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Add a 4 inch Waveshare display spi touch

mini11 21 June 2022 pCP 7.0.0 Projects  •  •
Waveshare 4 inch resistive display, spi Touch, 480×800, HDMI, with piCorePlayer.

4 inch display

4 inch display

Step 1 - Connect the display to your Raspberry PI
  • Plug the display directly on the GPIO pins of your RPi and connect the HDMI plug with an HDMI-adaptor.

4 inch display

If you need additional pins for other purpose, wire the pins 1, 2, 6, 19, 21, 22, 23, 26) and connect the HDMI-Plug with a HDMI Cable.

Pin Symbol Discription
1 3,3 V Power positive (3.3V power input)
2 5 V Power positive (5V power input)
6 GND Ground
19 TP_SI SPI data input of Touch Panel
21 TP_SO SPI data output of Touch Panel
22 TP_IRQ Touch Panel interrupt
23 TP_SCK SPI clock of Touch Panel
26 TP_CS Touch Panel chip selection
Step 2 - Prepare SD card
  • Put a fresh pCP image on to the SD card—see Burn piCorePlayer onto a SD card.
  • While the SD card is still in the laptop/pc:
    • Enter wifi credentials in wpa_supplicant.conf.sample at the end of the file and “save as” wpa_supplicant.conf.
# This is the details about your Wireless network. Configure as needed.
# Most will just need to change the ssid and psk.

network={
        ssid="your ssid"
        psk="your password"
        key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
        auth_alg=OPEN
- Add the following lines to config.txt, in the Custom Configuration area at the end of the file (between the Begin-Custom and End-Custom lines).
#---Begin-Custom-(Do not alter Begin or End Tags)-----
disable_splash=1
avoid_warnings=2
gpu_mem=128 
hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=87
hdmi_cvt 480 800 60 6 0 0 0
dtoverlay=ads7846,cs=1,penirq=25,penirq_pull=2,speed=50000,keep_vref_on=0,swapxy=0,pmax=255,xohms=150,xmin=200,xmax=3900,ymin=200,ymax=3900
display_rotate=3
#---End-Custom------------------------
  • Comment out the gpu_mem=16 and lcd_rotate=2 default settings by putting an # at the beginning of the line.
  • Save your changes.
Info

You find these two files in your Windows Explorer in root-section of the pcp_boot drive.

Step 3 - Boot Raspberry Pi
  • Put the SD card in your RPi and boot.
  • Find the IP address of the RPi, and enter this in a browser—see Determine your piCorePlayer IP address.
  • Once the RPi has booted up, this should bring up the pCP web interface.
    • On [Main Page] scroll down to “Additional functions” and click on “Extensions”. Wait for green ticks, then click on the [Available] tab.

devices

  • In the ‘Available extensions in the piCorePlayer repository’ section.

devices

  • Load nano.tcz extension.
  • Install Jivelite from the [Tweaks page] (this step includes an automatic backup, so accept the reboot prompt.)
  • After the reboot do not configure jivelite – we’ll do this later!
Step 4 - Make a custom jivelite.sh startup script
  • Login to your RPi via ssh (software=putty – user: tc, password: piCore) and look, if your changes of step 2 work:
  • Insert the following command:

$ cat /proc/bus/input/devices

  • You see your connected input-devices (ie. touchscreen, mouse or IR-receiver)

devices

  • Take note of “Waveshare” and “event1” (If you do not use additional input devices (ie. IR-receiver), the input device may be event0).
Step 5 - Creating the jivelite.sh
  • Still connected by ssh, insert the following command:

$ sudo nano /mnt/mmcblk0p2/tce/jivelite.sh

  • Put into the empty file (copy and paste) the following script:

#!/bin/sh
# Disable mouse pointer
export JIVE_NOCURSOR=1
# Set touch calibration file
TSLIB_CALIBFILE=/usr/local/etc/pointercal
# Jivelite interface framerate
export JIVE_FRAMERATE=22
# Set Touch input device 
export TSLIB_TSDEVICE=/dev/input/event1 # This might be event0 in some cases
export SDL_MOUSEDRV=TSLIB
# Define custom Skin size
# scale to 800x480. This could be any size to scale interface.
export JL_SCREEN_WIDTH=800
export JL_SCREEN_HEIGHT=480
# Set custom screen resolution
/usr/sbin/fbset -xres 800 -yres 480
# Run Jivelite
while true; do
    /opt/jivelite/bin/jivelite >> /var/log/jivelite.log 2>&1
    sleep 3
done
  • Usually we do not need a script for that resolution in Jivelite. It is standard and many skins work with that resolution. For this purpose, we need the script to define the touchscreen as input-device and to hide the cursor.
  • Save your changes and exit nano (Ctrl+X and confirm by pressing y).
Info

  • Make the new custom jivelite.sh script executable with:

$ sudo chmod +x /mnt/mmcblk0p2/tce/jivelite.sh

  • Go to Web-Gui of piCorePlayer, section [Tweaks] and set “Jivelite Autostart” to “no”.
  • Reboot your RPi.
Step 5 - Calibrate Touchscreen

$ sudo TSLIB_FBDEVICE=/dev/fb0 TSLIB_TSDEVICE=/dev/input/event1 /usr/local/bin/ts_calibrate

  • Click the 5 calibration points properly.
  • Make your calibration persistent:

$ pcp bu

  • Go to the WebGui of piCorePlayer, section [Tweaks] and set “Jivelite Autostart” to “yes”.
  • Reboot your RPi.
    • After the reboot, the touch of the display should work fine.
Step 6 - Configure Jivelite
  • Connect a mouse or an IR-remote to the device to configure jivelite.
  • Choose your language and in the next menu select GridSkin 800x480 or jogglerskin. Both work fine with that resolution.
  • Configure the additional settings (time, background and so on).
  • Save your changes in Jivelite Settings (Settings > piCorePlayer > Save Settings to SD-Card).

More information

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