Add some jazz & pizazz to your project with a color capactive touchscreen LCD.
This TFT display is big (2.8" diagonal) bright (4 white-LED backlight) and colorful! 240x320 pixels with individual RGB pixel control, this has way more resolution than a black and white 128x64 display. As a bonus, this display has a capacitive single-touch touchscreen attached to it already, so you can detect finger presses anywhere on the screen. (We also have a resistive touchscreen version of this display breakout)
This display has a controller built into it with RAM buffering, so that almost no work is done by the microcontroller. The display can be used in two modes: 8-bit and SPI. For 8-bit mode, you'll need 8 digital data lines and 4 or 5 digital control lines to read and write to the display (12 lines total). SPI mode requires only 5 pins total (SPI data in, data out, clock, select, and d/c) but is slower than 8-bit mode. In addition, 2 I2C pins are required for the touch screen controller.
Adafruit wrapped up this display into an easy-to-use breakout board, with SPI connections on one end and 8-bit on the other. Both are 3-5V compliant with high-speed level shifters so you can use any microcontroller. If you're going with SPI mode, you can also take advantage of the onboard MicroSD card socket to display images. (The microSD card not included, but any will work)
Of course, Adafruit wouldn't just leave you with a datasheet and a "good luck!". For 8-bit interface fans, they've written a full open-source graphics library that can draw pixels, lines, rectangles, circles, text, and more. For SPI users, they have a library as well, it's separate from the 8-bit library since both versions are heavily optimized. They also have an interfacing library for the capacitive touchscreen
Follow our step-by-step guide for wiring, code, and drawing. You'll be running in 15 minutes.
New! As of December 2022, this display breakout also features an 18-pin "EYESPI" standard FPC connector with flip-top connector. You can use an 18-pin 0.5mm pitch FPC cable to connect to the display and touchscreen over SPI and I2C respectively. Great for when you want to skip soldering all those headers. You will still need to solder closed the SPI-mode jumper on the back.
If you are using an Arduino-shaped microcontroller, check out this TFT shield version of this same display
Technical Details
Specifications:
- Board: 81.3mm x 62.5mm / 3.2" x 2.46"
- Screen: 69.6mm x 45.2mm / 2.74" x 1.78"
- Mounting Holes: 76.2mm x 57.2mm / 3" x 2.25"
- Weight: 44g
Revision History:
- As of December 2, 2022 - Adafruit have updated this TFT breakout with an EYESPI connector to make cabling easier with an 18-pin FPC. They also used Adafruit Pinguin to make a lovely silkscreen. The board is otherwise the same size, pinout, and functionality.
- As of Sept 22, 2020 - Adafruit now use the FT6206-compatible CST026 capacitive touch controller chip. It is drop-in code-compatible.
Datasheets, Fritzing objects, EagleCAD files available in the tutorial
Learn
- Adafruit 2.8" and 3.2" Color TFT Touchscreen Breakout v2 - Color! Lights! Touch! 8-Bit! SPI! MicroSD Card! Pickles!