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KRZ3
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Joined: 31/12/2014
Location: United States
Posts: 38

Posted: 03:14am 22 Apr 2016

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I was wondering if anyone has just bought the screen with the ILI9341 driver chip on it and soldered it up to the MM. I have a large project which involves are large order of these screens and sourcing is hard when using one mounted on a carrier board. Sourcing the screen is much easier and we want to just make the carrier board ourselves. Will this work? I'm assuming if we bring out the correct Mode pins for 4 SPI mode and connect the SCK, SDO, SDI, RESET, CS, DC, GND, VCC, and LED this will work? There are no other controller chips necessary I'm assuming as the MM provides the Driver and fonts? A link to the screen and datasheet is available. Thanks for any help.

http://www.displaytech-us.com/2-2-inch-tft

Grogster

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Posted: 03:36am 22 Apr 2016

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Hi-de-hi.

Provided you have the pinout for the FPC(flexible printed-circuit cable) coming from the display, and it does indeed use the ILI9341, then yes - you just need to connect the same lines as the carrier board does for you.

Naturally, you will need a FPC socket to suit the screen, but so long as you have that and the FPC pinout, then you would just wire it up the same way as the 9341's on the carrier board.

You can always use one of the carrier-type boards as a template - use that to trace-out the connections you need.

Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops!

KRZ3
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Joined: 31/12/2014
Location: United States
Posts: 38

Posted: 03:47am 22 Apr 2016

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Thanks Grogster, I did wire up the FPC connector on a breakout board and got nothing,but when just testing the LED on the FPC coming off the screen it came on. So, I know my FPC connector board wasn't right. I then attempted to solder direct to the FPC off the screen and the LED works,but no text output. Soldering could be a factor though. I ordered new breakout boards and FPC connectors to retry. I just wanted to make sure that this should work before I go down the solder path again. I know on the current board I use it just brings out 14 pins from the FPC on the screen. Hard to trace back but I will have a look.

Grogster

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Posted: 04:35am 22 Apr 2016

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If I were you(and i'm not!), I would be using an LCD on a carrier board, as a sacrificial unit, for the purposes of reverse-engineering.

You can destroy that one if you have to, in order to trace how it is wired up.

Soldering to the FPC is dangerous - I would probably not try that. Some of them are not very heat-tolerant, and you can easily melt them when you use a soldering iron on them, effectively destroying the FPC. You should definitely use the correct matching FPC connector. Even just for prototyping.

When I built the custom keyboard thing, I built a prototype breakout PCB that just brought out all the connections on the FPC so I could probe the matrix - hell, that sounds kinky......

.....so I could trace the matrix configuration.

This PCB was an etch-at-home prototype, and once used to work out the matrix, that board was biffed in the bin. It did use a matching FPC connector though, even for that.

I'll have a look at your link, and the PDF you say can be had from there, but I expect it is certainly do-able, and should work fine. The carrier boards with the LCD on them, are passive as far as the LCD is concerned - they just breakout the relevant connections from the LCD.

EDIT: I see by re-reading your post above, that you did use a breakout PCB. Looking at the PDF for the module, the pin-spacing on the FPC connector is only 0.35mm, which is very, very tight. I would be surprised if you could solder wires to that pin-pitch. Even with the correct FPC connector, it would be very easy to have solder bridges with 0.35mm pin-pitch. Do you have a microscope to check that your breakout board is 'Clean'? The FPC connector in question may well bring this 0.35mm native PFC pin-pitch out to a more easily solderable pin-pitch like 0.5mm or 0.6mm or something I guess....Edited by Grogster 2016-04-23

Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops!

KRZ3
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Joined: 31/12/2014
Location: United States
Posts: 38

Posted: 05:29am 22 Apr 2016

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Yep, I used the recommended Molex 0512964594. It looks clean under the scope, but I know it's not because the Led wouldn't work with the connector. I will have to double check everything and make sure that connector is actually the right one.

Zonker

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Joined: 18/08/2012
Location: United States
Posts: 767

Posted: 09:11am 23 Apr 2016

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I need to keep an eye on this one... I too want to create a small touch graphics MM motor PCB... Which chip were you going with..? Not sure about correct FPC either...Edited by Zonker 2016-04-24

KRZ3
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Posted: 10:47am 23 Apr 2016

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I won the battle! It works great now! I am running it off 170 44pin MM. A new connector fixed the problem.

Zonker

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Posted: 04:33pm 23 Apr 2016

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My last PCB was 44 pinner...

Edited by Zonker 2016-04-25

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