SPI ILI9341 LCD Display

erco

Senior Member
I just inherited several of these SPI ILI9341 displays from an Arduino pal. Has anyone used with Picaxe yet? I don't have time to play or reinvent the wheel right now.

 

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lbenson

Senior Member
Easy on a micromite, easy on an esp32 with annex. To me, not worth the effort on a picaxe. Free is free, but if I wanted the functionality, I'd probably use a nextion.
 

inglewoodpete

Senior Member
The ILI9341 is a great little colour display with touch input capability. Unfortunately, with so many pixels and the PICAXE's limited RAM, it's not really suitable for a PICAXE to drive. The slower processing capability of the PICAXE's tokenised code means that updating the screen will be very slow, even when you'd developed optimised code.

I use a couple of the larger ILI9488s but they are driven by PIC32s. Great resolution, colour and touch capability but updating the whole screen, while quick, is not lightning fast.
 
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Solar Mike

New Member
Perhaps a solution to using one of those displays with a Picaxe, would be to build it on the Arduino platform and use a spare input as a serial connection which the picaxe could write too in a similar manner to the serial LCD. With Arduino's costing only a few $ on AliExpress, this would make an inexpensive option.
Unfortunately the Picaxe is rapidly becoming a dinosaur and superseded by newer 32bit chip modules like the 'Micro Mites' also running basic.
 

Circuit

Senior Member
Unfortunately the Picaxe is rapidly becoming a dinosaur and superseded by newer 32bit chip modules like the 'Micro Mites' also running basic.
Whoa! Not at all! It is all a question of horses for courses. I have just been on the MicroMite forum recommending a member to look at PICAXE for an application which requires very low power and relatively simple operation of micro stepper motors.

I keep a full range of PICAXE chips, MicroMites and Armmites, choosing whichever is appropriate for any particular application. My last project saw the use of six PICAXE 14 PICS working from commands sent from a MicroMite. PICAXE is no dinosaur and is not superseded by MicroMites; they compliment each other and allow the user to select from a wider range of MicroChip PICs programmable in BASIC than would otherwise be possible.
 

stan74

Senior Member
Bit old but they're just spi and don't use ram. One of my favourites...but setting up is lot's of code.
It's things like sprites.lines and circles would be slow but I found a m20 picaxe I might bread board as I wiped my 28x2
another option to a nextion using trig.
this is using 5 touch pins.3 are shared
to show testing screen pixel colour,test 4 pixels around sprite
is ili9341 working with picaxe as it's cheap and low on resources?
 

stan74

Senior Member
I've used the ili9341 with software spi... what picaxe calls bit banging and it works but is much slower than hardware spi.
The include for this is has a lot to set up to make it just work.
The graphics are the glcd used for all displays only this one is picked and that's loads more code.
never be converted. nextion seems the way for picaxe and the are bright displays. the ide is annoying to use as more stuff to learn.
 

stan74

Senior Member
All these devices need setting up,in c+ or basic,check the basic version
I can post a "basic" version of the #include ili9341 but then need the graphics..with bresnems line and midpoint circle.filled squares and triangles and any extra features for the display. Like scrolling on ssd1306.
I got a nextion and think expensive but only fast glcd for picaxe. well it's serial but smart display and touch works well. that damn nextion ide!
Could a cheap ili9341 spi work with picaxe?
check the gcb init file which is nearly as bad as the arduino one.
then add graphics. I did make my own line draw but it was slower than the compilers.
 

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tmfkam

Senior Member
Whoa! Not at all! It is all a question of horses for courses. I have just been on the MicroMite forum recommending a member to look at PICAXE for an application which requires very low power and relatively simple operation of micro stepper motors.
Sorry, I disagree. It is becoming a dinosaur. It pains me to say it as it was PicAxe that got me started in microcontrollers, but if I was starting now I wouldn't get past the starting gate of cross platform compatibility and I would move on to something else.

I understand that the core market for Rev. Ed. is education and that is fair enough, but I design and manufacture commercial products for the entertainment market. I recently designed two products, one has three processors in it, one has four. I made some intelligent displays that replace two discontinued types made by a manufacturer that sold thousands of machines, this has another processor. I've just completed a replacement board for one of our machines, two more processors. We're ordering processors in batches of a few hundred at a time. So, am I using PicAxe? No. Why? At work and at home (where recently I have been working due to Covid19) I design my circuits, draw the PCB and write the software on an iMac. All those microcontrollers are (were) pin compatible with PicAxe models, but all went out with PICs. If I can't develop the software, I can't specify the device.
 

stan74

Senior Member
Sorry, I disagree. It is becoming a dinosaur. It pains me to say it as it was PicAxe that got me started in microcontrollers, but if I was starting now I wouldn't get past the starting gate of cross platform compatibility and I would move on to something else.
I use basic because the first home computers eg. sinclair,amstrad,commodore all ran basic as the user os,,,and it stuck.
I tried c for zx spectrum and gave up. I can't get into c+ even today.
I tried z80 & 6502 assembler and it was ok but tedious. I tried microchip assembler on pics of the time and it seemed more difficult.
So when I wanted to use pics in basic I found picaxe. It seemed a bit strange eg variables usage but ok.
Then searching I found other basic compilers that output a normal hex file for pic and avr.
Some are commercial and cover a range of pics. Others are free but for avr only.
Then I found an open source basic compiler for most 8bit pics and avr that makes hex files.
It's what I use now for 8bit ucontrollers.
It has a tool for defining the pins on later pics..being able to define the pins is necessary, handy for pcb design and a pain in the rear.
A few people on the forum for the basic I use mention they used picaxe so may be picaxe did get people involved in pic programming.
I think picaxe was meant to be a stepping stone or introduction because it has been around many years and things have changed.

I don't see why people don't download the basic I use free and buy a uno or nano for a few pounds and try it.
It's cheaper than using a pic with it as you need pickit2 or 3 programmer.
using avr is just a usb lead...unless you want to code just the bare ucontroller.
The native hex files run as fast as good hand written assembler.
 

premelec

Senior Member
We all have our favorite platforms to do what we want to do - I still use mechanical switches and wires and discrete components as well as integrated wonders... note that dinosaurs lasted over 150 million years and we have been around about 1 million years... perhaps a better term could be used for obsolescence... ;-0
 

stan74

Senior Member
We all have our favorite platforms to do what we want to do - I still use mechanical switches and wires and discrete components as well as integrated wonders... note that dinosaurs lasted over 150 million years and we have been around about 1 million years... perhaps a better term could be used for obsolescence... ;-0
Obsolete, not really but still gets posts on the forum so many active users.
sort of stick with familiarity and can't be bothered learning something new.
I would recommend trying the basic compiler I use with a uno or nano as it's a prototype board anyway,it's usb plug and play,fast and 2k ram.
cheap arduino clones are brill for the price with onboard usb to ttl to program it and in reverse runs on a terminal,voltage reg.the board itself

I will get blocked for posting this maybe but the idea is converting code to/from different basics
 

stan74

Senior Member
The ILI9341 is a great little colour display with touch input capability. Unfortunately, with so many pixels and the PICAXE's limited RAM, it's not really suitable for a PICAXE to drive. The slower processing capability of the PICAXE's tokenised code means that updating the screen will be very slow, even when you'd developed optimised code.

I use a couple of the larger ILI9488s but they are driven by PIC32s. Great resolution, colour and touch capability but updating the whole screen, while quick, is not lightning fast.
Ili9341 is just serial and not needing much ram I thought.
 

inglewoodpete

Senior Member
Ili9341 is just serial and not needing much ram I thought.
I was referring to the RAM often needed in the PICAXE to assemble usable data for transmitting to the ILI device. Otherwise, updates of the display would be slower than watching grass grow. I find it's better make periodic screen updates quickly (prepared in the PICAXE RAM) rather than continual pixel-by-pixel at the pace of a PICAXE.
 
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stan74

Senior Member
I was referring to the RAM often needed in the PICAXE to assemble usable data for transmitting to the ILI device. Otherwise, updates of the display would be slower than watching grass grow. I find it's better make periodic screen updates quickly (prepared in the PICAXE RAM) rather than continual pixel-by-pixel at the pace of a PICAXE.
I thought hardware spi the pic does the work. Software spi or what I heard serial called bit banging on picaxe would be slow but never tried
using this display with picaxe.
The idea of a 328p ili9341 interface to picaxe seems not as daft as I first thought.
cost wise an ili9341 and a ucontroller at right voltage logic would be cheaper than buying a nextion display.
I think that would be a nice project but getting the graphic lcd commands from one basic to picaxe is beyond me but the idea stands.
edit I used a 28x2 ie 18f25k22 for picaxe so was spoilt for capabilities. Never ran out of pins or "ram". Hardware pins etc. it was nice to use. I don't get using the 8 pin devices as a learning thing as you would be annoyed in a short time but they are popular?!
This applies to other basics where people want to use a pic with not enough ram to run a ssd1306 and instead of saying get a pic with over 1k ram . the author has rewritten his code to allow for low ram chips so only half screen,which on a ssd1306 display is daft.
This why I use a basic with 328p as minimal spec. and this is just 8bit uctrl. arduino it's 32bit now...but I don't do c+
Sorry if seems a rant. peace
 
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