esp8266 tft lcd supplier

For an upcoming new project I wanted a colour (UK spelling) LCD screen (ideally OLED), 256×256 (or greater) resolution and nice and cheap. It was not an easy 2 minute task. There were no OLED screens offering what I wanted (that I could see at the time). So compromises were made, in the end I purchased a 128×128 pixel screen (none OLED) for around $3.50 (£3.20, 3.50 Euro). Not as cheap as I thought I might get one for but the cheapest I could find. There were a lot of sellers offering this screen and it’s shown below.

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.

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.

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.

ILI9341 is a 262,144-color single-chip SOC driver for a-TFT liquid crystal display with resolution of 240RGBx320 dots, comprising a 720-channel source driver, a 320-channel gate driver, 172,800 bytes GRAM for graphic display data of 240RGBx320 dots, and power supply circuit. ILI9341 supports parallel 8-/9-/16-/18-bit data bus MCU interface, 6-/16-/18-bit data bus RGB interface and 3-/4-line serial peripheral interface (SPI). The moving picture area can be specified in internal GRAM by window address function. The specified window area can be updated selectively, so that moving picture can be displayed simultaneously independent of still picture area.

You can find ILI9341-based TFT displays in various sizes on eBay and Aliexpress. The one I chose for this tutorial is 2.2″ length along the diagonal, 240×320 pixels resolution, supports SPI interface, and can be purchased for less than $10.

Note that we will be using the hardware SPI module of the ESP8266 to drive the TFT LCD. The SPI communication pins are multiplexed with I/O pins D5 (SCK), D6 (MISO), and D7 (MOSI). The chip select (CS) and Data/Command (DC) signal lines are configurable through software.

For ILI9341-based TFT displays, there are some options for choosing the library for your application. The most common one is using Bodmer. We will use this library in this tutorial. So go ahead and download the

The library contains proportional fonts, different sizes can be enabled/disabled at compile time to optimise the use of FLASH memory. The library has been tested with the NodeMCU (ESP8266 based).

The library is based on the Adafruit GFX and Adafruit ILI9341 libraries and the aim is to retain compatibility. Significant additions have been made to the library to boost the speed for ESP8266 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 a significant number of example sketches to demonstrate the different features.

Configuration of the library font selections, pins used to interface with the TFT and other features is made by editting the User_Setup.h file in the library folder. Fonts and features can easily be disabled by commenting out lines.

Now you are all set to try out tons of really cool built-in examples that come with the library. The following output corresponds to the TFT_Pie_Chart example.

My favorite example is TFT terminal, which implements a simple “Arduino IDE Serial Monitor” like serial receive terminal for monitoring debugging messages from another Arduino or ESP8266 board.

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.

Pins D5 (GPIO14) and D7 (GPIO13) are hardware SPI module pins of the ESP8266EX microcontroller respectively for SCK (serial clock) and MOSI (master-out slave-in).

The first library is a driver for the ST7735 TFT display which can be installed from Arduino IDE library manager (Sketch —> Include Library —> Manage Libraries …, in the search box write “st7735” and install the one from Adafruit).

As you all know the are a few variants of the 1.8" TFT on the internet. With the genuine Adafruit lcd-s there are usually no problems. But when using fake ones(usually from Aliexpress) you have to make some adjustments.

Bodmers TFT_eSPI library is very awsome and rich funcionality. And the best part is that he made it to handle the pixel offsets depending on wich kind of 1.8" TFT you are using.

Then uncomment the tft height an width. And then in my case(REDTAB) uncomment for eg: #define ST7735_REDTAB. After this save it for the moment and compile sketch and upload to board. To be sure i have defined the parameters in the sketch too.This is a bit long procedure, cause you have to compile and upload the sketch every time to board untill the offset is gone, but it is worth the experimenting. For editing the h. files i strongly suggest Wordpad. Images included.

I am using the 1.8″ color ST7735 TFT display a lot. The reason for that is that this display is very easy to use, it costs less than $5 and it offers color! At the back, the display has an SD card slot.A brief summary of the pins (adapted from Adafruits thorough summary):

RST – this is the TFT reset pin. Connect to ground to reset the TFT! Its best to have this pin controlled by the library so the display is reset cleanly, but you can also connect it to the Arduino Reset pin, which works for most cases.CS – this is the TFT SPI chip select pinD / C – this is the TFT SPI data or command selector pinDIN – this is the SPI Master Out Slave In pin (MOSI), it is used to send data from the microcontroller to the SD card and / or TFTSCLK – this is the SPI clock input pinVcc – this is the power pin, connect to 5VDC – it has reverse polarity protection but try to wire it right!LED – this is the input for the backlight control. Connect to 5VDC to turn on the backlight.GND – this is the power and signal ground pinNow that we know what we’re dealing with it’s time to start wiring!

I"ve been doing some research and trying to understand how to connect these 2 pieces. The video tutorial found on the amazon page is pretty good, but the LCD display"s pins are a little bit different:

I"ve also been looking for documentation and I find it very difficult, I believe the ESP8266 is this ESP8266 ESP-12E NodeMCU, but I can"t quite figure out the Display. The pins don"t line up to:

This is a 2.8” TFT Resistive Touchscreen Display. The module, with a resolution of 320x240, adopts ILI9341 as driver IC and SPI (4-line) communication mode. The board integrates touch chip XPT2046, which converts the touch data collected by the AD to SPI data. The module also integrates an SD card slot allowing you to easily read the full-color bitmap. There are two modes of wiring supplied, normal pin header wiring and GDI. The latter one requires to work with a main controller board with a GDI interface (e.g. FireBeetle-M0). You can use it with only one FPC line plugging in, which reduces the complexity of the wiring. Furthermore, it features high resolution, wide viewing angle, and simple wiring, which can be used in all sorts of display applications, such as, IoT controlling device, game console, desktop event notifier, touch interface, etc.