Add a 3.5 inch display

piCorePlayer by default supports the official Raspberry Pi Touch Display. However, there are dozens of displays available for the Raspberry Pi. These instructions are for a generic Raspberry Pi 3.5" display but may also give clues on how to support other displays. A big thanks to nowhinjing for his Waveshare 4.1 TFT + piCorePlayer + Jivelite tutorial which was used as a starting point.

What was used #

Hardware #

• Raspberry Pi 3B—see Components - Raspberry Pi.
• A 3.5 TFT screen - 3.5inch RPi Display - 480x320 Pixel - XPT2046 Touch Controller
• 8GB SD card—see Components - SD card.

Software #

• piCorePlayer 8.2.0-rc1—see piCorePlayer Downloads.

Steps #

Step 1 - Setup piCorePlayer

• Setup piCorePlayer—see Getting started.

Step 2 - Edit cmdline.txt

• Access piCorePlayer via ssh—see Access piCorePlayer via ssh.
• Edit the file cmdline.txt.
• Add fbcon=map:10 fbcon=font:ProFont6x11 logo.nologo to the end of the first line in cmdline.txt.

tc@pCP:~$ m1
tc@pCP:~$ c1
tc@pCP:/mnt/mmcblk0p1$ vicmd

tc@pCP:/mnt/mmcblk0p1$ cat cmdline.txt

tz=EST-10EST,M10.1.0,M4.1.0/3 dwc_otg.fiq_fsm_mask=0xF host=piCorePlayer dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=tty1 root=/dev/ram0 elevator=deadline rootwait quiet nortc loglevel=3 noembed smsc95xx.turbo_mode=N noswap consoleblank=0 waitusb=2 fbcon=map:10 fbcon=font:ProFont6x11 logo.nologo

Step 3 - Edit config.txt

• Access piCorePlayer via ssh—see Access piCorePlayer via ssh.
• Edit the file config.txt—see Edit config.txt.
• Add dtoverlay=piscreen,speed=24000000,rotate=90 between the lines starting with #—Begin-Custom and #—End-Custom in config.txt.

tc@pCP:~$ m1
tc@pCP:~$ c1
tc@pCP:/mnt/mmcblk0p1$ vicfg

• The bottom part of config.txt should end up looking like the following.

#Custom Configuration Area, for config settings that are not managed by pCP.
#pCP will retain these settings during insitu-update
#---Begin-Custom-(Do not alter Begin or End Tags)-----

dtoverlay=piscreen,speed=24000000,rotate=90

#---End-Custom-----------------------------------------

piscreen overlay description:

Name:   piscreen
Info:   PiScreen display by OzzMaker.com
Load:   dtoverlay=piscreen,<param>=<val>
Params: speed                   Display SPI bus speed

        rotate                  Display rotation {0,90,180,270}

        fps                     Delay between frame updates

        debug                   Debug output level {0-7}

        xohms                   Touchpanel sensitivity (X-plate resistance)

Step 4 - Resize root partition

Resize the root partition to give extra space to download extensions required by Jivelite.

• From the [Main Page] click the [Resize FS] button and choose to increase the size to at least 100 MB.

Step 5 - Load Jivelite extensions

The default skin and all its dependencies will be automatically loaded.

• From the [Main Page] and click the [Extensions] button at the end of the “Additional functions” section.
• Click the [Available] tab.
• Select the “pcp-jivelite_default-wav35skin.tcz” extension from the piCorePlayer main repository.
• Click the [Load] button.

This loads the following extensions.

-----pcp-jivelite_default-wav35skin.tcz
     |-----pcp-jivelite_wav35skin.tcz
     |     |-----pcp-jivelite.tcz
     |     |     |-----touchscreen-xxxxx.tcz
     |     |     |-----libts.tcz
     |     |     |-----pcp-lua.tcz
     |     |     |-----pcp-jivelite_hdskins.tcz

Step 6 - Backup and shutdown

• Backup and shutdown the Raspberry Pi.

  $ pcp bs

Step 7 - Add display

• Add the display on the Raspberry Pi.

Step 8 - Boot piCorePlayer

• Power on

Step 9 - Create jivelite.sh script

• Create a file jivelite.sh in directory /mnt/mmcblk0p2/tce/

  $ ce

  $ vi jivelite.sh

• Copy and paste the code below into jivelite.sh

#!/bin/sh

EVENTNO=$(cat /proc/bus/input/devices | awk '/ADS7846 Touchscreen/{for(a=0;a>=0;a++){getline;{if(/mouse/==1){ print $NF;exit 0;}}}}')

export JIVE_NOCURSOR=1
export SDL_VIDEODRIVER=fbcon
export SDL_FBDEV=/dev/fb1
export TSLIB_TSDEVICE=/dev/input/$EVENTNO
export SDL_MOUSEDRV=TSLIB

while true; do
    /opt/jivelite/bin/jivelite
    sleep 3
done

• Set jivelite.sh as executable.

  $ chmod 755 jivelite.sh

tc@pCP:~$ cat /proc/bus/input/devices | grep N:

N: Name="ADS7846 Touchscreen"

Step 10 - Calibrate Touch Display

$ sudo TSLIB_FBDEVICE=/dev/fb1 TSLIB_TSDEVICE=/dev/input/event0 /usr/local/bin/ts_calibrate

You should see the following 2 lines on the screen.

Touchscreen calibration utility
Touch crosshair to calibrate

• Touch the 5 crosshairs, 4 corners plus center.

xres = 480, yres = 320
Took 10 samples...
Top left : X = 3858 Y =  342
Took 12 samples...
Top right : X =  321 Y =  344
Took 3 samples...
Bot right : X =  315 Y = 3814
Took 12 samples...
Bot left : X = 3841 Y = 3734
Took 8 samples...
Center : X = 2078 Y = 2026
512.168335 -0.130261 -0.000433
-21.502014 0.001012 0.087424
Calibration constants: 33565464 -8536 -28 -1409156 66 5729 65536

Step 11 - Check calibration was successful

$ sudo TSLIB_FBDEVICE=/dev/fb1 TSLIB_TSDEVICE=/dev/input/event0 /usr/local/bin/ts_test

You should see the following 2 lines on the screen.

Touchscreen test program
Touch screen to move crosshair

• Move the stylus around the screen and the crosshair should follow.
• Touch [Quit] button on the top right to exit test.

1599049890.101942:    246    164      6
1599049890.121943:    246    164     19
1599049890.142008:    246    164     28
1599049890.161937:    246    164     31
1599049890.181949:    246    165     37
1599049890.207568:    247    165     40
1599049890.221956:    248    165     42
1599049890.242051:    249    165     43
1599049890.261960:    251    165     43
1599049890.281957:    252    165     42
1599049890.304261:    253    165     43
1599049890.321945:    255    165     42
tc@pCP:~$

Step 12 - Set Jivelite to Autostart

• Go to the [Tweaks] > “Jivelite Setup” page.
• Set “Set Autostart” to “Yes”.
• Click [Set Autostart] to save.
• Click [Main Page] > [Reboot].

Step 13 - Setup Jivelite

• Select language.

Step 14 - Backup

• Click [Main Page] > [Backup] to save Jivelite settings.

More information #

• Download piCorePlayer
• Burn piCorePlayer onto a SD card
• Determine your piCorePlayer IP address
• Access piCorePlayer via ssh
• Edit config.txt
• piCorePlayer aliases
• piCorePlayer CLI
• Basic vi commands
• Raspberry Pi config.cfg
• Waveshare 4.1 TFT + piCorePlayer + Jivelite
  • Develpoment thread
• Documentation / fb / fbcon.txt