The Eagerly Awaited Raspberry Pi Display
You’ve been incredibly patient: thank you. The official Raspberry Pi touch display is on sale today, priced at $60 (plus local taxes and shipping): you can buy it at RS Components/Allied Electronics and at Premier Farnell/Newark. Other sellers will be receiving stock later this week.
We gave one to Alex Eames of RasPi.TV a couple of weeks back so that he could give us one of his famously clear video introductions:
Two years ago, I began the process of looking for a simple, embeddable display for the Raspberry Pi. I honestly believed it would only take us six months from start to end, but there were a number of issues we met (and other products diverted our attention from the display – like Rev 2.1, B+, A+, and Pi 2). But we’ve finally got there, and I thought you might be interested in learning about our journey.
Display Technology
First of all, here’s an overview of the technology involved in the different types of display that the Raspberry Pi can support.
Currently the Raspberry Pi can support the following display interfaces:
HDMI
HDMI is the system we all know and love, it allows us to communicate with monitors up to 4K and has a relatively low signal swing to reduce EMI. There are lots of other very useful bits of the specification such as CEC (a communication channel between the TV and the Pi that allows us to receive input from the TV), EDID (a method of automatically identifying the different formats the TV supports) and a hotplug signal allow the Pi to know when you plug in the cable. The only problem with HDMI is that the electronics required to convert from HDMI to the native panel interface can be quite expensive.
DPI
DPI (Display Parallel Interface) is a 24-bit parallel interface with a clock and various synchronisation signals totalling 28 signals, all of which switch at a rate of around 70MHz. This interface has been phased out of tablets/phones because the electromagnetic noise created and power consumed by all those wires. Although it is possible to directly talk to a DPI display through the GPIO connector on a Raspberry Pi it would leave no GPIOs left for people to connect other HATs. DPI displays are available everywhere though, and are relatively cheap!
DSI
DSI (Display serial interface) is a high-speed serial interface based on a number of (1GBits) data lanes. The total voltage swing of the data lines is only 200mV; this makes the electromagnetic noise created and power consumed very low. Unfortunately, DSI displays are only really created and sold for special purposes (i.e. when a mobile phone manufacturer wants to make a new phone), and although they can be available to buy, manufacture of the devices is subject to the lifetime of the phone!
DBI
DBI (Display Bus Interface) is an old display technology that usually has inbuilt frame storage to reduce tearing, due to the memory and hardware it makes DBI screens expensive.
So our solution to this problem was to employ both DSI (to avoid using up all the GPIOs) and DPI (easily available screens in suitable resolutions) and a bridge chip/conversion board to convert between the two.
We got in touch with many display manufacturers to try and get a display that would tick the following requirements:
- Quality colour reproduction
- Pixel quality (sometimes you can see the individual pixel boundaries)
- Contrast ratio
- Viewing angle
- Affordable
- Lifetime (length of time before the display is no longer going to be manufactured)
Of course lifetime is one of the most important requirements, because if a display only has a lifetime of a few months (or the manufacturer is uninterested in guaranteeing a minimum lifetime), we would have to repeat the whole development cycle once more. So we can’t just buy a display that’s used in your standard iDevice, because it is likely to be cancelled when the iCompany decides to move to another manufacturer!
When looking for a device, we needed to look for what are termed ‘Industrial’ LCD displays. These tend to have better-quality metrics and guaranteed availability.
In the end we chose an industrial-quality display from our friends at Inelco Hunter based in the UK, who were able to create something very special:
- RGB 800×480 display @60fps
- 24-bit colour
- FT5406 10 point capacitive touchscreen
- 70 degree viewing angle
- Metal-backed display with mounting holes for the Pi
Our first PCB to do the DSI to DPI conversion was completed back in mid-2013. The board used a Toshiba bridge chip to convert the DSI signals to DPI ones. I spent quite a bit of time getting the Raspberry Pi to talk to the bridge device, and then got it working and displaying an image (yay). We then took it to our local EMC test facility to investigate how easy it would be to pass CE and FCC electromagnetic compliance.
A little word on compliance…
When electrical currents flow around a circuit board, they create electro-magnetic fields, which can be picked up by other electronic devices. Maybe you remember what used to happen to your CRT television when your mum turned on the hoover (sorry for those of you without any experience of analogue television). This was becoming a problem for television and radio receivers; when I was a kid and plugged in my Spectrum 48K, the radio wouldn’t work properly any more. So the powers that be introduced new rules about the amount of energy a device can output at various frequencies from 25MHz up to a couple of GHz. You have to make sure your electronic devices do not cause interference, and are not susceptible to electronic interference.
The best way to reduce electromagnetic interference (EMI) is to keep your high-frequency signals short and close to a nice continuous ground plane, reduce the frequency and drive of the signals (reducing the high frequency components), and reduce the maximum swing of the signals to reduce the signal power. Looking at modern communication systems, that’s exactly what they do: for example, DSI has a signal swing of only 0.2V and only has two or four actual signal lanes.
Unfortunately, DPI is 1.8V signal swing, and although much slower, it needs 28 signal wires, meaning 28x more paths with the same edges switching up and down at the same time. This gives us an output looking something like:
The green line is the class A line, and the black is class B (we need to reach Class B). You need to be below the black line if you want to sell the device to be used in the home.
Back to the drawing board
The next step was to understand why the EMI is so bad, so we tried redesigning the board so it looks like a HAT (it’s not actually a HAT because there is no EEPROM for device tree information), and added an Atmel device to control the power/reset and PWM for the backlight. We also went through three different iterations of adding chokes to improve the noise conducting down the power supply cable, and manipulating the route of the DPI signals to improve the path of the ground return.
In the end we did reach our goal of a class B EMC pass which is a great achievement considering where we started!
Building the display from scratch
The first displays are supplied as a kit which requires some initial construction. Alex Eames from RasPi.TV has helpfully provided a video showing how to do it.
Connecting the display
The display module integrates the LCD display with a conversion board that should be plugged into the Raspberry Pi through the display connector. Be aware that the connector is the same as the camera connector, but the two are not compatible, so be careful to correctly identify the display connector first.
The 15-way FPC connector should already be plugged into the display conversion board with the silvered contacts face-up. You can then plug the connector into the Raspberry Pi with the silvered connectors inboard (facing towards the USB connectors).
Powering the display
There are three options for powering the display:
1) Separate power supply
Just add a separate uUSB power supply rated for at least 500mA, and plug into the display board where it says “PWR IN”.
2) USB link
Attach an official 2A Raspberry Pi power supply to the display board “PWR IN” connector, then attach a standard uUSB connector from the “PWR OUT” connector to the Raspberry Pi.
3) GPIO jumpers
Attach two of the supplied jumpers to connect 5V and GND from the Pi.
Using the display
To use the display the user just needs to do the following:
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
$ sudo reboot
The Raspberry Pi will now automatically detect the display and use it as the default display (rather than HDMI), although HDMI will still be initialised. If you’d prefer for the HDMI display to stay as default then add:
display_default_lcd=0
to the config.txt file.
Dual display usage
It is possible to use both display outputs at the same time, but it does require software to choose the right display. Omxplayer is one application that has been modified to enable secondary display output.
To start displaying a video onto the LCD display (assuming it is the default display) just type:
# omxplayer video.mkv
To start a second video onto the HDMI then:
# omxplayer --display=5 video.mkv
Please note, you may need to increase the amount of memory allocated to the GPU to 128MB if the videos are 1080P, adjust the gpu_mem
value in config.txt for this. The Raspberry Pi headline figures are 1080P30 decode, so if you are using two 1080P clips it may not play correctly depending on the complexity of the videos.
Display numbers are:
DISPMANX_ID_FORCE_LCD 4
DISPMANX_ID_FORCE_TV 5
DISPMANX_ID_FORCE_OTHER 6 /* non-default display */
Touchscreen
The Raspberry Pi display has an integrated 10-point touchscreen (a bit of an overkill, but it does seem to work well). The driver for this touchscreen outputs both standard mouse events and full multi-touch events, and therefore can work with X as a mouse (although not brilliantly – X was never designed to work with a touchscreen!).
Kivy
Kivy is a Python GUI development system for cross-platform applications. It is designed to work with touchscreen devices (phones and tablets), but also runs on the Raspberry Pi. To install Kivy onto your Pi follow the instructions at
http://kivy.org/docs/installation/installation-rpi.html
I’m fairly sure that these are the instructions that worked for me, although I make no claims that it’s an easy task!
This short, soundless video shows off the possibilities of Kivy with multipoint touch nicely.
Raspberry Pi’s Matt Richardson has been experimenting with using Kivy to allow the touchscreen to control Raspberry Pi’s GPIO, and vice versa:
From the videos you can see how capable the interface is. I’m in the process of developing a touchscreen application for an installation at home to control a safety and heating monitoring system, so you’ll probably hear more about that at some point!
Last of all, if you’d like a stand for your display, you could do a lot worse than to take a look at the 3D-printed one that Matt Timmons-Brown has designed; we like it a lot. You’ll find his model on Thingiverse.
Have fun, and make something awesome!
Gordon
394 comments
Tim Richardson
These are really nice displays and really easy to assemble. The colours are bright and touch screen is responsive. I just need to get a case for mine…
Tim Richardson
BTW: The Thingyverse link is not working.
Helen Lynn
It is now!
Tim Richardson
LOL! I see MTB has taken my HDMIPi stand idea to create the stand. Nicely done too!
The Raspberry Pi Guy
I was trying to make that darn link go live in my first ever college assembly this morning on my phone! Fiddly! And yes you’re right – inspiration from your stand!
The Raspberry Pi Guy also covered the launch of the brand new Raspberry Pi display and you can watch that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7byf2h_bT8
CEO Eben Upton has also passed comment in this video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHRhiCPXFIA
Rpi-nator
Hi, I’m looking forward to power my pi via the power out of the touchscreen. To purchase the correct usb type A to mirco usb type b cable i need to know the alignment of the USB A socket a on the Touchscreen board. I cant find a pic that shows this detail. I guess the bar in the usb socket is averted to the board? Thx for your help.
PhilE
It’s a bit late for an April Fool, don’t you think?
John
We over at Dexter Industries were just talking about this today, wondering when this was going to come out! So glad this has come out now, awesome!!!!!
Leo White
Noooo I just spent this month’s Pi budget on PiWars stuff…
Looks like a nice display and I can think of a few uses for it around the house (and the office), will have to look at getting one soon.
So that’s the Sense HAT last month, the display this month… Any chance of a ‘Raspberry Pi 2 Model A’ for next month? :D
Simon Cooke
And next month…. World domination!
Les Pounder
Looks great, can’t wait to get my hands on one! I first tried one out at the Raspberry Jamboree in 2014 and even back then it looked great.
Good work as always!
Liam Kennedy
Not showing up for pre-order over here in USA yet :-(
Definitely want to use this with the ISS-Above. It’ll make for a PERFECT option to have dual display – plus the touch interface to make setup / control streamlined. Congrats to all for getting this out there. As usual you have created something that looks exceptionally well thought out for the market.
Been so looking forward to this.
Bryan Blake
Liam, Not to fear, MCM Electronics has them in stock, plenty this time:). It looks like our site may be maxing out with all those Touchscreen orders but you should be able to place an order later today or call after 7am and get yours.
http://www.mcmelectronics.com
Thanks,
Bryan
Liam Kennedy
Arghh – yeah I checked your site and the others for USA availability and the sites were either down or no mention of the display. Already ordered from UK now. And now just ordered one from you too.
This seems to be a common occurrence (your web site not being able to keep up with traffic) when a new Raspberry Pi product is released. I know people who can help with that. :-)
Nathan Youngman
Any plans to stock the Pimoroni frame/stand at MCM?
https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/raspberry-pi-7-touchscreen-display-with-frame
Tim Richardson
Try http://thepihut.com
Thomas
Does it also work with Windows 10 iot, and if not, does anyone know if it will work in the future?
Gordon Hollingworth
The display works just as if you plugged in a differently sized HDMI display, i.e. the size and format of the screen is completely handled automatically.
Only issue is whether Windows IoT has a suitably updated firmware revision to support the DSI display (since you can’t do apt-get update / upgrade)
Gordon
Jeremiah
What about touch? We all know HDMI is supported on Win10 IoT.
Gordon Hollingworth
Someone would have to write a driver to get the touch input from the GPU. This is not trivial because it requires a mailbox driver and I don’t know if one of those has been written for Windows yet
Thomas
Thank you, Gordon. So, if i boot my raspi with raspbian, update the firmware, and start Windows again, it should work? Cool! :) Thanks!
Gordon Hollingworth
Basically there is no reason to think it won’t work, but we don’t have any input into Windows IoT and therefore haven’t been able to try it as yet
Gordon
Michael K
It doesn’t work with windows IOT. I have two sd cards now. One prepared with rasbian (works fine with the screen), one with windows IOT (black screen). Anyone knows the solution to make it work? It’s a bit annoying
Dave VanderWekke
Any Luck getting it to work with Windows 10 IOT? I just got my display on Friday. Played with it last night and got it working with Raspi. Going to try it on my Windows 10 IOT Pi2 tonight.
Aaron Peterson
If you need a Windows IOT touchscreen – check this one out!
http://www.chalk-elec.com/?page_id=1280#!/7-black-frame-universal-HDMI-LCD-with-capacitive-multi-touch/p/21750201/category=3094861
Hove
Just ordered mine from Pimoroni to accompany the soon to be released Flotilla for my kids.
Stewart Watkiss
Great news. A touch screen that mounts directly on the Raspberry Pi for only a little over £50 is excellent value.
It was frustrating waiting, but it sounds like it was worthwhile. Better to have a great product than to have something that was rushed out to satisfy the masses but wasn’t up to the job.
The problem is I’d just placed and order with CPC Farnell yesterday – fortunately it’s free delivery so I’ve placed another today for one of the displays. Can’t wait to see how it works.
MalMan35
This is so awesome! After dealing with adafruit touchscreen and that mess I am really excited to see an EASY way to get a small touchscreen working with RPI. This is sweet guys! Keep it up!
gordon77
At last !!
Any plans for a case for the display with a Pi on the back ?
Stewart Watkiss
It looks like Pimoroni have created a stand that mounts on the back of the display if that’s what you are looking for.
Perhaps others will do something similar in the same way that several manufacturers create different cases for the Pi itself.
Gordon Hollingworth
Much as with many other things, we at Raspberry Pi like to leave it to the community to come up with their own ideas for the cases / packaging..
But I’m working on an IP54 box with a cut out in the front (using a hacksaw and a drill for the corners!) then using silicon sealant to glue it into place! The Raspberry Pi just wires up in the back with some simple electronics I’ve made to measure a bunch of temperatures and control an Energenie power controller…
Gordon
MCM Electronics
Internally, we designed and 3D printed a case that worked well, though it’s a bit simplistic. Check it out, with free STL and Fusion 360 file downloads – http://blog.mcmelectronics.com/post/Building-a-Tablet-with-the-New-Raspberry-Pi-Touchscreen
Jim Manley
If someone could cross the DNA in the PiBlox case with that in your exemplar 3-D display case, you could probably sell as many of them as you sell displays. That would be, as the funny-talking folks here like to say, “Brilliant!” :D
MCM Electronics
We’ve had trouble 3D printing Lego shapes to the tolerances they need to be to adequately interface with real Lego bricks. Perhaps if the case ever gets injection molded that would be an option.
Robo
Are there plans for a display without the touchscreen included?
Gordon Hollingworth
No
Marc
What about one without the bezel?
Etaoin Shrdlu
How about one without the display?
Dan
Damn, 4 days after I ordered a couple of adafruit touch screens :( oh well will get these ones next
Trevor Harris
Would be nice to have a case to cover the back.
Amazon is about to produce a £50 tablet and that could be used using xrdb, or vnc.
Jim Manley
Accessing a Pi via a tablet and WiFi does not provide anywhere near the same performance as a display integrated via HDMI or DSI. With VNC/RRP/etc., everything is going through the Pi’s ARM CPU, not the GPU, which is where the frames are being formed/manipulated. That’s not quite the death sentence it once was with the Original Flavor Pii, but it’s still much slower than the GPU for this purpose. Is it usable in exchange for the convenience of no wires up to a few hundred feet away, or logging into a Pi from the other side of the planet? Yep, that’s where remote display shines, and I’ve accessed Pii desktops in the UK from the U.S. Best Coast with only 50 – 100 ms of lag over wired/fiber Internet connections. This makes a nice demonstration to my students of where the chokepoints can be along long-haul network paths.
Peter Jones
Hi,
Will this come with all the parts if we buy from an official distributor such as CPC Farnell or RS, unlike the Sense HAT which does not unless you buy from the Swag store?
Thanks
IanRS
This looks like a very useful screen for integrating into larger projects. Can anybody say what the width and height of the screen and the frame are, and whether there are any controls (e.g. power button) on the frame itself?
Nathan Youngman
Wow, congrats. Now I eagerly await availability in Canada.
How does FCC compliance impact international shipping?
wallyware
HURRAH! And you avoided the GPIO pins! BRILLIANT (as you Brits say)!
Gordon Hollingworth
Yes all the parts are supplied with the display. Originally it was going to be supplied completely assembled but it’s fairly simple to assemble yourself as Alex has showed…
Might need another bit of documentation explaining how to get Kivy working because it’s not as easy as just apt-get ing something!
Gordon
Kulbirdi
I cannot connect the 7 inch display. I tried to reconnect the cables,,updated,,and all the rest….
Gordon
Well done all those involved. Great to see this become available.
I’ve ordered a couple and now need to find time to start on a standalone audio player. Think DIY Olive One http://www.myoliveone.com/Ones
[email protected]
Wayno
Thank you! My order is in!
Tomorrow weather station HAT???? go on, you know you want to…
Michelle
OMG WOW thank you mine is on the way from
https://jiffyshop.com.au/SBC/raspberry-pi/93-raspberry-pi-7-touch-screen-display.html
Thank you Raspberry Pi !
Mike Redrobe
Yay, finally a use for the lonely DSI connector that has been sitting empty on every Pi since day one !
Andrew
I must say that I’m disappointed by the low resolution of the display. I would have expected at least a 720p panel.
James Hughes
Gordon sort of covered this – cost and reliable supply are the issues.
Mik Walker
Just picked up my display from the Post Office after they were unable to post it through my letter-box. I’ve just edited ‘config.txt’ to make the display 1600×960 (double 800×480) and it made the terminal display nearly unreadable with my (sadly) poor eyesight but the desktop screen displays and responds to touch fine!
Rasmus
Great work, nice to see the DSI port finally being used! :)
That said, will this enable developers to access the DSI interface? I want to use a different DSI LCD module with the RPi.
Nicolas
Great news!
I’ll order one as soon as it’s available for France on Kubii, even if I’m a little disappointed with the viewing angle and the definition. HD + 170° would have been awesome, but still, it looks very promising. Maybe for v2 ;-)
N12542
That’s bezel-tastic!!
Richard Ahlquist
Ok, so you know this question would be coming. Will the display adapter board work with other standard DSI screen? Will you publish information that allows others to make other compatible screens to connect to the adapter board? Not everyone is going to want/need a 7″ screen. While I don’t expect the foundation to provide screens for everyone’s needs it would be nice if you were open where you could be to let that support for other factors happen.
Gordon Hollingworth
No there is no software support for direct DSI displays.
Phil S
Now, or ever?
Anonymous
Now, probably.
Alan Mc
Bravo. It will make it all the more accessible. Here’s to easier demoing without hauling big screens around (or the lapdock cable jungle).
I needed an excuse for a Pimoroni “Tangerine” coloured spree. My order’s in – will look forward to the screen and stand winging its way to Orange now.
Thanks for all the hard work jumping through EMI and manufacturing hoops. ;o)
Nic
Looks pretty well thought out. There is one thing though that is a pity (admitted you cannot possibly consider all use cases) and that is that with about 8mm less bezel it would have been just right to fill a standard vehicle double-DIN radio/CD head unit bay…
Kostas
Too little, too late, IMHO. I would have expected at least 720p and the price is pretty high for what you get, when a 1080p LED monitor will go for under 100€ and a ~720p 19″ for under 80€.
I am not even considering this one, until the next version or the 10″ version. A big letdown :-(
James Hughes
Would that be the industrial spec 8″ capacitive touchscreen monitor?
Monitor manufacturers can rely on huge scales of manufacture (from the TV market) to make those devices, something not applicable to a product like this, so your comparison is a bit apples to oranges.
But as is often said, you are under no obligation to buy one, and if you can find something that fits your purposes better for less, that would be an excellent choice.
Phil S
I wonder whether you could score and snap the edges of the bezel to trim it down to double DIN size?
Clive Beale
Tried it last night: it’s do-able but introduces imperfections that encourage fractures. i.e. might look OK but susceptible to cracks when handling. Decent tools and fine sanding of edge might sort that…
May also void warranty ;)
Nic
It’s great to get some firsthand insight, thanks. What material is the surface of the display? And the bezel? Is the display surface and the bezel all one piece?
Jim Manley
It comes with a warranty, too??? Next thing you’ll be telling us is that a sandwich and wheels are also standard equipment! :D
With a touchscreen display that Pi boards can be mounted on, we finally have an integrated system that’s compact, relatively affordable, and usable for most classroom activities. Now all I need to do is get the Usual Suspect educational technology distributors to pick up on these and schools/districts here in the U.S. will be able to order them in volume. As large as Element 14 and RS and their partners/subsidiaries are, we can only readily order in volume from approved vendors, which are often only approved on a district-by-district basis. There is a huge amount of politics in how difficult they make it to become approved (board members’ family members’ businesses getting preference and similar shenanigans – of course it’s illegal, but so is speeding ): ).
Paul Webster
[quote]Are we there yet?[/quote]
Yes yes yes – now will you keep quiet?
Well done in getting it out. Order placed.
ulix
Great news, ordered one in the morning.
Hope it arrives before holiday.
I was just wondering, can I use the raspberry pi b (no b+ or 2b)?
Thank you Raspberry Pi Team for this great work, now we know why we had to wait “so long”. Thanks for the additional informations!
Cheers
Gordon Hollingworth
Unfortunately the B didn’t have the right I2C connections down the DSI connector. That’s one of the reasons for the extra pins on the display conversion board.
Will investigate what changes (software and jumper wires) would be required, but I would suggest a B+ / 2B / A+ would be the easiest addition
Gordon
Nic
Gordon, Can you clarify regarding the I2C connections on the DSI connector?
The Swag store indicates that the only incompatibility with the original RPi models is the position of the mounting holes:
“The display will technically work with the Model A and Model B boards (connecting it to the DSI port on the Pi board), however the mounting holes on the back of the display will only line up with the newer board design (A+, B+ and Pi2)”
Krishna
Hello guys,
i couldn’t get the display working with my raspberry pi model B Rev2.0. Is this the problem with i2c or is something either in the pi or display broken?
cheers
K
Richard J Kinch
“The display currently does not work with the older Raspberry Pi Model A or B” according to:
http://swag.raspberrypi.org/collections/frontpage/products/raspberry-pi-7-inch-touchscreen-display
And this may explain the hours I just wasted assuming it did.
Also stated quite mysteriously/passively/existentially there:
“… however there may be a software update to enable compatibility.”
Which is a coy tease and near-zero information. An update? Who? Where? When? How to know?
Freek
I also wasted a lot of time, wtf, the older ones have the DSI port, there should be a warning on the box or something… Wonder when support is coming. I expected it would be with Jessie.
Karsten
Mine came 2 days ago and I tried to get it running on a Pi 1 Model B because everywhere was to read its going to work (just the mounting holes won’t fit).
@Gordon: Do you think its going to work at all with my Pi model?
GekkePrutser
Finally!! I was waiting for this for a project, though I went for a DisplayLink screen eventually. But this will be even better. I didn’t realise you had so many EMC problems.
Nice that you added a touchscreen too. But the jumper wires look a bit untidy :) Was there no way to power it through the DSI flatcable? I suppose the wires there are too thin to get serious power through.
Nathan Youngman
In TheRaspberryPiGuy’s video, he suggests using a USB patch cable such as this one for powering the Pi.
http://shop.cyntech.co.uk/products/hdmipi-usb-cable
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7byf2h_bT8
alexeames
Unfortunately, those ones we shipped with HDMIPi give you the “rainbow square” low voltage warning. (You can see it in Matt’s video). I tried them too because they are ideal shape. But the low voltage meant the camera didn’t work properly and touch failed as well. It all works fine powered through GPIO. You need a really good quality USB to micro-USB lead to power it that way.
The Raspberry Pi Guy
Incorrect. The short USB patch cable method worked perfectly for me. Throughout my video there are no low voltage warnings apart from one and I believe this was due to the fact that I was using a power socket with a special switch on it for video. As you can see from my release, touch is working perfectly and the whole setup is both neat and functional.
This is from my several weeks experience with the display – Alex may be getting confused with the quality of the PSU. In my video I use a decent 2 Amp supply.
Thanks for watching!
The Raspberry Pi Guy
alexeames
Incorrect? Maybe this part “(You can see it in Matt’s video).”
But the rest of my comment stands in its entirety from my own personal testing with an official white Raspberry Pi PSU.
Deba
Is it compatible with rev1
Jeff
Any US distributors carrying these? I’m not seeing it listed on Allied Electronics yet.
Thanks
Liam Kennedy
As usual the USA sites seem to be a bit behind on this and/or they can’t keep up with traffic. Here is a link to the MCM Electronics order page (no display stand like available from PiMoroni in the UK)
http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/83-16872?t=2&utm_expid=8634549-27.0czCl7fSQamjILoiAH9mgA.1
Nathan Youngman
Pimoroni sells the display frame stand-alone:
https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/raspberry-pi-7-touchscreen-display-frame
Though I’m not sure if it’s more economical to do an order from Pimoroni and one from MCM (vs. just Pimoroni). Depends on shipping costs.
Sheroy
Finally!
hamakina
When can we expect a standalone board for DSI to Displayport? Would love to have a second display option of my choice.
Gordon Hollingworth
Unfortunately there are only two lanes available on DSI and at 1Gbits per lane this isn’t enough to support anything greater than 720P or 1080P30 (which is not a very well supported standard)
So unlikely a DSI->DP conversion board would actually be very useful
Gordon
hamakina
Then if it allows for up to 1080p, a small board DSI to HDMI would be a great addition. I’m thinking small classrooms with dual headed screen. Any ways to get dual numeric display without sacrificing GPIO or USB speed.
Andy Edwards
Does anyone have a part number to order one from Rs components in the netherlands? It just says product not found when I insert the part number found from the uk rs components site.
DirkS
Don’t know about RS, but Kiwi apparently have them in stock too: https://www.kiwi-electronics.nl/7-inch-raspberry-pi-dsi-touchscreen-display
Archer
Kiwi does have them in stock, just one less since i picked mine up today :D
Andy Edwards
Thanks guys, just been to pick one up. :-)
beta-tester
i was waiting many years for that display for RPi.
now it is too late, now i don’T want it anymore.
now they can wait 4 years to me…
… AAaaaargh
… nnooo
… i can not resist
… i must have that display.
bye, i am on the way to the shop.
Ivar
Is it possible to use the new screen AND the camera at the same time? It looks like only one at a time will connect.
Liam Kennedy
YES. The camera plugs in to a different port. Check the video again – you can even see in the video demo they use the touchscreen + HDMI monitor AND the camera all at the same time.
Clive Beale
The display and camera have separate connectors. So yes, you can use them together.
JBeale
Glad to see the official RPi display has reached the market, and the long un-used connector now has a use! Also, happy to see that MCM Electronics is shipping- still in stock at http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/83-16872
Mikimouse
Nice :)
Now i’m waiting for an e-ink screen :)
Clive Beale
Hack a Kindle! Eg http://hackaday.com/2015/04/30/raspberry-pi-and-kindle-together-again/ ; https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/tag/kindle/ etc :)
Vincent
Really great guys, good work on this. I’ve been waiting a long time for DSI screens, but I’ve been able to find similar hdmi screens on ebay, with better resolution, for just the same price (although you get more overheard). Hopefully more LCD panels with different sizes and resolution will eventually come.
Brian Michalk
What is the brightness and contrast ratio?
Lee
What would people suggest the best way to use hats on this system would be, I am thinking of the sense Hat,
With the short DSI cable and the pi screwed to the back of the screen? I assume the only really option is a cable extender from the GPIO and then the hat on a small piece of wood/plastic on the bench to the side.
Are there any issues with running the sense hat in this manor?
Michael Horne
Try the Pimoroni Black Hat Hacker. It can transfer the GPIO socket, via ribbon cable, to the front.
karan
You can connect the sense HAT directly to the pi as it has a notch for attaching the display.
bluecar1
so what is the xmas surprise this year?
Jim Manley
Um, you do realize that you’ll have to wait for Santa to come down your chimney (or drive up in his delivery truck, I suppose, given safety regulations these days :) ) to find out, right? :D
AS
Do you really mean 70 degree viewing angle, or *170* degree?
Is this a standard TFT or an IPS screen? If it’s not IPS, how does it fare in portrait orientation?
Gordon Hollingworth
Display panels are specified with four viewing angles top, bottom, left and right, ours is 60, 70, 70, 70 which actually means 140 degree viewing angle.
But before you say something along the lines of ‘I found this display on the web and it says 170 degrees’ note that not all displays are measured alike and therefore it is difficult to compare these numbers. I can say that in comparison with all the other displays I did get hold of which did have larger numbers this one looks much better!
Gordon
Steve W
That EMC plot has 7 peaks per 10MHz, so a 3.57MHz(ish!)spacing. 800x480x60 pixel rate is 23MHz(plus a bit for syncs and stuff). Unless you were running a peculiarly stripey test pattern, doesn’t that look more like power supply noise than pixels?
Just being nosey really, it looks like a great display and I suspect I’ll be partaking.
Steve W
Muppetry there, sorry! 7 peaks per 25MHz square on the graph gives the 3.57MHz comb, not sure where 10MHz came from.
Gordon Hollingworth
The image on the screen at the time was a screen full of ‘H’ characters so the switching of the RGB bits is not 100%
Gordon
Steve W
Fair enough – good going knocking 20dB off, then!
Wide pixel buses really do make things hard.
Jim Manley
Been getting this a lot here and similar pages on Pi distributors’ sites:
“Raspberry Pi – Down for maintenance
The Raspberry Pi site is currently unavailable – please check back soon”
The Pi Effect strikes again! I didn’t realize that the name of the upcoming Star Wars movie was going to be “Star Wars: Episode Seven – The Foundation Strikes Back”! :D
Great job in getting the displays Out Here … but, would you folks be interested in some slightly-used-and-abused redirectors, load balancers, etc.? You’re becoming the next Healthcare.gov of tech education web sites – just kidding, with love … ;)
Bill Stephenson
I dunno Jim, I think they might feel a little sad if we didn’t strain their servers a bit when they make an announcement like this.
But it all worked for me when I finally got around to my daily visit here, so they can be proud of that too.
I’ve been itching for the past two weeks to drag up the old thread about this on the forum, but each time I figured I’d be better off learning to heed the old “patience is a virtue” lesson. I’ll tell you, in this case that’s been a tough one, but I’m glad I kept my mouth shut because I sure didn’t want to jinx it! :D
Jim Manley
Hey, Bill! Great to hear from you! I’m probably going to be en route Nashville for an educational exchange opportunity sometime around the last week of September. It looks like I’ll be within about seven and a half hours of driving each way between Nashville and your stomping grounds. I’ll send you an e-mail with more info momentarily.
Bill Stephenson
Man, I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you on this. I wouldn’t have been able to get there, but it would’ve been great to get to hang out with you.
We do need to chat soon though. I been working on some pretty cool stuff!!!
Bill Stephenson
Thank you all again!
I’ve got a fun little app I’ve been waiting to play with until you had this ready and since then I’ve acquired a B2 as well, so I’m pretty excited about this.
And seriously, thank you for the price you brought this in at. You’ve lowered the bar for access by a leap once again. I’ll be ordering my first shortly.
You guys rock!!!
Tom
Will is there any controll of the screen via the i2c bus? can we adjust the brigness etc?
Gordon Hollingworth
So yes and no and yes again… It’s a bit complicated
Because the display and camera share an I2C communications system then the GPU _has_ to talk to the display directly (otherwise it could clash when switching between the camera and the display). For this reason it means the rpi-ft5406 driver I wrote actually polls memory for a copy of the touchscreen registers and the GPU reads the touchscreen registers and writes them to the shared memory resource.
The PWM control and power control is done by at Atmel device on the same I2C bus so again I need to add a mailbox interface to allow control from the ARM. Should happen soon!
Gordon
Michael
Hi Gordon,
do you have an idea how long it will take?
I develop an alarm clock and sleeping is really a challenge :-).
Jim Manley
Is anyone working on a Compute Module board that would provide the DSI and GPIO connections needed by the CM? Seems like a variation on the DSI/DPI interface board that accepts a CM would be the way to create a reasonably-student-hackable tablet based on this display, along with a battery module and case, of course. Hmmmmm, if you’re done with this and are working on a CM2 in time for the holidays … :D
Homer L. Hazel
The only complaint I have about anything related to Raspberry Pi is that it was and is being done in England. (I hope that’s an okay name to use. I don’t know anymore). Anyway, I am jealous that there are folks living near Pi Towers or someplace that can walk to a store and buy these things. I live on the far side of the United States and shipping takes a while and costs a bit. I try to wait for Adafruit to get your products, but this time I may have to visit the swag store. I still have not yet ordered the sensor hat. Maybe it is time to break down and order both.
Thanks for the great products and keep up the great works.
JBeale
They are supporting US sales. MCM Electronics located near Dayton, Ohio is still showing stock as of 7 pm EDT: http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/83-16872
Homer L. Hazel
Thank you. I don’t think I knew about MCM
Homer L. Hazel
Thanks again. I just entered my order on MCM. I think this is the first time I have used them.
Nathan Youngman
Btw, MCM also sells the Sense HAT. They appear to be the official distributor for anything built by element14.
I only just heard of MCM because there name is on the Pi2 starter kit I bought at a local computer shop in Canada.
It would be nice if more of these goodies were available in Canada. Buyapi.ca doesn’t carry nearly as much as I’d like. Shipping, currency exchange, and duty is going to really add up.
Nathan Youngman
Looks like Newark has Canadian pricing. It’s not obvious from looking (doesn’t say CDN), but the U.S.Newark site has the $60 price rather than $79.08.
http://canada.newark.com/raspberry-pi/raspberrypi-display/raspberry-pi-7inch-touchscreen/dp/49Y1712
tim Rowledge
If you’re on the western side of Canada you might find http://www.bc-robotics.com a useful source.
whheydt
Paraphrasing Flanders & Swann…
The line you are looking for is, “Another triumph for Great Britain; Englsnd blows it again.”
Liz Upton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vh-wEXvdW8
Phil Atkin
Once I get accurate measurements for these I will mould and cast bases for them in pewter. 3D printed plastic is OK as far as it goes, but real men melt metal, and a shiny metal base will look brilliant. Then I’ll have to think really carefully about adding them to my shop (www.pewtersky.com if anyone is interested) – not sure if they fit in with the candlesticks and salt and pepper sets, but they will look brilliant anyway!
Phil Atkin
… for anyone interested, here’s the last bit of Pi-related metal I made. Pewter is ace …
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_iVSMC3MsMJVElVX1M1V3diNXM
Anonymous
Yay :)
From the video: “Manufactured in PRC” – will there be a UK version as with the Pi?
Adam
Whats the overall dimensions of the screen with the black border? I gather the top “glass” frame holds the touch as well. Can the LCD be removed from the touch? (Thinking double DIN size) doesn’t look like it will fit with the black border/touch overlay. But just the LCD screen with a smaller bezel would work a treat :)
Just some ideas/thoughts.
Surat
Thank you for this awesome display.
Can you control brightness of the backlight using software?
W. H. Heydt
Nice to see this finally arrive. I have shipping confirmation on mine from MCM. Now I just need to figure out how to redirect selected output from a cron job…
Eric Gratton
I would love to use this with a rassberry pi to build a tablet running android os with my sons as their first foray into diy electronics . Would this be possible?
Ryan
Hi Gordon,
Can you let me know if TouchWidgetsX11 runs OK on this screen? It requires 24-bit color.
Ryan
PS: It is here: https://mutineer.org/project.php?p=touchwidgets
Gordon Hollingworth
I haven’t tried it yet!
Gordon
Morpha
I have been waiting for this for so long!
I cant wait for a slightly smaller screen to come out but this will be fine for now.
Gamer24
Hi, i was really suprised about this since i havent yet brought a touchscreen display from an unoffical site.. this is only compatible for Raspberry Pi 1 a and b models, Not raspberry Pi 2 B? if its compatible for RP 2, Will Windows 10 run on the touchscreen nicely? thanks in advice :D
EssEffDee
This display only works on Pi2 and should be fine for Win 10 IoT. I hope so anyway as that’s one of the things I’ll be doing with it :)
Helen Lynn
It does work with Pi 2, but not only Pi 2. Check out Gordon’s earlier reply to a similar enquiry: the display works out of the box with Raspberry Pi 2, B+ and A+, while earlier models will require a bit more work.
EssEffDee
Sorry, of course you’re right. Got my wires mixed up due to the Win 10 IoT requirements (must think before posting….)
Thanks
elParaguayo
Am very interested in getting Kivy running. Is it possible to get this working without needing to boot into the desktop environment (e.g. similar to getting pygame to use the framebuffer)?
Gordon Hollingworth
Yes that is how Kivy works… Even better I’ve got my pi and X windows running on the HDMI monitor and then I can start Kivy apps on the attached display with the touchscreen running!
Gordon
elParaguayo
Fantastic. Thanks for confirming. Looking forward to trying this out.
Francis
Dear Gordon,
I am also the proud owner of the new touchscreen since last saturday (2 of them even).
You your post here, you are writing:
“”Yes that is how Kivy works… Even better I’ve got my pi and X windows running on the HDMI monitor and then I can start Kivy apps on the attached display with the touchscreen running!””
This describes the exact setup I am trying to achieve: the Xwinows GUI on HDMI with real mouse and keyboard and the touch screen (display+touch) as a second display interfacing with a Kivy app.
This would be the perfect setup to develop/run/test/debug applications forseen to run on the touchscreen without having to constantly juggle between screens & reboots.
My goal is to use Kivy to write touchscreen only applications and to have such a COMFORTABLE development environemnt. When development is finished, get the Kivy-Touchscreen app started at boot and run it as a “captive kiosk” like application.
From this point on, remove screen (HDMI)/Keyboard and real mouse and only reconnect them if some maintenance work is required .. Perfect setup
Now, I have been scouting numerous blogs and forums to find out how to reach this setup, all without success. I did not find any clear explanation (we can leave out the Kivy installation .. this is very well explained).
Gordon would you be so kind to share the information with the community on how to do the “dual head” configuration to work ? (here or in some more appropriate place .. and give us the pointer to it) ?
This would be really awsome !!
Francis
makuk66
Francis: there was a bug in Kivy that prevented this working. See https://github.com/kivy/kivy/pull/3642
Jak
I’m interested in getting this working in pygame without booting into the desktop environment. When I do I get a displacement between my touches and the pygame pointer. I’ve done some light research and found that I might need to set the SDL_MOUSEDEV and SDL_MOUSEDRV. Is this correct and what is the touchscreen device?
Jak
quick update. I see data when I cat /dev/input/event2 when I touch the screen (I have a keyboard and mouse set up which seem to be coming in under event0 and event1), but using SDL_MOUSEDEV /dev/input/event2 and MOUSEDRV=TSLIB gets me no response. Still open to suggestions.
Hafan
Hi, have you solved this problem? Because I am interested in how to use this display with Pygame and I am fail with touch . I have this :
os.environ[“SDL_FBDEV”] = “/dev/fb0”
os.environ[“SDL_MOUSEDEV”] = “/dev/input/event0”
os.environ[“SDL_MOUSEDRV”] = “TSLIB”
But the message which I got is “selected device is not a touchscreen I understand” and touch doesn’t work
snowballEarth
Can’t wait for OSes like Kodi and Retropie to catch up with this.
Portable touchscreen raspberry pi media centre and retro gaming console sounds great!
Gordon Hollingworth
It would theoretically be possible to run the GUI on the LCD touchscreen and the video output to the HDMI… That should be a one / two line change (unfortunately it’s not easy to find the one or two lines!)
Gordon
Gary Littlemore
I’m sure Sam @ OSMC has this in hand already…
Tom
Can the Pi support two of these? Cos a PiDS would be absolutely fantastic.
EdwinJ85
I want one so much! I need to think of a project to justify it though…
David Wallis
Nice, How moisture resistant / tolerant are these? – I’m thinking bathroom environment.
Cant wait for Windows 10 Support :)
kekekiwi
An official touchscreen, this is the best news of today !
But, how works this touchscreen with a raspberry pi 2 running the Windows IoT Core operating system ?
fanoush
Can I buy just the bare DSI to DPI board now or in future?
Does it makes sense i.e. is the DPI connector standardized so that I can either find LCD on ebay right now that will fit in or that Chinese sellers could make bare LCDs with same connector in various sizes/resolutions in future?
Jonathan
Will the upcoming Maynard DE work better on this? Also what is the status of Maynard?
Michael Horne
It’s not great news on the Maynard front. Watch Matt Timmons-Brown’s interview with Eben Upton for the latest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHRhiCPXFIA
Chris Evans
Arrived this morning and now Raspian up and running on it. Brilliant display:-)
Sadly RISC OS doesn’t work properly with it:-(
I updated the start.elf on RISC OS SD card and I do get a display but only of the pointer which does moves with the mouse. The Pi has booted fully into RISC OS as I can access it over the network. Do you know if ROOL has had a play with it yet?
Chris Evans
Correction it does work with RISC OS if the latest RISC OS ROM build is used (I used Last nights). I’m a bit surprised as I hadn’t seen any changes in the RISC OS sources that I would have thought affected the display since the build I was using. Great work RPiF & ROOL!
Tiago Torre do Vale
Will it work with Tslib and QT?
Gordon Hollingworth
We implement the standard mouse and multitouch interfaces in Linux, so if they use those correctly then yes
Charlycha
I made a path for QT 5.6 allowing to chose your display.
actually waiting for approval : https://codereview.qt-project.org/#/c/148680/
and a demo video here : https://youtu.be/uTdx4SWL8Ig
Andy Edwards
Do not order from the swag store. I paid £22.40 for next day delivery to the netherlands and I have just been told there are delays in shipping and that I will have my order “as soon as humanly possible” Not happy at all.
Joe
Ordering from the swag store supports the foundation. Besides I am sure they are getting it out as fast as they can! :) Things have been busy lately I understand for Pi Towers in general…
Janw
Sorry if this has been answered : Can the display be powered from the Pi, not the other way around? It appears all suggestions involve powering the display and then power the Pi from it. Would be great if this was usable with something like the Pijuice (+ extra battery I guess), which provides power to the PI through the GPIO header.
Mik Walker
I’ve picked mine up from my local post office after it wouldn’t fit through the letter box. Followed the instructions on the CPC (UK) website (they had some in stock!). Powered through the display board to the Pi, had the low power indicator :-(
I’ve tried powering Raspberry Pi directly leaving the supplied GPIO cables connected to the display board with a 1A micro USB phone charger. No low power indicator!
I’ve also tried a 2A (10400 mA) mobile phone battery pack from my local ASDA (Wal-Mart for you Americans) – (£10 reduced for quick sale – 1/2 price bargain!), still no low power indicator although I’ve yet to discover how long it will run on this as it wasn’t fully charged….
David in Munich
No big deal – I got several for under 5€ here http://www.pollin.de/shop/suchergebnis.html?S_TEXT=2a+netzteil&log=internal The usual UK rip-off for electrical things (see prices for SD cards in comparison to Germany!!
Tudor
Hi everybody,
I’m interested in the mtbf of this product. I would like to use it as a 24/7 running display. How long would the screen last if used like this?
Gordon Hollingworth
Operating temperature -20 to +70 degrees
Front panel is made from glass so just needs sealing to intended purpose.
There are no MTBF specifications, we don’t have any lifetime measurements to compare against! But LCD displays are used in hazardous environments all the time and this is an industrial display and therefore made for industrial use rather than commercial use (i.e. industrial temperatures / vibration /quality etc)
Gordon
David Creel
Hi Gordon, I think he is asking more about the expected lifespan of the backlight…
Is it an LED backlight or CCFL backlight?
What is the brightness of the backlight (nit or mcd)?
What is the voltage input?
With such specs we could maybe make a guess.
Tudor
Actually it would be nice to have a datasheet with all the specs.
Andreas Sauerwein
I am not 100% sure, but i think this is the display they are using:
http://www.newhavendisplay.com/specs/NHD-7.0-800480EF-ATXL.pdf
unfortunately there are no spec for the backlight lifetime. But i also found this document:
http://www.newhavendisplay.com/specs/NHD-7.0-800480WF-CTXI.pdf
which should be the same display with controller.
Gordon Hollingworth
No that is not the same display
Tom
Hi Tudor,
I can’t recall the details (it’s been more than a year) but the backlight is LED type and will be in the region of 300-400cd/m^2, I think closer to 300cd/m^2.
Expected lifetime will probably be around 30k hours max-brightness use before the LEDs reach half their factory brightness. Obviously light perception is logarithmic compared to the actual brightness so it should be much longer still before the display is actually “end of life”. Even more so if not driven at max brightness.
As Gordon has said these panels are industrial units, they’re designed for longevity, so you needn’t worry about them wearing out from just a year or two of constant use.
G.S.
What kind of temperature rating does it have? How will it do in the sun? I’d like to put it in a plastic enclosure with a hinged door for outdoor use.
Josh
This is wonderful. Now, I wonder when we will find Windows 10 IoT support for this. That would be icing!
Gordon Hollingworth
There’s no reason to assume it will not work with Windows IoT although I’ve not tested it. Touchscreen driver will need writing by Microsoft though
Gordon
rich steed
would be perfect for an installation in our art room at school but can’t get my school to buy me raspberry pis never mind screens – might have to save up and buy one myself :)
PiMaster
Hi,
Very good !!!
Warmest Regards
http://www.pimodules.com
Welmo
Hello everyone,
currently i’m looking for a touchscreen on raspberry pi, but for using a portrait view, like a smartphone/tablet.
I tried with others touchscreens, but i never could calibrate correctly. I never could change the x axys with the y and then have a nice experience. With this touchscreen can i use the portrait mode more easily?
Chris Evans
I would expect screen rotation to work the same as it does on HDMI!
Chris Evans
If ‘touch’ doesn’t automatically rotate with the image I’d expect the touch driver to have an option now or soon.
Fsteff
Is it possible to turn the backlight completely off (and on again) by software? If yes, it looks perfect for my needs!
Nathan Youngman
Somewhere I heard that there will be a software update forthcoming to control the power and brightness of the display.
solar3000
I’ve become British with the pi.
Can’t wait until this hits the stores here in the USA.
Its sold out in what two minutes?
peterlin82
support tslib?
Fred260571
Hi Gordon,
Is there an API that C programers can use ?
Thanks
Frederic
Tom
The box its delivered in makes an admirable case for the Pi/touchscreen if you bluetack the screen onto the box!
Jiri
Hello, I just got one. Looks great, but …
LCD is still on after shutdown RasPi, and not only blank, but random colour field/line https://www.dropbox.com/s/05aih6gankwgshn/2015-09-10%2022.53.51.jpg?dl=0
And is any command there for switch off like HDMI output with tvservice ?
Gordon Hollingworth
Hardware is all supported, the software just needs implementing which is going to happen in the next couple of days. Not sure whether we’ll use tvservice to control this, I believe there are standard ways of blanking the screen in Linux which I would rather implement
Gordon
pedro santos
Hi…the i2c on the board is for what?? Its the touch screen data??
Gordon Hollingworth
The I2C is used to communicate with a small microcontroller on the display board to control the backlighting and powering of the display as well as the touchscreen
pedro santos
but it’s needed to connect to raspberry pi? or it’s for other porposes?
peterlin82
220cd/m2?
Cepheus
£48.00does not equal to $60 US OR CAD. Where can I get it cheaper than £150 in Canada????
tpiske
I’m wanting to code for a TurtleBot with my pi, which requires Ubuntu Desktop 14.04 LTS. If I update Raspbian and download the drivers needed to use the touch screen on this display, then replace Raspbian with Ubuntu, will the drivers remain in place so that I can still use touch?
This may be a stupid question. I have practically no experience with Linux systems. Any help is appreciated.
Captain Michael
I’m in main land of China, but I can’t purchase this display, all sellers Element14 provides are not able to buy this!
Fernando
Hey,
I need to know the weight! Also, add it at the Swag Store page.
Thanks
Helen Lynn
Take a look at Alex Eames’ first video in this post, the one titled “Official Raspberry Pi DSI Display”; a factsheet including the weight is displayed near the end.
LED Trouble Light
it looks really nice and am interested. how can i get it in China?
Gary
Mine arrived today but appears faulty. The backplate with all the mounting holes looks to be on upside down and as such when I attach the ribbon cable I can’t the mount the electronic board to the back as it doesn’t line up.
Hopefully there’s not many that have been made like this :-((
solar3000
I just got mine an hour ago. It is also upside down.
Rene
Hello,
i got my display today.
According to the videos my is upside-down too.
The brown/copper cable of the display is on the bottom.
is there any soulution?
ClausM
Just start playing with the 7″ screen and it’s upside down too ;(
iugamarian
Lately the foundation doesn’t give pdf’s with schematics for the newer products. At least a heavy datasheet please for display. And the electronic schematic for the Raspberry Pi 2. So many secrets… And strive to be more libre. Thank you. I want Eric Anholt to win the race and finish the libre video driver — it will work with Wayland too ;)
Alex
Unfortunatly touch screen driver has problems with JavaFX,
I would ask for an option to disable multitouch in the driver completely.
Joel Clark
Seconded.
Interested
I’m interested on this official touchscreen, but I’d like to know something else about it.I’d like to use it in two projects, a carputer and a portable emulator console with it own buttons on its sides..
-What are its dimensions?
-Is there any plan for a box for it? Not needed for those projects, but maybe for future ones.
-How bright is it outside? I mean, in the car there will be intensive sunlight in my zone (South of Spain). Will I be able to see it properly? As in a normal Tom Tom GPS hardware, for example.
Thanks in advance. :)
PS: Please, excuse my english if I committed any orthographic mistake.
Mik Walker
just got mine today. I’m looking at the same use for it!
A ‘random’ Google research says it’s NOT car DIN sized (more research needed – and read the blog from the raspberry pi website about how NOT to hack the screen!), so it may not be possible to fit into a standard car sized dash without a hack/custom surround, but I’ve yet to try this as I’m still trying to work out software/interface etc…
My research shows most of the Pi car-puter projects I’ve seen so far use a auxiliary input to a display that’s already fitted in the car…. I’m starting from no display at all (Ford Mondeo – don’t laugh!)
Interested
I don’t care about DIN size in this case, because I’m going to fit it in the car dash. Anyway, thank you for the info.
By the way, could you please tell me if it is bright enough for car use at day?
Lee
Anyone tried this screen with Kodi/openelec. Kodi only gives me an option for 720×480 which does not fill the screen. Any idea how to make kodi work with this display?
Niall
I only have the old B model so I will need to upgrade that too but wanted to check first. Does it have have full touch screen capabilities with OpenElec/Kodi?
Bill
I got one from MCM on Friday and finally got around to getting it working, but I have a single yellow line on the right side of the screen that won’t go away, even with a reboot. Any ideas?
Thomas
I got my display today and it is running fine, but it doesn’t use the full resolution. It only uses 752×448 pixels and so there is a black border around the desktop. The touchscreen seems to span the complete screen surface which is why it has an offset which gets bigger the closer it is touched to the borders of the screen.
Another issue I have is that the display shows a small 4-colored rectangle in the upper right corner as soon as the kernel is booting. This rectangle remains there even when the desktop is started and always overlays the content of the screen (whic is the clock widget in the toolbar in this case). What is its purpose and how can it be turned off?
My Pi came with a pre-installed Noobs sdcard and I did an apt-get update and apt-get upgrade to update drivers and packages. Nothing else has been changed so far. Any ideas?
mahjongg
The “rainbow rectangle” icon is an indication that the PI is not receiving enough power, its a “low voltage” indicator, indicating the voltage has dropped below 4.65V, when it should have been at least 4.75V (5V +- 5%).
Especially USB devices might not work well with voltages lower than 4.75V. Main reason is either a PSU that cannot deliver enough current, or a microUSB cable that has too much resistance.
Thomas
Ah, good to know. I will check – currently I am using a 5V 2A Power Supply, but maybe that is just a crappy one. Will check it again with different power supply and cables.
Thanks a lot ;)
Gordon Hollingworth
You need to disable safe mode in config.txt to remove the black borders
The coloured rectangle is because your power supply is too weedy, get the official Raspberry Pi one from the swag store and it should be fine (I’m assuming you’re not also taking 1.2 A out the USB!)
Gordon
Pierre
Hi Gordon,
I recieved my touchscreen today, and it it great, but there are black borders around the video output (the RPi is outputing something like 750×440). I tried to uncomment the disable_overscan=1 line in boot/cinfig.txt, but it didn’t change anything.
Any help would be greatly appreciated by anyone.
Liz Upton
Head to the forums – there’s lots of help available there.
Jiri
Hello,
I have some problem with touch (I can see /dev/input/event0 but data “flow” (touch works) sometime 1min, sometime 1hour, …) Only reboot can fix it, but again just for a random moment …
Using original Raspberry power source (LCD power via GPIO pins) and kernel 4.0.6 (can use new for CODESYS incompatibility, but tested laste one, and problem with touch is same).
Where should be problem?
Thank you.
pudding
The spec says the display is 60fps but I can only get 50fps out of it. Is this a driver issue or is there a way to force it into 60fps refresh?
Gordon Hollingworth
Due to limitations in the design of the bridge 50 is about as close as I could get, but I didn’t try very hard… Will have a look again to see if we can do better
Oliver
Hi everyone,
I can’t get the Display to work on Raspberry PI B Rev.2
Following the install guide does not seem to be sufficient. I did some reading and flund that DSI on older Pi’s lacks i2c, which is used for Powering and Backlighting the Display. Could that be the Problem? If yes, how can i fix it?
If it should work out of the box also with older models than maybe it was shipped broken. I just can’t figure it out myself because i don’t have Access to latest Pi-HW.
best regards,
Oliver
Krishna
Hi Oliver,
I have the same board and the display does not seem to work. did you find a solution?
Regards
K
Roger Smith
Please, please, please, provide a new forum heading under “Hardware and Peripherals” for the display. At the moment queries and comments about it are shot-gunned all over everywhere, which is not helpful when you are trying to find a solution to a straightforward problem which is :-
I need DSI and HDMI active simultaneously in what amounts to a dual-head configuration under X-windows. This so that I can run Impress presentations with the Presenter console on the 7″ touchscreen and the main display via HDMI to a projector.
For compatibility reasons it has to be Impress under X, no other display software will do.
Clive Beale
Done
Andrei
Will you release the schematics or at least tell us the exact Toshiba chip type? What is the biggest resolution supported by DSI?
Peter
Let them sell 100k first men.
Vasco
Hi all,
When will be available the solution for the raspberry B rev.2?
Geert Jan
The chip that is being used is a Toshiba TC358762XBG.
The datasheet of the device is here : http://www.toshiba.com/taec/components/Datasheet/TC358762XBG.pdf
Andrei
TC358762XBG seems to be out of stock everywhere. Any idea if any other TC35876xxx series chip is compatible?
Jens
This thing looks nice and very price competitive this is going to destroy our jobs all under the name of education.
A frustrated electronic engineer.
Oscar
I have got my screen working, and it is very nice. Unfortunately, however, the output is upside down for the Pimoroni stand. I can flip the display, but then the touchscreen is the wrong way round. Is there a way to calbirate the touchscreen or flip the display and touchscreen? Thanks.
Oscar
Oops, I didn’t do enough research before asking this! I just needed to add “lcd_rotate=2” to config.txt.
Pierre
Thanks for the advice (lcd rotate) youve made my saturday :)
Rene
Thank you!!!!
ErikvanElten
Nice, or actually: not yet.
My screen arrived today. After burnig a fresh Raspbian image and spending a lot of time installing Kivy (the reason I bought this display), everything seemed to work except for touch…(!)
Anyway: as I ran 3Drendering from the Kivy examples even my mouse and keyboard didn’t respond anymore. Also an attempt to ssh into the pi failed so I had to pull the plug. And yes, that corrupted my SD card so all the work I did today was gone.
I still have a running image of Kivypie – can anyone tell me how to get the screen running on this image?
Drivers that have to be installed etc., where can I find this?
Mik Walker
AND,
You can mount your Pi ‘upside down’ and save a bit of depth according to this – https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/#dont-try-this-at-home-how-not-to-hack-the-raspberry-pi-display
Ganon
Sadly my screeen doesn’t work…
I installed Raspbian, does the sudo update upgrade thing and reboot but screen stills black….
He receives power since I’m powering up my raspberry pi from the usb screen.
I have try to use separate power supply too but no luck.
I don’t know what to do, I’ll probably return the thing tomorrow if I can’t get working.
Very frustrating
John
Hello everyone,
I’m getting the same issue as Ganon. Or what I believe to be an issue. It’s most likely something simple, which I have overlooked.
I have ran through the steps as detailed above, e.g. connecting all of the ribbon cables, running sudo apt-get update, etc., and I’m getting a black screen on my display. I can see that the display turned on; however it doesn’t change from the black screen. I also know that Raspbian is booting up working because if I try plugging in an HDMI cable into my Pi I can see Raspbian boot up so I know that Raspbian is booting correctly.
Did I forget to do something or was there something that I needed to do in addition to the instructions?
Best Regards,
John
Ganon
Hi John,
I solved my problem.
I tryed to follow the videos and the tutorials I saw but ended by trying myself to connect the thing without any instruction.
My problem was with the connector between the lcd board and the rpi (the white ribbon) the blue part wasn’t in the good side.
if you look closely where you have to connect your ribbon you have some pins going out like :
————
| RPI2
|
| [connector for your screen]-
|
|
————
The blue side of your ribbon have to look outside the board like :
————
| RPI2
|
| -> blue plastic part || <- white part with pins
| [connector for your screen]-
|
|
————
Sorry if it's not clear and hope you can resolv your issue.. :) good luck
John Payne
I’d like to use the touchscreen with an alternative OS. Has anyone tried? I’ve tried out 3 Ubuntus (Mate, Snappy, Trusty) but the screen isn’t recognized, and I’m not sure what to search for…
I would like a solution with better touch support. I also tried Xstroke for gestures under Raspbian, that worked fine
Thanks for any tips
John
Ganon
Any debian based distro should work (I think… but not sure :))
Mika Väyrynen
I cannot see anything in the display. I’m using RPi B-version. I did all the get-update / get-upgrade magic and I have attached all the cables correctly. I’m powering the display via +5V and GND headers with jumper wires. I have 2,1 amp power supply. My RPi boots fine since i can see the display when connecting the HDMI but no luck with the LCD screen.
Ganon
Had the same problem and it was the display cable…
The instructions weren’t fine ( I don’t know why but when I tryed to change the side of the cable it starts working … ).
John Payne
Mika
I had similar problems at first until I watched the video on this page. I’d attached the display cable incorrectly. It’s not so clear on the Element14 instruction http://www.element14.com/community/docs/DOC-78156/?CMP=KNC-PS-G-EU-RPI-TOUCHSCREEN
John
Mika Väyrynen
Hi John!
Thanks for the tip but I checked the cables, re-assembled them but still no luck. Is there any other configurations that should be done when I’m using the B-model (Not B+)? Or any other hints?
John Payne
I’m using the Pi 2 and I have seen various comments that it could work with A or B, or that it definitely won’t work with A or B.
snowballEarth
got mine yesterday.
bad points:
-vertical viewing angle not good
-once assembled, has delicate wires and ribbon cables at the back, making it not durable and child-friendly.
-no on-screen keyboard with raspbian – desperately needs an android port for fluid, intuitive navigation and access to popular apps.
in short great for embedding into projects, not good as a consumer electronics device. keep hooking it up to your lounge tv for that.
now shoot me down in flames
Gordon Hollingworth
Well that is what it’s for… So he shoots, he scores
\o/
Nat
Hello,
Just got my screen and there seems to be a permanant color square in the top right corner (see image) is this normal ?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/q9mx8ro5z8lkk6y/IMG_3968.JPG?dl=0
Alan
That is the under-voltage warning – you need a more powerfull (2A) power supply or a different cable.
Nat
Thanks,
I already have a 2.1A supply, I’ll try with another cable.
Nat
The problem was indeed the cable.
I was using one with 28AWG wires, switched to one with 24AWG wires and it solved the issue.
iugamarian
So that’s why it had that square when I watched movies in the livingroom on the tv – I was using a longer USB cable with thinner wires, same power adapter. Thanks.
Jonathan Kayne
Hi,
I was wondering if anyone has the measurements of the screen, as I want to design and 3D print my own case for it. I know that there is a design posted by MCM, but I feel it should give access to the ports (hdmi, USB, etc). I also want to get some more practice using autodesk 123d…
Thanks,
Jonathan
jzkmathProductions
Walter Christen
Does anyone sell the Cyntech usb cable in the US? Internations shipping is 8pounds for a cable that cost 2 pounds. Would like to also get it faster
Mika Väyrynen
Okay I think this weren’t a good purchase because this won’t work with the Rasberry Pi (ver. 1 B)…
John Payne
Is there a summary of what is and what is not supported with touch with standard Raspbian? Double-tap seems to work but it’s a bit hit and miss, dragging works but I haven’t managed to resize windows or activate right mouse button.
Maybe it’s not available yet?
John
Bill Freeman
I have the display working but when performing sudo apt-get install upgrade it breaks my bluetooth PAN connection. Does anyone know the specific packages that need to be installed/upgraded to get the touchscreen working instead of upgrading all packages?
snake
When will we get a pitab?
SH
Rigid: 3D printable Raspberry Pi touch display stand
André
I have also the problem that the display are not working. The screen is black. Pi B2 with update/upgrade done. Any Idea?
Thanks.
Liz Upton
Head to the forums – lots of help there. (Your power supply’s the most likely culprit.)
André
The power supply has only for the Display 5V 1A. Is this not enough? The Pi has a seperat power supply.
Patric
It wont work at all :( Dark screen with Model (000e) B Revision 2.0. That’s bad. And no, all cables are connected correctly!
Georgian
Same here :( raspberry pi Model B+ i burned a freshly downloaded image of debian wheezy, did all the apt-get update and then upgrade and still black screen (all the cables are in good connection.
SH
Rigid: 3D printable Raspberry Pi touch display stand
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1020452
Steve
What is this screen good for?
First thing I did was plug in my WiFi Dongle and wireless mouse and keyboard dongle and boot my pi up.
Next I want to connect to my WiFi at home and the WiFi Configuration window is taller than the screen and I cannot work out how to make the window smaller or actually get to see the OK button. (I had to connect a regular screen to the pi to configure the WiFi). The native widows are too large for the screen and no webpages I look at on the pi display properly.
800 X 480 is not much use. :(
Steve.
W4LKS
Hold down the ALT key and click and drag by grabbing anywhere in the dialog box background (that is NOT a control). You’ll be able to drag the box so you can see the OK button and click it.
John Payne
I found the solution for getting touch to work in kivy here https://github.com/mrichardson23/rpi-kivy-screen steps 13, 14
I found the solution to my x/y calibration after inverting the display here https://github.com/kivy/kivy/issues/2656
kivy looks good!
Michael
I can’t find the documentation for the touch screen. URL?!
To change the brightness i tried:
xbacklight -set 70
But i get the following output: No outputs have backlight property
Any help is appreciated
Malek
Dreams do fome true. I’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of this touchscreen for some time while making due with other, messy to connect screens. Great job guys!!! This was an amazing product. Just got mine yesterday and it more than met my expectations. It made the wait worth it. Any plans for a 9″ model? Also, any idea where I can pick up an enclosure for it. About to machine one out of acrylic, but ideally I’d rather buy a prefabricated enclosure and just modify it as needed. Oh, and where are the physical specs/dimensions of the device to make the task of machining an enclosure a little easier.
Gordon Hollingworth
Go look in the documentation
Stephan
I tried it with Windows 10 – unfortunately no luck here. Screen stays black, whereas with Rasbian it works properly. I hope Microsoft is delivering some update here soon.
John Welsh
Is there a technical drawing of the back available? I would like to integrate this into a project of mine, and a precise spacing of the outer mounting holes would be helpful.
Oliver
It’s right here:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/display/7InchDisplayDrawing-14092015.pdf
Somni
Yes, it is a drawing….. good as long as you do not have to use it…. Or can you tell me the radius of the outer corners of the bezel(lens)?
Would have been nice if the dimensions on the rear also would have been relative to the centrelines.
And don’t be confused: top of the display is where the flat-cable comes out. So the thing is shown upside down!
And then you have to find out where the connectors on the RPI are relative to the display. No, this is not an acceptable drawing for the product as such, sorry.
Jonathan
Okay I’ve been running my screen for a few days and so far impressed! I’ve created a GUI using tkinter, this displays an interactive dashboard for my home automation / media systems. My requirement is purely a touch interface using buttons; no cursor, pointer or user input involved. Despite installing unclutter and sending the pointer to the far corner of the screen after each button press, it’s still flaky, with the mouse pointer appearing/flashing randomly and touch becoming unresponsive at times. Any ideas on a more robust development environment; one focused on touch buttons and without having to startx first? Many thanks!
W4LKS
The touchscreen does not seem to be calibrated for use with GPM. GPM allows a mouse to be used while it text mode. For mouse aware text mode programs like MC and LINKS, where you touch the screen is NOT where the mouse pointer goes. It’s goofed up.
Peter Meijer
Does anyone have a wall mount solution for this display?
Thanks!
Peter
Matt
This will be buried under the 200+ comments, but there is a MAJOR fault with this screen – it’s been built with all the mounts upside down. When you put the pi in place and mount it on the official bracket, the viewing angle is terrible. It can’t be viewed from even a few degrees above horizontal. Turn it upside down, and it looks great. But that way up the power and headphones sockets are not accessible – they’re at the bottom.
This appears to be a major screw up. I assume it will be fixed eventually, but I feel I’ve wasted £60 on a screen that can’t be viewed properly.
Tom Karches
Perhaps a longer ribbon cable and rotating the board 180 degrees could fix this.
Matt
I’ve already ordered one. The official stand isn’t reversible, though, so I’ll have to try and fudge my own legs for it.
W4LKS
You are right!
It looks like the Foundation agreed. I did an apt upgrade today and after doing so, the screen image has been flipped 180 degrees. Now it looks good looking down at it. But my improvised stand has to be re-engineered. It will be worth it though. It is much easier to see now. And looking down at it allows you to see the flashing cursor when it’s on the bottom line.
Stew Skinner
I guess there is no way to get this touchscreen to work with ubuntu-Mate?!
Has anyone been able to get it to work with MATE?
Hasan
Has anybody tried to use the touch display with Raspbian Jessie?
Michael
Yes – works fine – both: X or kivy (must change the input-section) …
David Pease
Help! I followed the installation instructions at this URL exactly, then double-checked with the official Kivy install instructions for RPi. However, when I try to run any Kivy program, Kivy just appears to hang after this message “[INFO ] [Window ] Provider: egl_rpi”. I’ve searched Google, double-checked patches, checked paths, run as root, but no joy. It seems to have worked for everyone else. Any help gratefully accepted! (BTW, I am using a Pi V2, if that makes any difference.) Thanks, -David
Tim
I’ve noticed the same thing from time to time. I haven’t gotten it narrowed down to what is causing it yet. However, a quick reboot if it does it and all the sudden it works perfectly fine. No changes to anything else. With that, it would seem that something isn’t getting loaded quite right during boot up. But, that’s just a guess.
Kai Klama
Hi Gordon,
very nice instruction and very nice touch display.
After typing the commands of “using the display”, the display commands and windows are upside down.
Tom
display_default_lcd=0 doesnt seem to set HDMI active again for me.
Brian Amos
Gordon,
You mention in this post that you’ve selected an industrial display with a “long” guaranteed support lifespan so you won’t need to redesign frequently. How long do you expect this display – or a “drop-in” successor to be available?
Thaddeus W
Lovely screen. Worked right out of the box on my RPi2. And the cost is amazingly low compared to other alternatives. I have been waiting for this.
Few gripes though:
-The instructions are lacking. Why do I have to search for instructions on a reseller’s (Farnell) website and not on the raspberry pi website?
-Nothing says what you are supposed to do with the extra three I2C and interrupt pins on the header. You even supply two more jumpers, but not three, which is confusing. Are they for touch? Can it be used to control brightness? Is INT not needed? Vague and confusing.
-No stand. How much more would a set of cheap plastic legs and four screws cost? Two simple plastic legs that screw to the four spare holes would work perfectly and only cost a few p.
Gary Johnson
I can not get the screen to power up
I have red and green solid lights
Tried 3 different SD cards
Re hooked up cables
Still nothing
Any thoughts out there?
Gary
Teo
I’m missing something basic: how is $65 a good deal when I can buy a kick ass Kindle Fire for $45? $65 + cost of Pi + case = more than a touch screen PoE Laptop. I know I’m probably wrong somewhere, why is this display a good deal?
James Hughes
Because you can plug it in to a Pi?
Teo
Wow, if you’re being serious, then our community is in trouble. Smaller. Faster. Cheaper. That last point is extremely important if Pi is going to move forward. The screen resolution can be absolute crap, but the price needs to be closer to $5 – $7.50. We are 10x too expensive for this to take off beyond nerds geeking out on their work bench.
Werner Hartnagel
This display is rather expensive for the specs and indeed not a good deal. The low screen resulution limits many use cases. I would like to build a tablet, but 800×480 px? That was the resulution of my first Smartphone (Galaxy S1). Please upgrade to FullHD or at least 720p. We dont need 3 different Raspberry Pi.
Just 2 is better:
Raspberry Pi 2
Raspberry Pi 2 mini
(no LAN but wifi and only 1 usb, flat design ideal for build DIY tablet or other small devices)
xaRPI
I have changed the framebuffer size (in config.txt) to 1280 x 720. I also disabled the overscan so the display goes right to the edges.
Not sure if I happen to been sent a particularly good display, or there is some technical reason (EMI/RFI for CE approval or something?) for the official spec to be so low.
Tried it out with omxplayer with different resolution video files with no problems.
Obviously it makes it harder to use as a touchscreen (but certainly not impossible).
I haven’t seen anyone else mention trying this in the forums for some reason.
LeZandre
The native resolution of the screen is 800X480.
If you take a closer look at your desktop, or even at the lines of text scrolling when booting, you might notice lines are missing when you are running a higher resolution than native. The screen hardware just scales everything down to native.
I’ve got CarPC screens with native 800×480 that can handle full HD input, but they just scale that down to 800×480 as well.
Joel Zeller
Will you be able to control the brightness of the screen within a python program? (Slider in Kivy)? Thanks!
Sid
I’d really appreciate it if someone tells me whether it works with Kodi or not.
Thanks :-)
Paul Webster
Yes it does – including the touchscreen – at least via OSMC.
Ace
Is it IPS? Can you use remove the thick bezel in the pictures? I need a screen with a thin bezel.
Enrico
About supports … Take a look to this (and the prototype building on Element14 post too) …
You can find it here: https://drobott.com/item/129/Raspberry-PI-7andquot-Touch-Screen-Display-Custom-Frame
Cheers
Nick
Just got a display. Works great except I had to re-noobs the OS and upgrade to make it work. I think I had done something to for the HDMI to be the primary. But now on to the question:
I want run a camera and the display, which works, but I want it packaged up pretty with no dangly bits. I’ve seen that element14 sells a case for the display with Pi mounted, but it doesn’t look like there is a pin hole for the camera. 1) Is there? and if not 2) does anyone make such a beast? I really don’t want to use a USB camera, because I’m trying to keep the wires down to just a power cord.
pax
first the rpi2 got an external ram chip,
and now a controller board is needed for the display!
soc == system on a chip ?
Christopher Masto
I bought one of these and while it works fairly well, I’m very disappointed at the poor alignment of the screen within the frame. There’s a huge gap on the left and top, and the screen is kind of crooked. It’s enough to cut off text and scrollbars on the right side of the screen, as they’re under the bezel. For a premium price, it’s rather chintzy looking.
http://imgur.com/a/cVl7N
Hezarfen
Is there a fitting battery for this contraption!
alberto62
It works quite well (more precise than other one I have). Therefore, at first, the touch stopped randomly working and sometimes, at boot, the touch didn’t start (I had to reboot). After an update of library the touch is always working but my GPIO, randomly, stops working, all pins don’t comunicate with PI2. Anyone has the same problem?
thanks
gigapouch
Is this going to be available on Amazon for $60?
Raz
Is there a CAD model available for the touch screen ?
Carlo Maria Curinga
Hi there! any way to make this device seen as a touch input device? e.g. trying to enable webkit”–touch-devices” flag on chrome ends with an error, while usb HID touchscreens work as intended
Petr
Hi there,
is it possible to remove a display black frame to obtain smaller size which passes 2dim/2iso (approx. 188×110 mm) standard size? Thank you.
LeZandre
The whole touchscreen just comes off after a couple of weeks, if that’s any help.
Cutting the touchscreen up to make it smaller isn’t an option though.
Jimm Pratt
My Raspberry Pi 7″ Touchscreen Display arrived a few days ago, with Jade cover.
Pimoroni Ltd parcel number 15505356711121
order #RASPI-24377 via Pi Swag
Got it up and running with little fuss (after upgrading the firmware and flipping the image right-side up) and appears to work quite well in terminal/text mode, but has an annoying white bar that blinks along the the top of the screen when i use the GUI (via startx). See video link for ‘live demonstration’: https://youtu.be/YCx9pve5RyI
Touch events seem to work, and I got the right-click (holding finger down a little longer) trick working – as seen in the video.
Anything I should be looking at? Almost get the impression it’s running at too high a resolution, but wanted to post my concerns here before I started tinkering with config files.
Aaron Peterson
Writing an app in JavaFX. Does anyone know if there is a work around for the app always giving an error when the touchscreen is pressed?
The error is :
SEVERE: 2919 udevInput.c:1596 lens_input_pointerEvents_handleSync: malformed multi touch event – ignoring
michael
How can i see if my display card works?
I have a black screen and if i try to use the powersteps with usb or gpio even my raspi is not lighting up.. please help..
Tom Kocialski
The display is a nice complement to the pi! Worked perfectly right out of the box after the required update. But…my grandson liked to play the IDLE games that came bundled with the Linux version I got with the pi. The update somehow made the IDLE games icon disappear from the startx desktop. Anyone else have this issue?
Tom Kocialski
I think I should have said that the “Python Games” icon disappeared…
raven
Do you have any experience of using this panel and windows 10. Earn touch screen. Will be able to identify the operating system this type of screen?
LeZandre
The first thing I had to deal with is the fact that the screen and stand seemed to be delivered for use in an upside-down position. Sure, there’s a software solution for that.
The second annoyance is the fact that there’s no way to switch off the display without cutting off the power to the display and raspberry pi entirely. Sure, I never figured out how to ‘wake-on-LAN’ the PI anyway.
Strike three is the fact it is falling apart after a couple of weeks. What use is a touch screen display when the touchscreen falls off?
There’s so much joy in being an early adopter.
I’m just wondering if the Foundation considers the launch of their ‘official Raspberry Pi touch display’ as a success.
roland
Hi,
I’ve followed exactly that instructions. Everything goes well. Exception: I can’t ust HDMI und LCS at the same time.
I’m able to switch with:
display_default_lcd=0/1
—-
But
# omxplayer –display=[1..5]
always raises an error:
The name org.allay.bus was not provided by any .service files. Dispay can not be opened: [1..5]
What am I doing wrong?
Thx
Roland
Brian
Roland,
I’ve been able to get omxplayer showing video on the touchscreen with
Output to touchscreen “–display 4”
Output to HDMI “–display 5”
-Brian
roland
A firmware update solved the problem. Now it works for me, too.
Thx
Roland
Gary
Got another of these today and the backplate is the correct way round. Fitted in to the backplate I have first time and all is up and running correctly.
I still have the faulty one and was wondering if I can somehow take off the metal backplate, spin it around and reattach?
tugce
My touchscreen doesn’t work. Gui is ok, but screen can’t sense my touchings. My raspbian is up to date. what should i do ? are there any driver for touch spec.
Sílthrim
I have my Pi connected to the display and it all works fine. The Problem is that the Pi doesn’t switch to HDMI if I connect a HDMI cable. The Display detects an input but remains black. As I add ‘display_default_lcd=0’ to the config.txt and reboot, the Pi now displays on the HDMI and the Touchscreen remains black, but if I disconnect the HDMI cable again and reboot, the touchscreen still remains black, because the Pi wants to display the content over HDMI. Is there a way to let the Pi automatically switch to HDMI if a HDMI cable is connected and switch back if not?
I’m using RetroPie 3.1
tanks for any help
David
Is there any configuration available to have DSI and HDMI active simultaneously under X-windows ? Could you provide me it ? I couldn’t be able to find it …
Pier Sante
Hi, after the latest system update the screen starts rotated by 180°. How can I setup the system to get back the orignal orientation suitable for the stand?
Sílthrim
http://forums.pimoroni.com/t/official-7-raspberry-pi-touch-screen-faq/959
Michael
PWM / power control still missing :-(.
When will it be available?
Gordon Hollingworth
This has been implemented and will be available in the next update. You can either wait for that or use rpi-update to get the latest firmware.
Gordon
David Walker
The screen uses the i2c bus – however
“sudo i2cdetect -y 1” doesn’t show up the device address, which – as I also want to use the I2C bus for other devices -is a problem.
Can anyone shed light on this?
Dan
I am having the same problem. My ADC uses i2c and I’m having issues. Any luck on your side?
Gordon Hollingworth
You cannot use this bus at the same time as the touchscreen, the GPU is responsible for controlling this bus not the ARM so there’s no way to lock one out while the other takes control
David in Munich
so what’s the purpose of the SDA / SCL wires to the Controller?
Mine works fine without them, also the touch screen.
Dave VanderWekke
Has anyone else noticed the bezel sliding or shifting from the LCD? If I have the screen just propped up it seems over time that the LCD slides downward off the bezel by a good 1/16 – 1/8 inch. The double sided adhesive they are using is garbage I guess. Very disappointing with this screen.
Rui Mendes
Same here, the touchscreen is “sliding” off the frame….There is others with the same problem: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=108&t=121898
It would be great to have a solution from the manufacturer…
cb
That is cool!But I want to know which System did you install?That makes the picture-operation smoothly.
lalith
Evrething done ones power off system show in the screen Mode Not Supported what is the cause for that.Lalith
Michael
PWM-state: annoying
Two months after release and nothing happens. No code, no timeline, no feedback. :-(
Andy
Hi,
how can I turn on/off the display seperatly? If I turn off the display (pull out the powersupply) and the raspi still running and turn the display turn on later again it shwos only a black screen :(((
Any ideas oder hints?
Best regards
Andy
Matteo
Hi, when the software backlight control will be available ?
ChrisG
I can only see the dsi cabel connected to the raspberry an no wire to the i2c pins. Is the ft5406 i2c interface and intterupt signal transfered through the DSI? And if yes is the touchscreen data transfered at the blanking periods of the displaydata?
Gordon Hollingworth
The I2C pins are in the DSI cable, but it is not communicating through the DSI bus.
Gerardo R. Roel
My screen works well but the touch panel fails: When I touch in a position the response affect to the entire row of the screen. In the graphics desktop when I touch the menu on the left all the programs in the bar (internet, Mathematica ..) are also open. On the Kivy examples is equal: I touch one button and all on the same row are pressed.
Is the touch screen defective?
Regards.
Gerardo R.Roel
“My touchscreen have ghost replies in the same horizontal line …”
When I touch with my other hand any metallic surface of the RPi/screen the touch works fine, I quit the hand and the ghosts are back.
????
Regards,
Gerardo R. Roel
Gerardo R.Roel
I replace the power supply by a 2 A Samsung tablet and the problem was solved. (For now). Anyway, the little square multicolor RPI appears when I turn on for a moment. (The cable is not too thick).
wallyware
I FINALLY GOT MINE! And I’m very pleased. The only quibble I have is that if I maximize a window, it places the top edge halfway down the screen.
Calum
The screen is just gorgeous. I am really pleased with it.
My only question is are we going to see one which is the same but omits the glass? The chassis plate, dsi cable etc. Just no glass.
Gordon Hollingworth
No we’re not intending of supplying a display without the touchscreen… Unless it is for someone wanting many ‘000s
Gordon
Peter Oakes
I am working on running this 7″ Display with Windows 10 IoT, the display of working great but not the touch feature
I have the touch controller up and running under polling and can read up to 5 point touch but want to use the INT pin which does not seem to work, it seems to he held low all the time
Any pointers here would be appreciated
Anurag Vasanwala
Hi Peter,
With the Windows IoT Core Insider Preview build 10556 (which is latest built in 2015), DSI display is supported but not the touch functionality. (config.txt must be modified properly to match the connected DSI display)
I also want touch support for the official RPi LCD 7″.
So I did some research and found following:
+ Official RPi 7″Touch LCD have FT5406 touch controller, which is I2C/SPI device.
+ I2C slave address of this touch controller “FT5406” is ‘0x38’ (at the end, I have provided google drive link to my research)
+ Display & touch signal(I2C) both are combined on DSI port.
+ This touch controller is connected to RPi2 (on I2C Bus) via DSI port(because RPi2’s DSI have I2C integrated).
Now, if we will be able to communicate with touch controller via I2C, we can read its registers and so can parse touch data directly from the touchscreen. I’ve just ordered one and waiting for the delivery. Once I got success communicating with the touch controller, I’ll update here and on hackster.
You can keep up-to date with my project articles for Windows IoT (RPi2) on http://www.hackster.io/AnuragVasanwala.
Touch Controller Research: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BwCCbOj3fbZGTXFMd0RNbnFCNUk&usp=sharing
Good Luck :)
John
Can you mount up Ubuntu Mate on this touchscreen?
Tenho
I struggled with the cable. As being minimalist, it’s just too long for me, especially when I want Rpi to be other way round to minimize depth of assembly. So I rotated thing around and ended up with this: http://m.muppis.net/20151128_134016.jpg
Cable now goes between boards and not disturb change of SD card. And USB power plug is now usable. One issue though, that USB plug is like 1 mm in wrong place and touches to display cable connector of Rpi. Design flaw, maybe?
Raynier
Hi guys,
Does anyone know when you connect through the GPIO jumpers, do you need to connect the power supply to the PI or to the screen?
Siddharth Lohani
Is the screen very good or bad?
Clive Beale
Very good.
Steve
Great display.
Is it possible to power the display through two of the 6 pins? Would make my setup easier because I would then not need to make a custom cord with micro-usb on one side and jumper pin connector on the other side!
sean
i have a problem the screen is upside down to the frame how do i have it the right way up
Sinan
I cannot use this screen with android 5.1. Is there any possible solution to my problem.
Kjell
Dont working, black screen.
Have run:
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
$ sudo reboot
I have powered Raspberry pi through screen (usb)
Raspberry pi run perfect
mike
Same thing here. HDMI working, but screen remains black.
AFV
Same here. I follow all instructions, the Pi works fine but the display is still black. I suspect there might be some power issue with the display and I will send it back if I don’t hear anything.
AFV
Never mind. Ignore my comment. I got it working. Thanks
Mike
What did you do to get it working?
Catherine
Can I get hold of the pinout for the topboard? I would like to see if I can use this top board to power any different displays.
Ganesh Raja
Waiting for the display – finally arrived. Now can think of exiting applications that we always wanted to do
Mathieu
Tom Murray has a great Kickstarter going for a display case here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/799765240/smartipi-touch-a-raspberry-pi-touch-stand
Hordur
I was previously using an hdmi touchscreen with an USB connector for the touch.
Now I want to switch to this new touchscreen.
Everything works fine except the touch.
Does someone know how to use the touch for this screen in a C-program? That is, when not running the desktop environment?
Hordur
I solved the problem.
In touch.c I had to change “/dev/input/event0” to “/dev/input/event1”.
George P. Schnyder
Is there a way to use the Display together with the HDMI mirrored? It’s no Prob if the Display scales down the HD Image from the HDMI, but that should be full res. I want to build a Arade Emulator thingie with the Possibility to watch on my Big screen or the Display.
David Huisman
Is there a cutout dimension for the 7″ display? I want to mount into my own enclosure.
The other thing that would be handy are 4 x metal clip to enable display to clamp display to box.
Harry H. Arends
New to Raspberry ….
So I have the 7″ display connected to my raspberry but nothing shows on the display. The only thing i have not is a HDMI display. MUST i buy also a HDMI display to get thinhs working?
Ariko
Hello !
About Screen, Is there a list of compatible led screen usable with internal connection on a RPI2 ?
I’m thinking about using a touchscreen 12″ flat led panel but how to be sure to connect them in right ways ?
Is there a ‘norme’ or reference between board and screen and connecting such device ?
Regards
:)
Harry H. Arends
Hello all,
On the 7″ display there is a USB port.
How can i use it?
Munchi3420Man
Hi, is there any way to install the drivers onto another distro, like say archlinux, or kali linux, so that i’m not just limited to 1 distro, Raspian.
SB
Is it just me, or does the picture showing the jumper wires have the power lead (the red one) connected to the wrong pin? All of the other tutorials I have seen show the power connected to the first pin in the row of pins on the Pi board, not the second pin. I am confused…
GvM
The second one is 5V as well.
The Passenger
At such a low resolution this display is a disappointment.
pavitra
i installed android os in raspberry pi 2. i want to connect lcd touch screen display. can i use same raspbian set up for this??
Spencer
would there be a way to connect it to the new raspberry pi 0?
andrea
Are there plans to develop a 10″ capacitive touch screen display for the RPi? We would be very interested.
Thanks
Thomas
I wanted to use this touch screen as a secondary display, so I used the “display_default_lcd=0” described in the article.
But how can I draw something on the LCD screen then? I expected that there should be a /dev/fb1 but there isn’t!
Any ideas? I don’t really need fast graphics on the LCD, so a simple framebuffer device should do.
gowan
What’s the environmental spec for this display?
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