How to control big displays (TFT/LCD) from 3.5'' - 7'' with Microcontrollers

Thread Starter

Fabian Barraez

Joined Mar 17, 2017
4
Hello!

I don't know if this is the right sub forum to ask this.

I'm starting to wonder, how to control TFT/LCD screens with Microcontrollers, but I'm looking for other type TFT/LCD screens, like the ones that are build to make products, like the ones that are attached.

Maybe my question is a little dumb, but I'm interesting in control this kind of display/screen as well as I could control 16x2 LCD displays.
Is there any point from where i could start? And wich Microcontrollers are capable to do this thing.

Thanks for your answers :)
 

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DickCappels

Joined Aug 21, 2008
10,152
You should obtain the datasheets for the displays in which you are interested. The LCD modules that I use had address and data lines (or address/data lines) as well as Enable and Write lines. In other words, they looked a lot like a static RAM.

Using modules with the drive electronics already attached to the panels is much easier than using bare panels. If you really want to drive bare panels, look for microcontrollers integrated LCD drive circuitry. For big panels, you will need an array of driver chips probably driven by a dedicated display controller.
 

ErnieM

Joined Apr 24, 2011
8,377
Hey Fabian, welcome to the forums.

First I would suggest "Embedded Systems and Microcontrollers" as the best sub forum for this question.

I've done some work with these displays. They are no where near as simple as the "16x2 LCD displays" you are used to. With those you give one ASCII code to create a complete symbol. In the TFT types you control each pixel so you need to draw say an entire letter to display words. I very much prefer the TFT types since you do not need anything else but the display for an operator to control some device.

The simple ones are just black and white (or mine was white on blue) with each pixel either on or off. I wrote my own code for these as I was quite interested, they were relatively inexpensive, and the code wasn't very involved. Since the prices on the full color displays also dropped dramatically so I abandoned that work.

For the TFT types I use Microchip PIC microcontrollers and the Microchip Graphic Libraries. These do some great heavy lifting for you by creating most of the "widgets" (buttons, text boxes, etc) you will want to use on these displays. It is a bit of a learning curve to use these libraries as you must do things in the way the libraries want, but in the end it's all just one big while loop where you can also insert your application code.
 
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