arduino 2.4 tft lcd touch shield mcufriend brands

This note introduces a low-cost Thin Film Transistor (TFT) display to enhance the operation and usefulness of Liquid Crystal Display(LCD) devices. TFT technology controls the pixel element on the glass surface thereby greatly reducing image blurring and improving viewing angles.

The test board chosen for this exercise is the Elegoo Arduino UNO board from the corresponding Super Starter Kit. The kit already has several simple numeric and text displays. The TFT display may perhaps provide better ways to interact in applications.

The controller for the illustrated model of the TFT display is SSD1297.This information is important because the display (owing to its low cost and high popularity) has many different manufacturers who may not leverage the same controller instruction set. The specification of the controller in the coding exercises is examined in the Appendix section of this note.

Of course, the display can be mounted elsewhere and the pins connected to the Arduino directly or indirectly using, for example, a breadboard. Other components can then use the breadboard in lieu of a shield with custom connectors. Of course, without access to such anon-standard or readily available breadboard, it is impossible to illustrate this arrangement in this note.

The output from the diagnostic program, LCD_ID_reading.ino, is shown below:Read Registers on MCUFRIEND UNO shieldcontrollers either read as single 16-bite.g. the ID is at readReg(0)or as a sequence of 8-bit valuesin special locations (first is dummy)reg(0x0000) 97 97ID: ILI9320, ILI9325, ILI9335, ...reg(0x0004) 97 97 97 97Manufacturer IDreg(0x0009) 97 97 97 97 97Status Registerreg(0x000A) 97 97Get Power Modereg(0x000C) 97 97Get Pixel Formatreg(0x0061) 97 97RDID1 HX8347-Greg(0x0062) 97 97RDID2 HX8347-Greg(0x0063) 97 97RDID3 HX8347-Greg(0x0064) 97 97RDID1 HX8347-Areg(0x0065) 97 97RDID2 HX8347-Areg(0x0066) 97 97RDID3 HX8347-Areg(0x0067) 97 97RDID Himax HX8347-Areg(0x0070) 97 97Panel Himax HX8347-Areg(0x00A1) 97 97 97 97 97RD_DDB SSD1963reg(0x00B0) 97 97RGB Interface Signal Controlreg(0x00B4) 97 97Inversion Controlreg(0x00B6) 97 97 97 97 97Display Controlreg(0x00B7) 97 97Entry Mode Setreg(0x00BF) 97 97 97 97 97 97ILI9481, HX8357-Breg(0x00C0) 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97Panel Controlreg(0x00C8) 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97GAMMAreg(0x00CC) 97 97Panel Controlreg(0x00D0) 97 97 97Power Controlreg(0x00D2) 97 97 97 97 97NVM Readreg(0x00D3) 97 97 97 97ILI9341, ILI9488reg(0x00D4) 97 97 97 97Novatek IDreg(0x00DA) 97 97RDID1reg(0x00DB) 97 97RDID2reg(0x00DC) 97 97RDID3reg(0x00E0) 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97GAMMA-Preg(0x00E1) 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97GAMMA-Nreg(0x00EF) 97 97 97 97 97 97ILI9327reg(0x00F2) 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97Adjust Control 2reg(0x00F6) 97 97 97 97Interface Control

Best Online Shopping website for Arduino Uno 2.4 inch TFT LCD Shield in cheap price in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Sukkur, Peshawar, Multan, Quetta, Faisalabad and all over Pakistan.

I wonder if i will be able to get it fixed with your assistance or would have throw it away in some dustbin lol.Well David sir i don"t know your age but am an old man and almost blind just playing around with this Arduino stuff lolz.

Let me join in because looks like I got exactly the same display (because it reports the same LCD_ID_readreg output) and I also can"t get it to work. Here it is for reference:

MCUFRIEND_kbv Library for Uno 2.4, 2.8, 3.5, 3.6, 3.95 inch mcufriend Shields - GitHub - prenticedavid/MCUFRIEND_kbv: MCUFRIEND_kbv Library for Uno 2.4, 2.8, 3.5, 3.6, 3.95 inch mcufriend Shields

It did not respond to tft.begin(0x9329). It might respond to another MIPI controller ID but is probably not worth the effort. I would just ask for a refund and buy a replacement.

It shows an ID 0X9341. All I"ve done with it so far is run the examples in the MCUfriend library. So I can"t tell you too much more without coaching.....much to learn. Cheers.

After some fun with this display, some thoughts occured to me. One being the often mentioned issue of using the majority of pins on the UNO. I evolved to this display after using 16x2"s ,20x4"s , then OLED"s to the Mcufriend shield. One of my projects is to create a display for a tractor to provide a quick reference to

Engine RPM, Oil pressure and Coolent temperature. The rub here is that accurate RPM readings require the use of interrupt on D2 of the UNO. Considering that I would use a mini-pro and wire with wire wrap or dupont jumpers (for testing), can the function be moved off D2 to another pin, using (with modification) the libraries at hand? Or would it be easier to simply use a display that isn"t configured as a shield with SPI interface? Thanks for any advice.

I have the same lcd of the guy from the first post (tunstsk), which is HX8367-A controller (0x6767). Ive already fixed the white screen problem by removing the "//" from the following line :

Those are the pins I"ve used with the Uno using the 2.4" MCUfriend shield. The touch calibration sketch adapted by David Prentice worked for me with that configuration. Once I ran the calibration I was able to use it. I"d check the connections and make sure they agree. I"m by no means an expert, actually just getting started with tft"s David"s post"s above helped me.

Post a photo of the pcb side and a photo of the screen side of your shield. Or just post a link to the Ebay sale. (make sure that the link photos actually match the item on your desk)

If you own a DMM, unplug the shield. You can measure the resistance yourself. Typical pins used are LCD_WR, LCD_RS, LCD_CS and LCD_D0, LCD_D1, LCD_D6, LCD_D7

Good info David, thank you you from flagtrax as well. I just received a screen from another vendor packaged frightfully in a plain plastic envelope: the only protection being a bit of foam over the pins. Hooking it up to a Nano proved it functioned as a display, which is what I ordered, but surprisingly it also has a xpt 2056 chip and wiring for touch (I think) which just proves your point that you never know what you"ll get from any given vendor. Using your information I think I can verify if it"s working or not.

Post a photo of the pcb side and a photo of the screen side of your shield. Or just post a link to the Ebay sale. (make sure that the link photos actually match the item on your desk)

If you own a DMM, unplug the shield. You can measure the resistance yourself. Typical pins used are LCD_WR, LCD_RS, LCD_CS and LCD_D0, LCD_D1, LCD_D6, LCD_D7

[uno242628.rar](http://"http://"http://"http://"http://"https://web.archive.org/web/20141126174431/http://www.mcufriend.com/download.htm uno242628.rar""""")

Library by JoaoLopesF for SPFD5408 (need to change #include "pin_magic.h" into #include "pin_magic_UNO.h" in SPFD5408_Adafruit_TFTLCD.cpp to compile) EDIT:Joao fixed the error!

My first thought was, obviously, a loose wire, but I checked and rechecked everything, I even rewired it with another arduino nano and tried that, but got the same results.

Im new to Arduino myself but i do have the same screen which works perfect,your problem is probably that the TFT shield is shorting off the top off the arduino usb put something non conductive there and reset. if your still having trouble, try removing the shield and watch each pin as you insert it to make sure they are all inserted in the correct pins, LCD_02 should be in Dig pin 2.

I have one of these TFT LCD shields, but mine is a ILI9335. It has taken me nearly 2 weeks to find a working Library and code for my 9335 driver and I am now setting about creating sketches based around my working Library.

Unfortunately most sellers of these shields (excluding good reputable companies) do not adivise of which Driver is onboard the shield and it becomes difficult to locate a working Library for the driver of the purchased shield.

ALSO, check that the Libraries you have are working for your version of Arduino IDE. Some of my libraries would not compile in v1.0.5 but will in v1.6.3 (and vice versa)

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.

One of the boards identified as ID=0x6814 worked perfectly, and one had a blue cast to all of the screens.  The crazy part is the two boards that identified as ID=0x6814 had different PCBs.  According to the comments in the MCUFRIEND_kbv.cpp ID=0x6814 is an RM68140 and ID=9403 is unknown.

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.

Presumably the “68 14” corresponds to a Raydium 68140, but who knows?  When I posted this on the Arduino forum, David Prentice responded (David does yeoman’s labor helping people and should be Thanked for all of his pro-bono work and putting up with a bunch of really bad questions)

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.

The next thing that I did was try out the startup code that MCUFriend_kbv generates.  I used the same technique from PSoC 6 + Segger EmWin + MCUFriend 2.4″ Part 1 and spit out the startup bytes.  Here they are:

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:

Actually a cheap color display has lot of advantages over any other type displays. Monochrome graphic LCD display actually costs same. Other options of cheap display is Nokia 5110 Display (which is often reported by many users as buggy), standard 1602A LCD Display (which is an all purpose standard basic LCD display). Here is Getting Started Guide For Arduino TFT Touch Screen Shield Manufactured by MCUFRIEND. This is possibly the cheapest 2.4″ color display for Arduino. It costs around $8 to $10. MCUFriend is a China company and has an useless website. However, all over the web, there is huge support for this cheap display. The display works as intended. I purchased it from physical shop. It is a 2.4″ diagonal LCD TFT display, has white-LED backlight, resistive touchscreen, 240×320 resolution, has SPFD 5408 controller with built in video RAM buffer, has 8 bit digital interface and 4 control lines, it uses digital pins 5-13 and analog 0-3. there is a micro SD card reader.

For Arduino UNO, you are actually having digital pins 2, 3, analog 4, analog 5 unoccupied by the shield. If you do not use the SD card slot then digital pin 12 is also available. 3 digital pins and 2 analog pins should be good for most of the basic projects but for multiple sensors, the actual need will be towards Arduino Mega instead of Arduino UNO. This shield does work with Arduino Mega but sometime oddly behave (may be there is some other problem with my piece). I lack idea whether the micro SD card slot actually works.

Obviously as it is a shield, it is challenging to use the unoccupied pins. The easy trick is use to pass a single stranded wire. I read somewhere that it is possible to control the backlight by connecting a digital pin and transistor.

Obviously! Except China none can give such thing at that price. Commonly with a microcontroller like Arduino, we are not going to do huge graphic intensive works unlike Raspberry Pi. You can save the money for Raspberry Pi’s good display. Our basic usage commonly will be making clock, calculator, showing some tracing from sensor, temperature humidity and so on. This quality of display usually enough.

One major issue: the LCD driver seems not to be ILI9341. After trying many libraries for Arduino I checked the web address on the back of LCD PCB, the mcufriend. From there I found a couple of links to library files for 2.4 inch LCD. The library which worked for my LCD is MCUFRIEND_kbv, but that is not all... the library has a sketch named "diagnose_TFT_support", which reported via terminal that the LCD chip ID is 0x9595, which means that the line "#define SUPPORT_8347D" must be uncommented in MCUFRIEND_kbv.cpp file in library folder (see mcufriend_how_to.txt file for explanation). Thats it, my LCD works, even the touch panel.

The shield is fully assembled, tested, and ready to go. No wiring, no soldering! Simply plug it in and load up the library - you"ll have it running in under 10 minutes!