Final week we efficiently obtained an ESP32-S3 board and LCD display speaking over an 8-bit parallel connection; doubtlessly a lot sooner than the same old SPI interface that’s used. Some configurations had been producing visible glitches although. And whereas quick, we couldn’t push it absolutely to the speeds anticipated.
Was the issue with our code (regardless of following the examples), some limitations or quirks of the {hardware}, or unresolved points in Espressif’s libraries referring to the LCD? Two of those had been untestable…however the third, the libraries, we even have choices…
Espressif’s ESP-IDF framework might be accessed a few alternative ways:
The ESP-IDF model bundled with the Arduino board bundle tends to lag the most recent code considerably…it seems to be like a brand new launch is made roughly quarterly, bringing the present ESP-IDF launch snapshot on the time, whereas the mainline department continues to evolve.
LCD assist is so important in gadgets at the moment, I simply had a hunch this may be one of many advanced areas. If I switched from Arduino improvement to Espressif’s command line instruments, the glitches and velocity points would possibly clear up on their very own. I’d been favoring Arduino-centered improvement largely as a result of its extensive adoption makes it simpler to share code and initiatives…however a little bit bit, additionally, I’d simply been dreading one more one-off toolchain set up that’s disagreeable to make use of or ill-supported. However I had to confirm the advanced library concept…
And because it seems, the ESP-IDF command line instruments are a breeze! Setup and primary use is summarized proper there within the top-level README…
The construct instruments work nice on Home windows, Linux or Mac (I hate needing to deliver out a second machine or arrange a VM for one vendor’s instruments). And the “menuconfig” device is de facto fascinating to idiot round with. To construct and add one of many instance initiatives, the identical idf.py script performs a number of completely different actions: set-target, menuconfig, construct, flash and monitor.
And positive sufficient, the newer LCD-related library code resolved all of the previously-seen points; byte swapping in {hardware} labored with out visible glitches, and we might now drive the parallel connection as much as 20 MHz (16 MHz with graphics information in PSRAM), refreshing the display at 70 Hz. Buttery easy!
Only a few days in the past, the ESP32 Arduino boards bundle noticed a brand new launch, bringing with it an up to date ESP-IDF…and positive sufficient, this model consists of the LCD fixes! So it’s good to know that both strategy — Arduino or command line — are strong choices now.
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