It looks like that TFT displays are secondary items for suppliers such as DigiKey, Farnell, Mouser etc...:
The offer and support is pour, price too high....

I believe that TFT display size 3.5" and 5.7" should be a great opportunity for supplier such as DigiKey, Farnell, Mouser etc...for the following reasons:

-TFT with Touch-screen will be the Human interface of the future for embedded applications
-because, driven by TV and consumer products, the cost of these devices are decreasing while performance are improving
-and many manufacturers offer 3,5" and also 5,7" with simple 8 bit drivers
-but It's very difficoult and requires a long time to have samples from manufacturers and they require a promise of high volume rate (1000pcs or more)
-Last but not least Microchip offer a good and reliable Graphic Library which allows the use of these display with PIC24F and PIC32...

but it is not easy to find a TFT display with a compatible driver to Microchip Graphic Library....
I've found a good 3,5" display from amp display http://www.ampdisplay.com/
They use a proprietary chip FS506 that emulates an 80/8bit driver, I'd no particular difficulties to change the S6d0129L driver and adapt to the new one...but it was not easy to have one sample, also paying....

I have the explorer 16 board but DigiKey does not stock the display or driver IC that's used on it. Was hoping to not reinvent the wheel with a new display and driver and use a similar circuit. Is there a compatible drive/display fro DigiKey that will work like the graphics pictail?

The dot clock for that display is around 5MHz, which is do-able by the PIC32.

The memory requirements are a bit high, though, 320x240 = 76,800 pixels. The highest PIC32 has is 32k ram, which means you could allocate at most 4 bits per pixel using only the internal memory.

You could expand it with external memory, or even use the external memory to control the display, writing updates to the memory inbetween lines and frames.

Alternately, you can run the display off a single PIC32 if you drive the display with sprites stored in flash. You wouldn't set individual bits on the display memory, you'd instead have a table of objects to display on the screen with their location, sorted by starting pixel line and then column, so as you drive each line to the display you go down this table, find the next object to display and when you get to it's column start taking data from flash and spitting it out to the display.

You can also incorporate vector drawing, including lines, polygons, circles, etc. The math is a bit tricky to understand at first, but it's quite interesting and fun once you understand how to draw vector objects on a raster display without a buffer.

Your fonts, buttons, graphics, etc would mostly be static objects stored in flash, with some ram set aside for custom objects.

Overall, it would feel very limiting if you're used to computer graphics where you set pixels, but if you plan ahead and carefully design your interface your users will not notice the difference, and you may actually find it's easier to develop for.

If you add a little more logic that allows overlapping objects to be combined in interesting ways (add, subtract, or, xor, and, etc on a per-pixel basis) then you can create very sophisticated graphics with many pre-generated graphic objects and vector objects.

Alternately just make the entire display vector - with each line consuming 7 bytes of memory you can draw over ten thousand lines on the display. Circles require less information (x, y, radius, color) so you can draw many more of them. Careful and creative use of vectors can give you very sophisticated and interesting graphics.

Or you can emulate a memory buffer using the flash. Define areas of the display (windows) where information will be changed frequently, and store those in RAM. Write the rest of the display graphics to flash (which you can re-write 3 times a day if you only need the unit to last for 10 years). With careful partitioning you might find that you use very little RAM and still get everything you need in terms of graphics, rapid updates, and eye candy.

And all that will only cost you $10 for another PIC32 (and countless hours of development time). $5 in quantity.



I'll have to add that to my list of projects that would be fun to do...

-Adam

I agree with you, it is a shame that DK does not have anything reasonably priced on this department.

Check this one out:New Heaven Display

I found another company with similar ones at ~$50/qty=1 but can't find the link now:-(

Please DK !!!! listen to us !!!

Regards

BTW

Digi_Key has this one (without the touch panel) in their catalog
NHD-2.4-320240KE-CTXI#-ND 50 $56.25000

It is a non-stock item and the price is for quantity 50
Who knows what price they would apply towards the BOM since it is based on quantity one.

regards;

one problem is that Techtoys display you mentioned is SOLD OUT

out of stock with digikey.

eBay, here I come!

HAHAHA! Very good!

I would love this rectangular size LCD for all type of project. Plus the touch screen make it even cooler!

I would be willing to try one. I have the hardware skills and some good knowledge in software but not the best.
That is what I am trying to pratice.

I hope to see some news from digikey

Hello,

Still the Purpose is not solved.
We would require to have a dedicated PIC32 to control these LCD.
Unlike thePICTail Graphics Board or the 2.8" QVGA from Techtoys.

I require to find some thing quick else my BOM is skyrocketing.

Thanks for your help everyone,

Best of Luck,

Hello jamodio ,

Can you please mention a link for the display you are talking about - from Newheaven ?
Since most of the links in the above posts show sold-out or out of stock.
Also from your previous post I checked the NHD-2.4-240320YF-CTXI display. It has the controller ILI9320 as you mentioned.
The only problem is soldering to the pins since its too small. Please let me know how to overcome this disadvantage.

Thanks for the Help,

Best of Luck!!

Great prices, but contest parts must be available through Digi-Key. I'll keep this in mind for my next project

]

Yes that is right. You don't have to buy them from digikey, but the item does have to be listed on their online catalog.

Excellent!
thanks!

Hi boseji,
I look forward to hearing how you come along with your tests. I tried and tried to get it to work and finaly last week sent mine back to Newhaven to determine if my unit was functional or not.

For background:
1. I have successfully used the Techtoys display with myPIC32 prototype and completed the demo (ILI9320)
2. with that success in mind I tried the same code with the NHD2.4-240320YF display--no luck only backlight
3. Obtained initialization code example from Newhaven (different than that used for Techtoys display) - still no luck
4. Found new Newhaven displays were using the HX controller, verified by p/n that mine was not a new one and still used the ILI9320
5. Found out from Newhaven that the display is defaulted to only communicate in 16 bit mode (IM0 is grounded internally although the documentation says otherwise). You can verify this by looking at the lack of a trace connection on the IM0 pin.
6. Returned my display for verification of operation to Newhaven--no word yet on its health.

I've attached a copy of some pictures of my NHD setup (yours looks cleaner, did you make your own protoboard for the 0.8mm spacing?)

This display looks like a great solution for this contest, meets all the rules (although you have to buy them from Newhaven) since they are listed on the Digikey site (but actually not available unless you want to buy 50 of them :-p).

If you are successul in getting the display to work, I would love to have a copy of your intialization code :-).

Best Regards,
-Eric

Attachments:

IMG_5844_small.jpg (43.8k), IMG_5846_small.jpg (45.6k), IMG_5862_small.jpg (66.0k), IMG_5863_small.jpg (62.0k), Connector detail #1 (pin 11).jpg (32.3k)

Hello boseji,
The following key was sent to me by the Newhaven tech rep:

The different controllers are noted by the -1 part number on the small Newhaven Display logo:
NHD-2.4-240320YF-CTXI# = ILI9320
NHD-2.4-240320YF-CTXI#-T = ILI9320

NHD-2.4-240320YF-CTXI#-1 = HX8347
NHD-2.4-240320YF-CTXI#-T-1 = HX8347

Using this it should tell you which controller you have.

I tried slowing the the PIC down quite abit, but it still didn't seem to help. Please let us know when you get your display up and running successfully.

Best of luck,
-Eric

See here http://www.mypic32.com/web/guest/forums/message_boards/message/81381#_19_message_81381

There is a link to microchip where you get information about shift level 3.3 to 5 volts.may help you.

I don´t see lcd 3.3 volts

Eric / Abhijith

Any particular reason for using the Newhavens or Techtoys displays? I strongly feel that both are the same. May be the controllers are different.

My question is why you did not use the Microchip Graphics Pictail. The integration to the IO expansion board is straight forward and is tested with the Microchip Graphics library. This would have a made a robust and supported choice for your design. I also notice that the Microchip board bring out both the controller and the LCD pins on headers. This is good because you could use this for prototypes that don’t need the IO expansion board too and since the LCD pins are on headers you could use the same board for working with instances where the controller is not needed (there are some cool micros out there that have LCD support built in)

I don’t think the low cost of the Newhavens display makes sense when you have to buy an additional display from Techtoys. Add up the costs of both the LCD, shipping and any taxes or duties. For the NHD display you need to source the connector and backlight voltage source or spend a lot of time on the soldering.

May be you both wanted to take on the challenge of doing something different?


- Rajesh KC

picr,
For me, there are three prime motivations:
1. The Graphics PICTail board is a significant part of the $400 BOM total allowed (listing for $135 on Digikey), at this point, this seems too large of a percentage to justify its use.
2. The learning associated with doing something new, especially when the result is a full color, reasonably sized display with touchscreen for future projects for the price of $50.
3. The choice of eligible displays from Digikey is very sparse, the Newhaven display meets all of the requirements for this contest (specifically it is listed on the Digikey site) and is reasonably priced.

I purchased the TechToys display to gain experience with a known quantity which has the same controller as the Newhaven display, thinking the code would port directly, unfortunately I have found they are not equivalent and at the moment my Newhaven display is back at the supplier with no word on its health yet. Also, sadly the TechToys display is not eligible for this contest.

Regards,
-Eric

Real Cool. Congrats on getting the display going.

Do you rally need the TI chip ? You could try to use the ADC of the PIC32 to read the touch screen values.

Look at the Techntoys examples for ideas.

I am happy for you.

- Rajesh K C

Great job!

Hello,

I have now downloaded the Datasheet for the HX8347. Its quite a good controller and has window drawing mode - Just the one I required.
Well I will post the Updates as soon as I figure out the controls on the LCD.

Best of Luck,

Boseji

Hello,

I am attaching the project zip here so that you can directly download. (It is there in the 09_LCD1 directory if you un-archive my project source code)
Also don't forget to use the Global.h since it contains the config definitions.
Please let me know in case you are having trouble.

Best of Luck,

Boseji

Attachments:

code.zip (10.4k)

Hello Eric,

Good to hear that. Well I have been busy with my other hardware.
Also what ever I had ordered from TechToys I was not able to get it since it is still stuck at the customs.
But as I told now I have a working source from the ezCircuits site along with the data sheet.
So I hope that if allowed into the next phase I would surely able to make things work. For now I am sticking to changing colors and patterns.
In case if you require any of those codes , data sheet or the project details, please let me know.

I don't know if I would get through to the second phase.
There is a saying in my language:

Yesterday is History,
Tomorrow is mystry,
But Today is a gift that's why we call it Present !!

So, one thing is for sure I would be able to know a lot of things that I imagined.
And have lots to fun.

Thanks,

Boseji

Hi,

Even now the stocks for the NHD-2.4-240320YF-CTXI#-T-1-ND are available.
So I think we can certify to one of the BOM criteria that the listed item should be available in digi-key at least once during the contest.

I am still trying to figure out the way to invert the images that I produce.
In HX8347 we can only change the memory refresh pattern so Landscape & portrait overhead comes on the micro.
I am trying to go for only one mode Landscape since its most suitable for my application. I will post my first driver soon.

Best of Luck,

Boseji

Hi Boseji,
Yes we made it! Congratulations to you and the 31 others who also make it!

Now comes the harder task, getting the software to play together....

The display I am using right now is the Techtoys display, it uses the same ILI9230 controller that the Newhaven display uses (since I had a failed Newhave unit, I used something that should be compatible). Now that I've made it to the next round, I'm working on the updates necessary for the HX controller in the newer Newhaven units (I now have one of each). I have a new breakout board that I'm going to try, its better than the one I made previously.

I'll post a copy of the driver code when I get it working, hopefully it will be of some help to you.

Regards,
-Eric

Hi,

I have been able to port the driver for HX8347 partially to the Microchip Graphics Library.
Have a look at my project video that I have loaded recently.
This is Some part of the Primitives demo running on my board.

The next task is to port the Bitmap routines and then I will publish the driver source code along with the Primitives demo on my website.

Please let me know your comments.

Best of Luck,

Boseji

hi, i have buy this lcd display:TM240320C1NFWGWC (Controller: ILI9325). where i find the microchip driver for this controller? can you help me?
thanks for all Carlolauri

Hi,

Any one interested to make up the FreeRTOS port for the Microchip's Graphics Library.
I think it would be a great learning experience.

Please let me know.

Warm Regards,
Boseji

Hi,

At present there is no port for the FSA506 & HX8238-A Graphics chip in the Microchip's Graphics library.
However the initialization code(Section 10) for FSA506 provided can help you to get across.
Also the FSA506 looks more like the ILI9325 but with an 8bit interface.

I am interested in the Graphics driver for this two chips.
If you can post the Data sheet of the HX8238 ,
then I can tell you more on how you can get the MCHP lib working.

Kindly let me know if you are interested in this development.

Warm Regards,
Boseji

hi.i read 1 ov urz lcd post.the problem is i have pic32 usb plus board and graphics pictailboard connected to i/o expansion board.touchscreen is not working.touch screen is TFT-G240320UTSW-92W-TP-E and i m running demo programme graphics AN1136,any help for hardware and software changes

Hello,

Let me know your Display Controller or post the datasheet link.

Warm Regards,
Boseji

Hello,

Have a look at my previous driver posts:
ILI9325 driver

Warm Regards,
Boseji