Adafruit TFT 1.8'' v2 shield support for Nucleo STM32L476

[bkneer]

I've got a Nucleo STM32L476 board and noticed in the STMCubeF4 Repo the demonstration for the Adafruit TFT 1.8'' with Joystick and SD Card reader.

I've found this quite interesting and ordered the Adafruit shield. Unfortunately I've got the Adafruit shield v2 that is using the so called Seesaw chip as and interface for the shield.

The demo example from the repo doesn't work with this v2 shield and it's hard to find any example that could be used to modify the demo to get the v2 shield running.

Did anybody has the same experience and could help here? Will ST work on a new version of the demo to support v2 as well?

Thanks

Bernhard

[MOBEJ]

Hello @bkneer,

It appears you might not have utilized the Adafruit_LCD_1_8_SD_Joystick Demo specifically designed for the NUCLEO-L476RG. I would highly recommend checking out this demo as it could provide the solution you're looking for.

You can find the project here: STM32CubeL4/Projects/NUCLEO-L476RG/Demonstrations on GitHub.

Important Note: For a comprehensive understanding of how the demo operates, please consult the README file available at: Adafruit_LCD_1_8_SD_Joystick README.

Best regards 

MB

[bkneer]

Hello,

of course I did try this demo. Unfortunately this one is only supporting the older HW version of the Adafruit lcd device but not the version 2 where they use their SeeSaw chipset. 
the demo sw doesn‘t work with version 2 shield which is the version you currently get if you order one. 
btw… the shield works on a Arduino board with Arduino example sw. 
thanks 

Bernhard

[MOBEJ]

Hello @bkneer ,

Thank you for your interest in using the Adafruit TFT 1.8'' shield with the Nucleo STM32L476 board.

Unfortunately, I would like to inform you that we do not support the Adafruit TFT 1.8'' v2 shield for our product. The demo example you mentioned is specifically designed for the original version ( Adafruit TFT 1.8'' v1)  of the shield .

However, you can use the old drivers for the Adafruit TFT 1.8'' shield v1 and modify it to be compatible with the v2 shield. This may involve adapting the code to communicate with the Seesaw chip interface. it could be a viable solution to get the v2 shield running with your setup.If you have any further questions or need assistance with other aspects of your project, please feel free to reach out. 

Br 

[Snowcone_engineer]

I found similar problems working with the Adafruit 1.8" V2 TFT expansion board.

First the display backlight defaults to off. Brightness is controlled by a I2C "Seesaw" chip. But most references to this device address are incorrect. The correct I2C address is 0x2E. Although one can force full brightness of the display by shorting R1 to GND.

The joystick is also controlled or read via the seesaw device, so if you want to use the joystick you'll need to communicate with it via the I2C bus.

Another problem with the Adafruit 1.8" V2 TFT board is that it is missing SPI signals (SCK, MISO, MOSI) to control the MicroST memory.

Install wire from: J_SD-4 (Adafruit display) and CN5-4 (MOSI) Arduino connector
Install wire from: J_SD-3 (Adafruit display) and CN5-6 (SCK) Arduino connector
Install wire from: J_SD-1 (Adafruit display) and CN5-5 (MISO) Arduino connector
Note: LED2 is currently driven by PA5/D13 (CN5-6) configured as GPIO. PA5/D13 (CN5-6) must be reconfigured as SPI1-SCK.
I was finally able to resolve all the issues with this board and got everything working. Although I also had to modify the code to get the proper display orientation for text, graphics, and picture. Also, the text and graphics color had to be modified.

[Alex308]

Is it worth trying?

[Snowcone_engineer]

That is a good question. I spent several weeks investigating the various issues, downloading example code, and adding the wires to the board. I even got the three A, B, C pushbuttons to work with the seesaw device.

The Adafruit 1.8" V2 TFT board has a lot of cool features to play with including the MicroSD to store and display the supplied pictures. Pictures must be in a special BMP format (128 x 160, 16 bit color (R5 G6 B5 color settings), or they won't be displayed correctly. One very annoying thing I noted was that the MicroSD would get corrupted and had to be reformatted and pictures rewritten when the ST eval board was reprogrammed or flashed.

The graphics functions can also draw different geometric shapes.
But without ST support, you will be on your own. That's okay if you don't mind real challenges.

Everything on the board worked for a few days then the Adafruit 1.8" V2 TFT died.

It appears that ST now offers a similar TFT display expansion board (X-NUCLEO-GFX01M1/M2) designed to work with the NUCLEO-L476RG. I bought the M2. The M1 version of the expansion board may be more compatible with this eval board and project though. The example project I found only included picture displaying code. I'm currently trying to add text and graphic functions. By the way, the included pictures are a special SVG format. I found it very difficult to use my own pictures, still working on that also.