LCD QVGA Arduino shield

First release of LCD QVGA arduino shield library.
Include low level driver, graphic interface and font.
Demo application. Photo frame.

Using Arduino with LCD TFT QVGA BL-TFT240320PLUS. http://www.circuitidea.com/Article/Using-Arduino-shield-BL-TFT240320PLUS.html
source code and library http://www.circuitidea.com/dev-board/BL-TFT240320PLUS.html

Looks very nice, can you give a breakdown of costs, for the board and the LCD?

You can order from thaieasyelec.net
Board contain Lcd, touch screen, SD card slot, touch screen chip, free 1 analog pin.
New release we add I2C ds1307 RTC for time application (Only for arduino ).
Now You can develop more application -data logger, time attendance, simple oscilloscope, temperature data logger, voltage data logger. depend on your idea.

Are they in stock now? As they've had 0 stock for the last few days.

still says 'Out of Stock' so I can't order, I want to order 2.

I highly doubt that you can do all this things in one Arduino (168/328 with 1K/2K of RAM) sketch:

  • read data from SD card;
  • send data to LCD screen for display;
  • read touchscreen input;
  • get time from RTC.
    But it looks good nonetheless. I would buy one.
    Is there a video demo anywhere?

Hmmn, I don't see why you shouldn't be able to do all that on a 328, the screen is 8bit for the arduino, it has it's own SD for storage of fonts etc. so that helps, not going to be a massive framerate but you're not expecting that on an arduino. the price is very nice and it can be used on a better MCU than atmel avr in 16bit mode :slight_smile:

All these libraries take a lot of RAM to run. With Arduino 168 one can barely do anything on top of the SD card library (when reading), whatever that is. Can 328 handle so much more functionality (wire, graphics, touchscreen)?

it'll be fine on a 1280 ( I have one) 328 should be ok, and if it really needed it you could add an SPI eeprom to help. I htink the 168 would struggle though. It can also be used with other mcu to exploit the better 16bit graphic mode.

I can tell you from my experience that 328 could not handle a "system" with a LED display from Sure Electronics (probably less complex than this LCD), SD card (read mode) and DS1307.
So, I wouldn't expect to have this shield fully functional on a "regular" Arduino; Mega should be ok from the software perspective (don't know if it is pin compatible with this shield though).

Come on, who doesn't want one of those at that price? Use a mega then if necessary or do commands seperately. With the new libraries for some of those things I would have thought that most of that would fit on.

The touch screen won't need more than about 20 lines of code and the RTC interface can be pretty simple too.

The Duino644 board:

Wise time with Arduino: Buy Duino644 kit

controls the LED matrix from sure, an SD card, a RTC clock module and IR receiver etc so the Mega with it's 1280 should work with this.

Mowcius

on a 168 I can see it barfing, but then again it depends on entirely what your application is, on a 328, no reason mine shouldn't work for what I want it for initially, large screen, possibly monocolor, logging, mutliple menu system with endless 'buttons' that don't need soldering, ever..... on a 328 the only thing you really have to worry about is speed, but of course you would accept the speed issue and it being purely 8bit on the arduino before you bought it, hence the main project being a photo viewer and not an mp4 player. The SD card makes it a really infinitely useful device for 0 overhead or thought and really expands what you can do with it. doesn't all have to be whizz bang to be useful :slight_smile:

Oh but it would be wizz bang useful. I have been looking for ages for an affordable large display behind a touch screen.

I currently use DS touch screens for projects but no screen as the DS screen has no support and I do not have the knowledge to make a driver boards.

I am betting that as soon as it come into stock it will be out within a few hours :smiley: I bet I won't be online then though :frowning:

Mowcius

and the guys website:

http://rossum.posterous.com/

infinitely useful, I'm just about to look at the code and see why it needs 4KB of ram, so at the moment I provisionally concede that it might struggle on a 328 but w/e, mega 1280, 8bit easily :slight_smile: I wonder if it could get away with less. Can you see how fast that thing is actually shifting data, 60fps, and the 644 is running at 12mhz according to the website :slight_smile: looks like it depends exactly what you implement as to what the memory requirements are, lose 3d and pacman and you've saved 16k of flash and 1k of ram :slight_smile: chop the sd stuff down to raw read/writes and it should be fine :wink:

I've just been given a PSP with a broken screen and replaced that and it got me thinking... then this comes along, will be great having like you say a big screen, I don't necessarily need full colour running all the time, I don't need 3d, just something I can read easily with a bit of a decent resolution to it and not green screen monochrome.

OK, more clarifications required :slight_smile:
I like the board, I like the price, I will buy one, but I don't expect this board to be fully functional (with all it is on it) with arduino diecimila, as claimed on their web site:

BL-TFT240320PLUS design as LCD TFT arduino shield. It can plug into Arduino Diecimila

It may take 20 lines of code for you to write, but those lines call some libraries/classes/functions that you have to include.
Mowcius, thanks for the advertisement :slight_smile:

Thank you Reggie for ruining my night (and probably many more) :slight_smile:
At first I thought this is fake, but the code and explanations seem to make sense.

They are different boards as far as I know but it does give you an idea of what you can do with an 8bit mcu, most of what the hackaday guy is doing is palmed off in the SD card as far as memory is concerned. and for loading in very small images (sprites, icons, fonts etc.) it will be quicker than it needs to be :slight_smile: I'm interested in either solution as both are usable on other MCU's, it's spi based so easily interfaced with anything, pick a winner.

more interesting stuff, I googled the controller he's using and this turned up:

thaieasyelec :slight_smile:

looks like it depends exactly what you implement as to what the memory requirements are, lose 3d and pacman and you've saved 16k of flash and 1k of ram chop the sd stuff down to raw read/writes and it should be fine

Yes that's what I thought. I only really care about the SD read, and text on the LCD (maybe a few shapes etc), and the touch screen.

BL-TFT240320PLUS design as LCD TFT arduino shield. It can plug into Arduino Diecimila

I'm sure it can plug into it but it may not function properly. They are just being sneaky with wording!

Mowcius, thanks for the advertisement

Well I'm happy to point out good products to the arduino community.

Mowcius

Looking at that product and the hackaday link to the 3d and pacman stuff, this is working, the hackaday link uses a screen ripped out of a £50 mp4 player, that turns out to be a standard sparkfun 320x240 screen, its running in 8bit, and the spi will be running at 2Mhz.....

It's pretty simple to see where the thing will choke, putting full frame video etc. will result in slowdown but updating 8x8 blocks as and when needed will be no issues. I had to put a delay parameter in my 'shape movement' functions for the 6100 128x128 12bit lcd, so graphics is not going to be an problem.