1.8" TFT Display Breakout and Shield
Created by lady ada
Last updated on 2018-08-22 03:31:47 PM UTC
Guide Contents
Guide Contents
Overview
Breakout Pinouts
Breakout Assembly
Prepare the header strip:
Add the breakout board:
And Solder!
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Breakout Wiring & Test
Install Adafruit ST7735 TFT Library
Changing Pins
Assembling the Shield
Cut the Header Sections
Insert the Headers into an Arduino
Add the Shield
And Solder!
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Testing the Shield
Reading the Joystick
Graphics Library
Displaying Bitmaps
Breakout Wiring
Example Sketch
Downloads
Files & Datasheets
Breakout Schematic
Breakout Fabrication print
Shield Schematic
Shield Fabrication Print
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© Adafruit Industries
https://learn.adafruit.com/1-8-tft-display
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Overview
This tutorial is for our 1.8" diagonal TFT display. It comes packaged as a breakout or as an Arduino shield. Both styles
have a microSD interface for storing files and images. These are both great ways to add a small, colorful and bright
display to any project. Since the display uses 4-wire SPI to communicate and has its own pixel-addressable frame
buffer, it requires little memory and only a few pins. This makes it ideal for use with small microcontrollers.
The shield version plugs directly into an Arduino with no wiring required. The breakout version can be used with every
kind of microcontroller.
© Adafruit Industries
https://learn.adafruit.com/1-8-tft-display
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The 1.8" display has 128x160 color pixels. Unlike the low cost "Nokia 6110" and similar LCD displays, which are CSTN
type and thus have poor color and slow refresh, this display is a true TFT! The TFT driver (ST7735R) can display full 18-
bit color (262,144 shades!). And the LCD will always come with the same driver chip so there's no worries that your
code will not work from one to the other.
Both boards have the TFT soldered on (it uses a delicate flex-circuit connector) as well as a ultra-low-dropout 3.3V
regulator and a 3/5V level shifter so you can use it with 3.3V or 5V power and logic. These also include a microSD card
holder so you can easily load full color bitmaps from a FAT16/FAT32 formatted microSD card. And on the Shield
version, we've added a nifty 5-way joystick navigation switch!
You can pick up one of these displays in the Adafruit shop!
1.8" 18-bit color TFT breakout
(http://adafru.it/358)
1.8" 18-bit Color TFT Shield
(http://adafru.it/802)
© Adafruit Industries
https://learn.adafruit.com/1-8-tft-display
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Breakout Pinouts
This color display uses SPI to receive image data. That means you need at least 4 pins - clock, data in, tft cs and d/c. If
you'd like to have SD card usage too, add another 2 pins - data out and card cs. However, there's a couple other pins
you may want to use, lets go thru them all!
Lite - this is the PWM input for the backlight control. Connect to 3-5VDC to turn on the backlight. Connect to
ground to turn it off. Or, you can PWM at any frequency.
MISO - this is the SPI Master In Slave Out pin, its used for the SD card. It isn't used for the TFT display which is
write-only
SCLK - this is the SPI clock input pin
MOSI - this is the SPI Master Out Slave In pin, it is used to send data from the microcontroller to the SD card
and/or TFT
TFT_CS - this is the TFT SPI chip select pin
Card CS - this is the SD card chip select, used if you want to read from the SD card.
D/C - this is the TFT SPI data or command selector pin
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.
Vcc - this is the power pin, connect to 3-5VDC - it has reverse polarity protection but try to wire it right!
GND - this is the power and signal ground pin
For the level shifter we use the
CD74HC4050
(https://adafru.it/Boj)
which has a typical propagation delay of ~10ns
© Adafruit Industries
https://learn.adafruit.com/1-8-tft-display
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