night such as shop window illumination, are also among the possibilities. In this article we deal with the connectivity between a 0.96’, 160*80 pixel TFT and ESP8266 or ESP32 microcontroller boards. The TFT’s controller is a ST7735S which is perfectly supprted by Bodmer’s TFT_eSPI library.

Whilst the early ESP8266 development work was done with a configuration consisting of a breadboard with the display on it and with connections through jumper wires such assemblies perform very irregular. The 0.96′ SPI TFT responds very critically to imperfect wiring: one slightly loose jumper wire and the display won’t work. A minibench with soldered pin connectivity was therefore constructed for ESP8266 experiments, designed to support a Wemos D1 mini ESP8266 and a TFT display. The Wemos was selected here because its small footprint makes it easy to hide this microcontroller board inside buildings constructed from Lego blocks. Components of the minibench: a double-sided 60×40 mm soldering prototyping board, three 8-pin headers sockets and wires. The design, wiring scheme and the result are shown in figures 2 and 3.

Connected with an ESP32 the TFT display feels at ease. Maybe this is so because Bodmer’s TFT_eSPI library provides a User_Setup example that did not need tweaking. The display responded immediately, fast and reliable. Hardware SPI pins on the ESP32 are used for clock and data: pin 18 is connected to SCL at the display while pin 23 is connected to SDA of the display (see figure 4). The other pins breathe familiarity as well: RST of the display to D4 of the Wemos, DC to D2 and CS to pin D6. The pin on the display marked BLK remains unconnected; I noted comments on several fora that BLK may be connected to the 3.3V pin, to any pin on the ESP32 that supports pulse width modulation, or that the BLK pin can be set HIGH (backlight ON) or LOW (backlight OFF). The display at hand has no voltage regulator which implies that if one wants to use it with an Arduino Uno the precaution must be followed that control signals to the display run via voltage level conversion.

There are two major libraries supporting ST7735 controller-based TFTs: the Adafruit_GFX.h library and Bodmer’s TFT_eSPI.h library. My experience with the Adafruit_GFX.h library is that although the common graphic functions perform well, support of animations via a series of instructions ‘drawBitmap ()’ is relatively slow. Adafruit_GFX seems to be created for 160*128 displays. The library does not support the instruction ‘pushImage ()’. By contrast the TFT_eSPI.h library supports graphics as good as the GFX library while animations perform perfectly and at high speed, both with ‘drawBitmap ()’ and ‘pushImage ()’ functions. We further discuss here the TFT_eSPI library and keep Adafruit_GFX.h in storage for future experiments.

The TFT_eSPI library is different from most libraries, e.g. Adafruit_GFX and U8G2 in the sense that the ‘constructor’ is inside a special file whose name is ‘Setup_xxxx.h’ that resides in the folder ‘User_setups’. These special files are ascii which makes them endlessly tweakable with a common ascii text editor. The specific Setup_xxxx.h is called in another setup file named User_Setup_Select.h that resides in the library’s main directory. Consider Bodmer’s ‘constructor’ systematics as a kind of two-stage rocket. Both stages need to be edited befor launch. The first stage is User_Setup_Select.h and the second stage is Setup_xxxx.h. After the editing has been done successfully the display will indeed perform ‘as a rocket’!

The display was with both platforms tested with graphical tests that are available for everyone in the Arduino IDE through File → Examples, while I also ran several of my own graphical tests as well that I created c-arrays of pictures and displayed these supported by the TFT_eSPI.h library. I recommend here to upload example TFT_Meter_5 available in the TFT_eSPI library ensemble (in the Arduino IDE: File → Examples → TFT_eSPI → 160×128 → TFT_Meter_5). Brilliant!

Below follows the complete listing of ‘Setup_FW_ESP8266_ST7735_TFT_017.h’. For intimi: this is a modified Setup43_ST7735.h. I post here a screen capture because the WordPress editor has problems with the character ‘#’.

One way to demonstrate what one can do with a small display that runs animations is to make it part of a building, let’s say a shop window or something similar. Fortunately the 0.96′ display nicely fits in portrait orientation a front door in the Lego plastic building block system. So I scooped up some material from my children’s Lego assortment and constructed a Swiss chalet that features in the front door the 160*80 TFT display. This display is powered by an ESP32WROOM32. The rooms were fitted with white leds that can be switched on and off. Switching is controlled by an Arduino Nano and is completely separate from all the action happening at the front door. For the purpose of preparing Figure 5 I replaced the animation by a static 160*80 Panda bear image – “there’s a bear at the front door, mama!”.

This display module features high resolution, low power consumption, wide angle and easy wiring. It employs IPS display with a small size of 1.54 inches, offering 240×240 resolution. The module adopts SPI and GDI interface(work with maincontrollers with GDI port). This LCD display can be powered by 3.3V~5V, and the maximum is power consumption is 24Ma. This product can be used in many display applications: waveform monitor display, electronic gift box, electronic weather decorations, etc.

The product is a Breakout module. It adopts SPI communication and has onboard GDI interface, which reduces the complexity of wiring and can easily display the contents read from SD card.

This is an example of commonly-used icons. 1. We use GIMP2 to convert these icons into codes for better display. 2. We provide some icons for you, Click here to find more "Click here to find more").

ESP8266(C02) for EPD development kit supports Arduino platform for development procedures. This development kit is mainly to assist customers to develop e-paper display projects faster and smoother. It supports driving Good Display"s black-white SPI E-paper Display and three-color (black, white and red/Yellow) Good Display ‘s SPI E-paper Display: 1.54"", 2.04"", 2.13"", 2.6"", 2.7"", 2.9"", 3.71"", 4.2"", 5.83"" and 7.5"".

The ESP8266(C02) for E-Paper Display development kit supports Wi-Fi, users need to develop by themselves. And it includes the motherboard ESP8266 for EPD and the adapter board DESPI-C02.

If you want to make it your self then Let’s start the tutorial, So you can make it in an easy way with an ESP8266, TFT display, and other few components.