Easiest or most common way to add a TFT LCD to an STM32 based product?

CDyer.1 · ‎2020-12-04

Hi,

I have a handful of general observations that relate to adding a TFT LCD to an SMT32 but I'd like a push in the right direction for adding a TFT LCD to a product. It seems that there isn't a particularly common "off the shelf" TFT LCD that can be bought from a typical seller such as RS or Farnell (in the UK). The most commonly supported displays i have seen tend to be from the Arduino community such as TFTs with embedded ili9486, ili9341, ssd1936 but these do not seem suitable for a professional product due to being manufactured by mystery Chinese companies and only available on Alibaba or Ebay.

I am using an STM32F767 nucleo board to act as a DSP, reading in values from the ADC and then processing the data. I have been told last minute that the spec has changed and that a TFT LCD now has to be included to display the data in some manner (progress bar, graph, chart etc.) What I would like is to add a colour TFT LCD 3-6 inches in diameter with a resolution between 320x240 to 800x480. Colour depth is not important. Frame rate is not important (within reason of course). What is the absolute simplest way to add something like this to my project? Are there drivers out there for a particular display provided by ST or a manufacturer that can help accelerate development? I would prefer not to have to write my own display drivers due to time limitations. Would it be simple to use touchgfx as the graphics library for the bars and charts that I want to display from the data, and then generate that code to work with manufacturers display drivers? Are there any tutorials provided by ST or by a manufacturer that helps with custom boards that have TFT displays? I have found that the Discovery boards seem to only be any good for that specific board (stm32f769 disco. Great board, great display but ultimately useless as you can't buy that TFT individually and MIPI DSI is not very supported outside of smartphones!)

TLDR; what is the simplest way to add a custom TFT LCD to a nucleo board that could be used for a professional product. Are there any heavily supported displays out there with plenty of available tutorials, supplied drivers etc.

Thanks guys, any help to push me in the right direction is most appreciated as I feel a little out of my depth on this one.

KnarfB · ‎2020-12-04

IMHO every distributor can recommend some industrial displays according to your needs. I often find https://www.lcd-module.com/ useful, but YMMV.

CDyer.1 · ‎2020-12-04

Hi, thanks for the link I'll be sure to check it out.

MM..1 · ‎2020-12-16

You can use every displays with compatible interface, but when you plan professional product, maybe you need custom board and not nucleo.

In both you have two hard work, first connect connector , that display uses, second write some code and calculate numbers for setup display refresh.

CDyer.1 · ‎2020-12-16

Hi, I know that I can use any display I want but my question was asking if there was common displays that are used that would have lots of community support. I'm looking at a ili9488 driven IPS display at the moment as that seems to be a fairly common/well documented driver IC where I dont have to write the drivers from scratch. I've not designed for a display before so I'm out of my comfort zone. I'm starting with nucleo for convenience but eventually I will have to design a custom board. I'm current looking for 40pin FPC breakout boards so I can hook the display to the nucleo.