Arduino Tutorial: Using the 3.2' Color TFT display for Arduino from Banggood.com

Having a big Color TFT display for your Arduino Projects can make things much more impressive. Today I am going to show how to use the low cost 3.2" inch Color TFT display with Arduino Mega and Arduino Due.

The display has a resolution of 480x320 pixels and has an SD card adapter on the back. I haven't used SD card functionality so far. I will try to use it in the future. If you look carefully you can see that the display also uses a 3.3V regulator so it works fine with 5V and 3.3V logic levels.

As you can see the connection with an Arduino Mega board is extremely easy. All you have to do, is to plug the display in, and load the sketch. I have also loaded the demo sketch on the Arduino Due and as you can see it works fine on an Arduino Due as well. Arduino Due, is much faster than the Arduino Mega. The demo sketch needs around 44 seconds to run on the Arduino Mega, and only 22 seconds on the Arduino Due. That's a huge performance difference. Now let's go to the computer in order to see what drivers we need in order to use the display with Arduino.

The display uses the HX8357C controller. Unfortunately the UTFT library does not support it anymore.

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[prashantmadan]

May you make a video for interfacing mobile display with arduino uno? Please!!

[ozgemmo]

Hi Nick, looking forward to seeing you using this (or similar) display with your weather station code. I have several 3.2" TFT (but only 320X280) displays using Arduino Mega 2560 and associated display shield purchased from a different supplier which stated it only used the SSD1289 driver and runs Henning Carlson's same test code on latest Arduino IDE. I found quite by accident that I could also run my displays on a completely different driver as well, so you might want to experimenr a little here to get the full advantage of using latest IDE? Please let me know if you have any success in this regard.
Cheers & keep up the really great work.

[RinkyDinkElectronics]

I would like to point out a couple of mistakes here...The HX8357C controller has never been supported by any official version of UTFT and the library supplied by BangGood was/is in violation of the NC-clause of the library, hence illegal/pirated software.The official version of the library comes with a full list of tested and supported display modules and shields, and links to the authorized vendors of these displays. BangGood is NOT an authorized vendor.The official library also comes with a lot more examples to get you started.The runtime of the demo sketch includes quite a few delay()s which will be the same on all platforms so the actual rendering times will differ a lot more than 44 vs 22 seconds.And finally, my name is Henning Karlsen (with a K), not Henning Carlsen...

[sichevialexander]

There is a library adapted for this screen. Same demo patterns run for 28.2 seconds on Arduino Mega. UTFT is not an optimal choise. If interested, search Bodmer's library called TFT_HX8357 on GitHub.

[olisbackingtracks]

If I use a Mega with 16 analog inputs. How many of those inputs does the display need? Can I use the rest for other purposes?

[djDblessed]

Can you use the touch feature of the display without the tft arduino shield? Or do you really need this, because all other tutorials i saw use the shield..

[vexfollow]

Hi very great video! What is needed to power these displays? Can they be made so they're their own functioning portable screen??? Please get back to me id love to speak about this further if possible.
- Tyson

[manuelnieto]

hi, tengo la misma pantalla y toda la informacion me aparece en espejo, como puedo solucionarlo ?

[jensgoerke]

I'm working on a serial terminal based on an Arduino with a 7" TFT (800x480), which should be able to emulate VT100 and TVI925, for use as a serial console.

[gileverest]

Reg JamesIn your excellent tutorial on the 3.2 inch TFT display you noted that it had a SD socket and you said you would do a tutorial on using this device. I have purchased the display and would like to use the SD card. Have I missed your tutorial on this subject?

[thevivekmathema]

Hello, I am your regular subscriber. My same display comes with HX8357B chip. will it work in Due

[jayantpanhalkar]

I know about UTFT library under arduino, but before purchasing any TFT from random website how I can be sure that this TFT is going to work with UTFT library, could you please help me with that.
I am looking for 4.3 inch, 5 inch and 7 inch TFTs with resistive or capacitive touch.

[duytranpham]

Hello, I clicked on the link to download the library but I didn't see any place to download. Can you show me? Thank you!

[torpe]

i was interested on having the tft screen you used in this tutorial. i just wonder if you can share the a tutorial on how to make the basic lines, shapes and text on this screen. thanks

[talhamumtaz]

What you can do if your screen is displaying the graphs in a big version and all the letters that are shown on the screen opposite when your running this function on your arduino LCD.

[santiagomedina]

EXCELENT VIDEO, ...
YOU EXPLAIN VERY GOOD FRIEND

[rinkeshmakawana]

why i still get white screen after done uploading? I haven't attach SD card

[walterhynson]

GitHub - Bodmer/TFT_HX8357: Arduino library for HX8357 TFT display this is what works for that screen..now lets make a arduboy with this.

[wi_zeus]

Can I Interface this LCD over Spi or do I need to use the 16bit bus?

[cesarasinomas]

Hello friend already have you worked with the sd of this lcd?