Waveshare E-ink display (IT8951) with Arduino UNO

Using Arduino Displays
1

Hello everyone,

I was wondering if anyone has managed to use a Waveshare screen (with the IT8951 Hat) by controlling it with an Arduino UNO? Specifically, I’m looking to interface this model: https://www.waveshare.com/9.7inch-e-paper-hat.htm.

I have gone through the model’s wiki (https://www.waveshare.com/wiki/9.7inch_e-Paper_HAT), which provides an example for STM32, but since I have little knowledge of this microcontroller, I am struggling to adapt it for Arduino. I also had limited success with this repository that seemed promising: GitHub - clashman/it8951: Quick hack to make the IT8951 display driver board work with Arduino and ESP32 boards. Including example code. (though it doesn’t appear to be using an Arduino).

Could there be a physical constraint (like lack of RAM, for example) that makes this difficult? Interestingly, Waveshare offers examples with all their other e-ink screens that are not based on IT8951: https://www.waveshare.com/wiki/E-paper_for_Arduino_Use.

Thank you in advance for your precious help :smiley: .

2

Hi @arudino314 , welcome to the forum!

GxEPD2 (for b/w) and GxEPD_HD (with grey levels) both support IT8951.

But your display is not supported, as I don't have one.

And you would be disappointed, because of the slow speed, caused by heavy paging needed with UNO's small RAM.

Thake a look at the README.md of both.
-jz-

3

Hi!

Thanks a lot for your kind answer and your impressive work on these libraries.
Before diving deeper and trying to adapt your examples to my needs, may I ask what you mean by slow speed? In the case of a grayscale bitmap image, would it take a few seconds?

Thanks again,

Arudino

4

It heavily depends on what you want to do.
A grayscale bitmap doesn't fit into an UNO's flash memory. You would need an external SD card, e.g. I am too lazy (or tired) to calculate if a line buffer would fit into RAM. So most likely this is not possible with GxEPD2 nor GxEPD_HD. If it is, then a few seconds might be correct.

Graphics using buffered graphics heavily depends on the graphics, as it needs be drawn as many times as there are buffer slices needed.

5

Yes, I can see the various parameters that could vary. I wasn't expecting a much more precise answer. So I'll probably change my equipment.

Thanks again for the information.

Adurino