Elecrow CrowPanel Experiences?

[rcbuck]

Anyone use one of these touch-screens? https://www.elecrow.com/esp32-display-7-inch-hmi-display-rgb-tft-lcd-touch-screen-support-lvgl.html#

Are there any advantages of the Elecrow screens over the other ESP32 screens I see on Ali and other sites? The Elecrow one does have audio built in whereas it appears the others do not.

From what I can determine, it appears the ESP32 is mainly being used for its memory capabilities since the screens do not have any onboard memory. Of course the ESP32 also handles transferring the data to and from the screen.

[zapta]

I have experience with Nextion HMI displays but not with these ones. They give you an app to design the screens and you can interact with them using a fairly low bit rate such as an async serial link. They tend to be more expensive than regular LCD panels but allows to move fast with prototypes, if your app can live within their restrictions.

https://nextion.tech/

Hope it helps.

[rcbuck]

i have the Nextion screens designed into a couple of projects. They are more expensive but they make development easy.

I was looking at the ESP32 ones and wondering if their functionality could come close to matching the Nextion displays. I guess that would depend on how well LVGL integrates with the displays. I don't have any LVGL experience so I don't know its capabilities. It probably can't match the Nextion development environment.

I guess I will order one of the ESP32 screens for testing purposes. The Elecrow one may be the best one to start with. I was hoping someone here had worked with the screens and could provide feedback.

[darkspr1te]

I Have both the 35 RGB and SPI and the 7" SPI and they are ok but limited in IO.
LVGL is fully supported for all models and there is a chioce of square studio or eez studio to design pages. You can also patch 4D studios exported code to work with these devices but their hardware while very similar does comes with IO expanders and support code to make it seamless.


in terms of how IO is used up the spi is on the sd card port and lcd on spi models , on rgb models most pins used for display, great refresh for items but only as a remote display. i2c is shared with touch and the two io ports only have one pin each (the other 3 pins are gnd/nc/5v+) , uart is shared with on board ch340 but they were too lazy to connect dtr/cts for esp reset/boot mode and even with my skinny fingers i struggle to hold the two buttons then it's in the case.

external IO jacks are the same between RGB and spi models, thats 1xI2c port,1uart port,1xdigital pin ,1xanalog pin
so forget using spi without a TF card to ribbon break-out cable or combining two other ports for a spaghettis cable setup.

My brother and i originally purchased the 3.5" displays for use in a race car dash we are building but found them to be not suited for this and moved to 7" for that purpose and using a TF card to ribbon cable and then a SPI io expander.
The 3.5" models then found a very good home acting as remote HMI units for Home Assistant (very well suited for with a battery and power, when you have a failure they act as great debug units)

So my conclusion is they make great remote displays with minimal local input but any serious projects may require hardware & IO expanders of many types. Often the crow-tail connector used are not provided so ensure you order some 4-pin and 2-pin types (IO & Lipo connectors), documentation is also a issue but once you find the correct repo and support code it's plain sailing from there.
Provided casings a usually just minimal protection for during development and final install usually require additional housings.

Hope this helps

darkspr1te

[rcbuck]

darksprite, Thanks for the comments. That is the kind of information I was looking for.

One of my projects currently uses the 7" Nextion display. I am using a custom designed board with an ESP32-WROVER-E-N16R8 as the controller. There are multiple I/O connections and a couple of analog connections. I was thinking that the Elecrow display could replace the Nextion as it is lower cost. I would not use any of the I/O on the Elecrow display. It would only be used as a touch screen display. All software resides on my board.

The only thing missing on the Elecrow is an audio port. That may not be a problem as I currently only use the audio to emit beeps as buttons are touched on the screen. The Elecrow one does have a buzzer that would probably suffice. I would not need the Elecrow casing as I am using a custom case for my current design.

The advantage of the Elecrow unit vs a raw TFT screen is I can load all the graphics to the onboard ESP32. I have my own custom graphics. I do not use the Nextion app to create my buttons and images. I also have been unable to find a raw 7 inch screen that doesn't cost more than the Elecrow ESP32 screen.

[tooki]

FYI, the “crow-tail” connector is just the “HY2.0” connector family most commonly sold as “Grove” connectors.

[sylvanoMTL]

Hi,
I know it is  old topic, but I am interested in knowing the following:
* Did you use an adaptor SD card to SPI bus?
* Does it exist and where did you find one?
* Did you have any luck with it ?
* Did you use the GPIO_D port to have other CS available?

I have a crowpanel, but the sensor platform I have is using SPI communication (I2C possible but no library available).

[darkspr1te]

Quote from: sylvanoMTL on Yesterday at 07:35:55 pm

Hi,
I know it is  old topic, but I am interested in knowing the following:
* Did you use an adaptor SD card to SPI bus?
* Does it exist and where did you find one?
* Did you have any luck with it ?
* Did you use the GPIO_D port to have other CS available?

I have a crowpanel, but the sensor platform I have is using SPI communication (I2C possible but no library available).

I did use a adapter to make use of the SD cards spi' bus , it was a sdcard re-loacator i removed the other end off and tapped into the tracks there. found them on amazon for 5 bucks.

you can use almost any pin for CS you just have to patch your spi lib to use that pin, in my case i patched the pin out of the code and manually pulled it low when i wanted to talk on spi bus,



hope that helps

darkspr1te

[sylvanoMTL]

Are you talking about something like this? https://www.amazon.co.uk/Extension-LANMU-Convertor-Extender-Raspberry/dp/B07H2RQFNN
Did you chop one end and use a direct pinout? https://forum.arduino.cc/t/micro-sd-card-module-schematics/1341510

I have a sensor platform that was using 3 SPI chip selects (sysrox 10 DOF), and I still wanted to use the SD card,
So I was thinking about this:

* Get one of these SD card ribbon extender,
* Hook up an other SD Card module
* Locate MOSI/MISO/CLK and create a separate line
* Plug the MISO/MOSI/CLK in the Sensor interface I have
* Get software CS from the GPIO_D port to enable each sensor.

Big alternative and simpler would be to use the i2c for the 10 DOF but all libraries must be adapted, or I need to find new libraries. Also, SPI is known to be faster and more reliable, I don't know if this matter for my application (geolocalisation)

[darkspr1te]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08DNQ5HR5?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title
I just removed the end cb and saved it for later use,

as for using otherr pins for spi , 3 spi slave items wont be taxing for the system, ive used it that way in many projects with no ill effects.


darkspr1te

[abeyer]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08DNQ5HR5?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title
I just removed the end cb and saved it for later use,

as for using otherr pins for spi , 3 spi slave items wont be taxing for the system, ive used it that way in many projects with no ill effects.


darkspr1te

Someone's been at the "Drink Me" bottle again

[darkspr1te]

dang it, always happens when i include a url
to quote my tiny reply
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08DNQ5HR5?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title
I just removed the end cb and saved it for later use,

as for using other pins for spi , 3 spi slave items wont be taxing for the system, ive used it that way in many projects with no ill effects.


darkspr1te

[tooki]

dang it, always happens when i include a url

Are you using the visual editor? That’s the only way I could envision that happening by accident. Try the non-visual editor instead. (To switch, click the button in the toolbar.

Note also that you can just go back and edit a post after the fact, as an alternative to reposting it in a new reply.

[darkspr1te]

Normally i remember to turn off the edit option before i include a URL.
yeah i could go back and edit it, I would if it really important to keep the tread flow going right but in this case i'll just own my mistake :-P
let people have a chuckle at my expense & stupidity