tft screen

2 Articles

Displays We Love Hacking: SPI And I2C

December 21, 2023 by 17 Comments

I’ve talked about HD44780 displays before – they’ve been a mainstay of microcontroller projects for literal decades. In the modern hobbyist world, there’s an elephant in the room – the sheer variety of I2C and SPI displays you can buy. They’re all so different, some are LCD and some are OLED, some have a touchscreen layer and some don’t, some come on breakouts and some are a bare panel. No matter which one you pick, there are things you deserve to know.

These displays are exceptionally microcontroller-friendly, they require hardly any GPIOs, or none extra if you already use I2C. They’re also unbelievably cheap, and so tiny that you can comfortably add one even if you’re hurting for space. Sure, they require more RAM and a more sophisticated software library than HD44780, but with modern microcontrollers, this is no problem at all. As a result, you will see them in almost every project under the sun.

What do you need for those? What are the requirements to operate one? What kind of tricks can you use with them? Let’s go through the main aspects.

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STM32 Oscilloscope Uses All The Features

August 8, 2023 by 29 Comments

[jgpeiro] is no slouch when it comes to building small, affordable oscilloscopes out of common microcontrollers. His most recent, based on an RP2040 with two channels that ran at 100 MSps, put it on the order of plenty of commercially-available oscilloscopes at this sample rate but at a fraction of the price. He wanted to improve on the design though, making a smaller unit with a greatly reduced bill-of-materials and with a more streamlined design, so he came up with this STM32-based oscilloscope.

The goal of this project was to base as many of the functions around the built-in capabilities of the STM32 as possible, so in addition to the four input channels and two output channels running at 1 MHz, the microcontroller also drives a TFT display which has been limited to 20 frames per second to save processor power for other tasks. The microcontroller also has a number of built-in operational amplifiers which are used as programmable gain amplifiers, further reducing the amount of support circuitry needed on the PCB while at the same time greatly improving the scope’s capabilities.

In fact, the only parts of consequence outside of the STM32, the power supply, and the screen are the inclusion of two operational amplifiers included to protect the input channels from overvoltage events. It’s an impressive build in a small form factor, and we’d say the design goal of keeping the parts count low has been met as well. If you do need something a little faster though, his RP2040-based oscilloscope is definitely worth checking out.

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