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Oh my god, that thing is a heavy rubbish! High performance TFT panel, with a UART interface. So fucking hilarious.
If you cannot afford a decent MCU capable of TFT interfacing, simply don't use TFTs! I've said that already and not once.
The design is also hilarious. Altera CPLD with a small STM32. They even can't use a proper MCU with RGB interface, like STM32F429 with a shitload of graphical features (two layers, HW alphablending, DMA2D for bitmap processing like color format conversion, blending, cropping, scrolling,...). But I get it, why they haven't used that - you couldn't even barely use that, with a UART interface to the LCD!
PS: I just haven't laughed really, it is very sad and any embeded designer with a common sense should cry, after seeing this. The arduino illness has gone too far today... -
At the price point they will be quite satisfactory for basic Human Machine Interface and they are a shitload cheaper than the 4D Systems ones.
Who said anything about arduino... ? -
Oh my god, that thing is a heavy rubbish! High performance TFT panel, with a UART interface. So fucking hilarious.
If you cannot afford a decent MCU capable of TFT interfacing, simply don't use TFTs! I've said that already and not once.
The design is also hilarious. Altera CPLD with a small STM32. They even can't use a proper MCU with RGB interface, like STM32F429 with a shitload of graphical features (two layers, HW alphablending, DMA2D for bitmap processing like color format conversion, blending, cropping, scrolling,...). But I get it, why they haven't used that - you couldn't even barely use that, with a UART interface to the LCD!
PS: I just haven't laughed really, it is very sad and any embeded designer with a common sense should cry, after seeing this. The arduino illness has gone too far today...
It's intended to be a pretty HID with buttons and the like, not to play videos...calm down, a UART is fine for this device's intended usage. You're not telling the device what to draw over UART. The UART just tells it which page to display. All of the information for how to draw that page is created ahead of time and stored on-board. -
Quite satisfactory for its purpose. I still had no luck generating font tables, if anyone could upload a .zi font file if they manage to make one that would be great!
Had a play around using the built in command set, seems like the menu's don't need to be fixed, you can move around buttons at runtime via the command interface. Seems perfect for my Battery Management System on the farm, the idea is a simple interface for the mrs to remote start+stop the gen and auto start if battery < 80% etc... Also auto load shedding etc...
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I understand quite well, how it works, don't afraid. But I have enough sense to not use this thing ever in any design, the whole concept is just a ball packing laziness and unwillingness of people, who (for some reasons) don't want to do thing the simple way, the right and most efficient way.
How hard do you think it is to set-up an adult TFT controler? About 15 lines of code, where all parameters are only values copied from a panel's datasheet?
Do you think, that libraries and graphical packages like EmWin or TouchGFX ... designed specificaly for MCU's and microsystems with TFTs do not have any wysiwyg editors to design the apis? Ur probably wrong here too.
Do you think it is absolutely needed to connect ... control... large TFT panels from that stupid, old, crusty atmega328P? I don't think so. The overall complexity is nowhere near efficient.
How much work do you think is to display a static image* on a TFT, using adult MCU with an RGB interface? You wouldn't probably think how easy it is.
*you can do just barely more than that with the proposed modules.
No argument ever is going to convince me, that these "UART controlled TFTs" are anywhere near useful.
Well.. sometimes you can't afford an adult MCU with RGB interface into your product. Then there are already a shitloads of TFT's with integrated controllers, which can do more or less basic or advanced graphical features.
What the hell on earth do you force to "invent" such stupid "UART TFT" thing? So is there a tonload of standalone TFT controllers like SSD1963 and modules ARE already beeing made with these, so you don't need to design custom PCBs?
What on earth does force you to use damn UART for that thing? What's the problem of connecting 8bit 6800 or 8080 like interfaces? Is it the problem with arduino having too small pin count? Then that is the right time to leave arduino for kids and learn something useful.
Instead of approaching things directly and the effective way, you waste time learning things with more or less limited capabilities. If you'd spend the same amount of time approaching things directly, you probably woudln't need things like that UART TFTs. It is only about the willingness to learn something. Most people seems afraid or scared of electronics... or something. I really don't know nor understand. If you are afraid of learning things in electronics, why do you have it as a hobby?
Sorry for my lengthy comment which I guess will have no impact on local arduinators other that trying to convince me that something (or maybe convince themselves that their arduinos are the only right tool for everything)... but I'll tell you something: These things drive me nuts, because I see so many people wasting so much time with rubbish... And trust me, I am very kind person who likes to help. But only with things having a sense!
If you like to know something about RGB interfaces, common TFT panel interfaces, conversion between the interfaces, using MCUs with RGB interfaces,... please ask. I am not an expert in this area, but I have actully learned how to use these things. Not how to use someone else's bloatwares or rubbishwares, targeted only for milking money from naive people. (Yes, that's how I see all these arduinos).
Sorry for disturbing your evening, but I'd like to see more talented and sensible design engineers* in the EE field. It is actually quite horrible situation here on local EE universities. The local uni is even planing to open practical electronis courses this year. (finaly someone woke up, hopefully not too late).
*a person slapping together things without understanding them can't be called neither sensible nor talented or even engineer. -
I understand quite well, how it works, don't afraid. But I have enough sense to not use this thing ever in any design, the whole concept is just a ball packing laziness and unwillingness of people, who (for some reasons) don't want to do thing the simple way, the right and most efficient way.
How hard do you think it is to set-up an adult TFT controler? About 15 lines of code, where all parameters are only values copied from a panel's datasheet?
Do you think, that libraries and graphical packages like EmWin or TouchGFX ... designed specificaly for MCU's and microsystems with TFTs do not have any wysiwyg editors to design the apis? Ur probably wrong here too.
Do you think it is absolutely needed to connect ... control... large TFT panels from that stupid, old, crusty atmega328P? I don't think so. The overall complexity is nowhere near efficient.
How much work do you think is to display a static image* on a TFT, using adult MCU with an RGB interface? You wouldn't probably think how easy it is.
*you can do just barely more than that with the proposed modules.
No argument ever is going to convince me, that these "UART controlled TFTs" are anywhere near useful.
Well.. sometimes you can't afford an adult MCU with RGB interface into your product. Then there are already a shitloads of TFT's with integrated controllers, which can do more or less basic or advanced graphical features.
What the hell on earth do you force to "invent" such stupid "UART TFT" thing? So is there a tonload of standalone TFT controllers like SSD1963 and modules ARE already beeing made with these, so you don't need to design custom PCBs?
What on earth does force you to use damn UART for that thing? What's the problem of connecting 8bit 6800 or 8080 like interfaces? Is it the problem with arduino having too small pin count? Then that is the right time to leave arduino for kids and learn something useful.
Instead of approaching things directly and the effective way, you waste time learning things with more or less limited capabilities. If you'd spend the same amount of time approaching things directly, you probably woudln't need things like that UART TFTs. It is only about the willingness to learn something. Most people seems afraid or scared of electronics... or something. I really don't know nor understand. If you are afraid of learning things in electronics, why do you have it as a hobby?
Sorry for my lengthy comment which I guess will have no impact on local arduinators other that trying to convince me that something (or maybe convince themselves that their arduinos are the only right tool for everything)... but I'll tell you something: These things drive me nuts, because I see so many people wasting so much time with rubbish... And trust me, I am very kind person who likes to help. But only with things having a sense!
If you like to know something about RGB interfaces, common TFT panel interfaces, conversion between the interfaces, using MCUs with RGB interfaces,... please ask. I am not an expert in this area, but I have actully learned how to use these things. Not how to use someone else's bloatwares or rubbishwares, targeted only for milking money from naive people. (Yes, that's how I see all these arduinos).
Sorry for disturbing your evening, but I'd like to see more talented and sensible design engineers* in the EE field. It is actually quite horrible situation here on local EE universities. The local uni is even planing to open practical electronis courses this year. (finaly someone woke up, hopefully not too late).
*a person slapping together things without understanding them can't be called neither sensible nor talented or even engineer.
Are you trolling?
Have a think about the market this thing is designed for, consider the price, consider the time saved in development, consider the ease of use, consider the two wire interface.
Driving an (adult?) TFT (Which I have done in other projects via an ARM) consumes a great deal of IO and processing. A screen update on an 8bit bus is too slow at these resolutions. 16 or 24bit is necessary. Add the control lines and right away you've lost a fair chunk of your IO.
15 lines of code? You are using libraries no doubt (in which case what makes your logic any better than the arduino crowd?) Anyone can import a library...
My TFT & SD code is all hand written ASM running on a 32bit ARM and I can assure you setup of a TFT takes a bit more than 15 lines of code. Closer to 40 to 50 registers need to be set before you can even write a pixel.
Displaying a static image on a TFT is not complicated. Nor is using the resistive touch pannel. But neither is using the Nextion to do it for you.
I didn't want to have to source a TFT pannel, digest the datasheet, spend hours coding an ARM to interface to the TFT, Generate and resize all the static images I wish to display, code a GUI engine, code an instruction decoder/parser, waste time drawing up the schematic, board layout, send away to a fab house, wait for it to be produced, shipped, hand solder all that SMD, test and debug, perhaps even require a second go at the schematic/board layout due to something I missed.
I wanted a nice bright colourful LCD for a specific task, I don't need 100,000 units, just 1. For such a simple task why do you think I would need to re-invent the wheel?
If you have 2 months to waste (to develop what is effectively blinking an LED) using an STM32-F4 with integrated LCD controller then go ahead. You're opinion is your own, Iteadstudio have developed this for the Arduino generation, not an engineering solution for a mass produced product. -
What BennVenn said...