Display DIY

The physical and human spects dealing with audio, video, and images Vision and color perception: objectively describing color · the eyes and the brain · physics, numbers, and (non)linearity · color spaces · references, links, and unsorted stuff Image: file formats · noise reduction · halftoning, dithering · illuminant correction · Image descriptors · Reverse image search · image feature and contour detection · OCR · Image - unsorted Video: file format notes · video encoding notes · On display speed · Screen tearing and vsync Simpler display types · Video display notes · Display DIY Subtitle format notes Audio physics and physiology: Sound physics and some human psychoacoustics · Descriptions used for sound and music Noise stuff: Stray signals and noise · sound-related noise names · electronic non-coupled noise names · electronic coupled noise · ground loop · strategies to avoid coupled noise · Sampling, reproduction, and transmission distortions · (tape) noise reduction Digital sound and processing: capture, storage, reproduction · on APIs (and latency) · programming and codecs · some glossary · Audio and signal processing - unsorted stuff Music electronics: device voltage and impedance, audio and otherwise · amps and speakers · basic audio hacks · Simple ADCs and DACs · digital audio · multichannel and surround On the stage side: microphones · studio and stage notes · Effects · sync Electronic music: Electronic music - musical terms MIDI · Some history, ways of making noises · Gaming synth · microcontroller synth Modular synth (eurorack, mostly): sync · power supply · formats (physical, interconnects) DAW: Ableton notes · MuLab notes · Mainstage notes Unsorted: Visuals DIY · Signal analysis, modeling, processing (some audio, some more generic) · Music fingerprinting and identification For more, see Category:Audio, video, images

LCD character dislays

Character displays are basically those with predefined (and occasionally rewritable) fonts.

Classical interface

The more barebones interface is often a 16 pin line with a pinout like

• Ground

• Vcc

• Contrast

usually there's a (trim)pot from Vcc, or a resistor if it's fixed

• RS: Register Select (character or instruction)

in instruction mode, it receives commands like 'clear display', 'move cursor',

in character mode,

• RW: Read/Write

tied to ground is write, which is usually the only thing you do

• ENable / clk (for writing)

• 8 data lines, but you can do most things over 4 of them

• backlight Vcc
• Backlight gnd

The minimal, write-only setup is:

• tie RW to ground
• connect RS, EN, D7, D6, D5, and D4 to digital outs

(near-)monochrome

SSD1306

OLED, 128x64@4 colorsTemplate:Vierfy

https://cdn-shop.adafruit.com/datasheets/SSD1306.pdf

SH1107

OLED,

https://datasheetspdf.com/pdf-file/1481276/SINOWEALTH/SH1107/1

Small LCD/TFTs / OLEDs

✎ This article/section is a stub — some half-sorted notes, not necessarily checked, not necessarily correct. Feel free to ignore, or tell me about it.

Small as in order of an inch or two (because the controllers are designed for a limited resolution?(verify)).

💤 Note that, like with monitors, marketers really don't mind if you confuse LED-backlit LCD with OLED,

and some of the ebays and aliexpresses sellers of the world will happily 'accidentally' call any small screen OLED if it means they sell more.

This is further made more confusing by the fact that there are

• few-color OLEDs (2 to 8 colors or so, great for high contrast but only high cotnrast),
• high color OLEDs (65K),

...so you sometimes need to dig into the tech specs to see the difference between high color LCD and high color OLED.

When all pixels are off they give zero light pollution (unlike most LCDs) which might be nice in the dark. These seem to appear in smaller sizes than small LCDs, so are great as compact indicators.

Can it do video or not?

If it does speak e.g. MIPI it's basically just a monitor, probably capable of decent-speed updates, but also the things you can connect to will (on the scale of microcontroller to mini-PC) be moderately powerful, e.g. a raspberry.

But the list below don't connect PC video cables.

Still, they have their own controller, and can hold their pixel state one way or the other, but connect something more command-like - so you can update a moderate amount of pixels with via an interface that is much less speedy or complex.

You might get reasonable results over SPI / I2C for a lot of e.g. basic interfaces and guages. By the time you try to display video you have to think about your design more.

For a large part because amount of pixels to update times the rate of frames per second has to fit through the communication (...also the display's capabilities). There is a semi-standard parallel interface that might make video-speed things feasible. This interface is faster than the SPI/I2C option, though not always that much, depending on hardware details.

Even if the specs of the screen can do it in theory, you also have to have the video ready to send. If you're running it from an RP2040 or ESP32, don't expect to libav/ffmpeg.

Say, something like the TinyTV runs a 216x135 65Kcolor display from a from a RP2040.

Also note that such hardware won't be doing decoding and rescaling arbitrary video files. They will use specifically pre-converted video.

In your choices, also consider libraries. Things like TFT_eSPI has a compatibility list you will care about.

Interfaces

✎ This article/section is a stub — some half-sorted notes, not necessarily checked, not necessarily correct. Feel free to ignore, or tell me about it.

ST7735

LCD, 132x162@16bits RGB

ST7789

LCD, 240x320@16bits RGB

https://www.waveshare.com/w/upload/a/ae/ST7789_Datasheet.pdf

SSD1331

OLED, 96x 64, 16bits RGB

https://cdn-shop.adafruit.com/datasheets/SSD1331_1.2.pdf

SSD1309

OLED, 128 x 64, single color?

https://www.hpinfotech.ro/SSD1309.pdf

SSD1351

OLED, 65K color

https://newhavendisplay.com/content/app_notes/SSD1351.pdf

HX8352C

LCD https://www.ramtex.dk/display-controller-driver/rgb/hx8352.htm

ILI9163

LCD, 162x132@16-bit RGB

http://www.hpinfotech.ro/ILI9163.pdf

ILI9341

https://cdn-shop.adafruit.com/datasheets/ILI9341.pdf

ILI9486

LCD, 480x320@16-bit RGB

https://www.hpinfotech.ro/ILI9486.pdf

ILI9488

LCD

https://www.hpinfotech.ro/ILI9488.pdf

PCF8833

LCD, 132×132 16-bit RGB

https://www.olimex.com/Products/Modules/LCD/MOD-LCD6610/resources/PCF8833.pdf

SEPS225

LCD

https://vfdclock.jimdofree.com/app/download/7279155568/SEPS225.pdf

RM68140

LCD

https://www.melt.com.ru/docs/RM68140_datasheet_V0.3_20120605.pdf

GC9A01

LCD, 65K colors, SPI

Seem to often be used on round displays(verify)

https://www.buydisplay.com/download/ic/GC9A01A.pdf

Epaper

SSD1619

https://cursedhardware.github.io/epd-driver-ic/SSD1619A.pdf