SPI Confusion Capacitive Touch TFT LCD Colour Display 3.5"

[Affinite]

I am trying to get a Rowland Technology ESP32 TFT display board to work with limited success.
Im hoping someone else has tried this board and got it to work.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/285173803237 ... p_homepage
I have loaded ESPEasy and the ILI9488 plugin.
The display works fine and so does the SD card but not at the same time.(They are both on the SPI interface but on different GPIO pin sets.)
If I configure ESPEasy Hardware for the TFT it works and if I configure ESPEasy Hardware for the SD card but obviously not at the same time.

ILI9488 TFT Display
Reset - IO27
Chip Select - IO32
Reg Select or D/C - IO33
MOSI - IO26
SCK - IO25
Backlight - IO23

SD Card
Chip Select - IO22
MOSI - IO19
MISO - IO18
SCK - IO17
Card Detect - IO5

I thought that SPI was a bus and that CS selected the device being addressed by the ESP32 so why have two SPI pin sets?

Am I missing something or do I need to get the soldering iron out and rewire both the SD card and the display chip onto the same MISO/MOSI ?

Seller seems reluctant to offer support except by pointing me to their git page.
The schematic on there confirms that hardware is connected as per the above table.
https://github.com/RowlandTechnology/CapTouchDisplay

No luck with the touch screen (I2C) either but im not really concerned abut that at the moment

[Ath]

Well, technically there is no reason to have multiple SPI busses to connect multiple devices, and ESPEasy only has limited support for that, as the secondary SPI is currently only used for some Ethernet devices.
The SD-Card can only be used from the primary SPI channel (CS set at the Hardware page), the same bus for the display. So if you are able to rewire the SD-card, that would be the only way to use both at the same time. (I guess that will be a bit tough to change MISO, MOSI and SCK)

The ebay link shows (at least) 3 different hardware versions, so not sure what exact version you have, ESP32 or ESP32-S3?
All boards mention the FT6236, and that's a supported touch panel, connected via I2C, plugin P123 (AFAICS, ESP32: SCL - IO15, SDA - IO16, ESP32-S3: SCL - IO47, SDA - IO48)

[TD-er]

The ESP32-xx MCU's have multiple SPI busses, but we don't have support yet in ESPEasy for multiple SPI busses.
So for now it will be a XOR choice for you to either use the LCD (x)or the SD card reader.

[TD-er]

I would not rewire the SPI bus to the SD-card as it probably has no level converters present and I guess the SPI signals of the display might be over 3V3.
This would probably damage any SD-card inserted into the slot.

[Affinite]

Thanks for the quick response guys and the explanation.
I'm playing with the ESP32 version as I really only wanted to use it as an "intelligent" display (similar to other recent threads on here) and will receive task values from my main ESP using P2P.
I want to display some fairly large bitmaps and so I do need both TFT and SD-Card to work together so I'll probably go ahead and try to modify the SPI hardware (with TD-er's warning regarding the logic voltages in the front of my mind)

BTW Are you aware of any similar ESPEasy-compatible display modules that do have ILI9488 TFT, SD-Card< Touch screen but do not have this SPI problem
Edit: Ignore that ... I can buy the same module without the ESP32. Its all 3.3v logic so Ive probably answered my own question

[Ath]

BTW Are you aware of any similar ESPEasy-compatible display modules that do have ILI9488 TFT, SD-Card< Touch screen but do not have this SPI problem

I've tested using this LilyGO TTGO Pi unit that matches most of your specs. And rather close is the WT32-SC01 (I prefer the 16MB Flash model), though that doesn't come with a SD card slot. Advantage of these 16MB models is that there's almost 8MB available for storage.

NB: not sure why you would want an ILI9488 chip, as that's quite bad when working with rotated text, I've had better results with the ILI9481 (usually the ILI9xxx chips come with TN display) and ST7796 (usually the ST77xx chips come with IPS displays).
NB2: The currently better available WS32-SC01-Plus (ESP32-S3 based) isn't yet supported because it uses an 8-bit IO interface for the display. That's a project waiting to be started though

[Affinite]

Thx Ton
Thanks for the suggestions
I actually did get it to work by simply putting jumpers to connect MOSI and SCK pins in parallel and configuring the other pins for TFT and SDCard respectively.
TFT works fine and I can display (small) bmp files from the internal flash but when I try and load the same bmp from SDCard it throws up a "File Signature error" in the log.
I didnt want to to ask for your help on this specific problem just yet - I was just looking at your previous responses to this error when I saw your post.

[Affinite]

I now have the TFT and the Touch screen working -
I want to display some bmp images but I cant get the SD card reader to work properly
I can read and display a bmp from the flash memory but not from the SDcard even though I can see the directory entry.
I have pretty much the same symptoms as reported in this old thread.
viewtopic.php?t=9781&hilit=sd+card+reader
Unfortunately that thread didnt seem to lead to a fix so I wondered if anyone has had any success using the SD-Card reader on an ESP32 TFT Display board ?

I have the same problem as ralphtopas displaying the file using rules but to simplfy things Ive tried the following tests:

My test file is called agm.bmp and is a 24 bit /26kKB colour image
If "agm.bmp" is on the ESP internal Flash filesystem I can click on it through File Browser and display it in the browser.
If "agm.bmp" is on SD card but not on Flash I can see the filename in the SD Card directory but it will not load/display.
If "agm.bmp" is on both File system and SD card I can (aparantly) load it by clicking on it in the SD card directory - but I think it is actually loading from Flash
(I cant confirm where it loaded from as the URL shows as "IPAddr/agm.bmp" regardless of where I click from)
I have verified that the file has been written correctly by uploading the test file to the SDcard using ESPEASY/Tools/SDCard/File upload and then removing the card and viewing it on my PC - image is fine

So it looks like I can write to the SDCard but I cant read from it just like the thread referenced above?

Anyone have any suggestions ?

[Ath]

I have tried to replicate the issue, but wasn't able to, when using a M5Stack unit (many have a SD-card connector installed).

I'll try to connect the SD-card on one of the external display/touch units I have lying around, to see if that might work less good than the M5Stack unit

[Affinite]

I have tried to replicate the issue, but wasn't able to, when using a M5Stack unit (many have a SD-card connector installed).

I'll try to connect the SD-card on one of the external display/touch units I have lying around, to see if that might work less good than the M5Stack unit

ton
Thanks for the offer but please dont spend any time on this on my account - I think the root of the problem is that my board hardware is just not designed for both the TFT and the SD Card reader in parallel on the SPI interface.
I tried various configurations this morning and I cant even get back to my (part working) situation with the SD card reader so I'm going to abandon this board and perhaps use it on a project that doesnt require additional storage.
For this project I'll buy a more ESPEasy-compatible board as per your suggestions above. (perhaps M5stack, although the screen is a little small)

Thanks again and sorry to waste your time on a bit of a dead end.
Have a good Christmas

[TD-er]

Don't yet throw away the board too far in your desk drawer.
In the not that distant future support for multiple SPI busses will be added to ESPEasy as it is required for some new platforms.

[Affinite]

[oaotto]

I also bought such a part when can one expect 2 SPI (SP32 Arduino LVGL WIFI & Bluetooth development board 2.8" 240*320 Smart Display Screen 2.8 inch LCD TFT module with touch WROOM)

?

Greetings Otto

[Aria James]

It looks like the TFT and SD card are on separate SPI buses, causing conflicts in ESPEasy. Try rewiring them to share MISO (IO18), MOSI (IO26), and SCK (IO25) while keeping separate CS pins. If ESPEasy doesn’t support multiple SPI devices, using TFT_eSPI in Arduino IDE might be a better solution.

[TD-er]

Ton is working on adding support for multiple SPI busses in ESPEasy.
Starting from scratch using Arduino IDE might not be the best way to go.
Especially since working with Arduino IDE on more than a hand full of files will be a good way to loose your mind.