Adafruit
2.8 TFT Touch Shield for Arduino w/Capacitive Touch
The 2.8" TFT Touch Shield with Capacitive Touch plugs directly into an Arduino and provides a bright, full-colour display with a smooth glass capacitive touc...
The 2.8" TFT Touch Shield with Capacitive Touch plugs directly into an Arduino and provides a bright, full-colour display with a smooth glass capacitive touchscreen and onboard MicroSD card socket. Fully assembled and ready to use — no wiring or soldering required.
This shield uses SPI for the display and SD card, requiring fewer pins than older designs. The capacitive touchscreen controller communicates over I2C (which can be shared with other I2C devices), so the total pin count is low: 5 SPI pins for the display, 2 shared I2C pins for touch, and 1 additional pin for the MicroSD card.
Key Features
- 2.8" TFT LCD – 240×320 resolution with 18-bit colour (262,000 shades)
- Capacitive Touchscreen – Glass-covered single-touch input, no stylus required
- SPI Interface – Fewer pins needed, leaving more available for sensors and peripherals
- I2C Touch Controller – Shareable I2C bus for the capacitive touch input
- MicroSD Card Socket – Onboard slot for loading and displaying images
- Plug-and-Play – Fully assembled shield, no soldering required
- Built-in RAM Buffer – Minimal microcontroller workload
- Bright Backlight – 4 white LEDs for excellent visibility
Compatibility
- Direct fit: Arduino UNO, Duemilanove, Diecimila
- With 3 solder jumpers: Arduino Leonardo and Mega (full speed)
Ideal For
- Arduino touchscreen projects
- Interactive displays and menu systems
- Data dashboards and sensor readouts
- Image slideshow displays
Package Contents
- 1× 2.8" TFT Touch Shield with Capacitive Touch (fully assembled)
Resources
Jargon buster
Plain-language definitions for the technical terms used above.
- I2C
- I2C is a two-wire communication bus used by many sensors and small modules. It matters because several I2C devices can share the same two wires, but each device needs a compatible address and your controller must support I2C.
- LCD
- LCD stands for liquid crystal display, a screen technology that uses a backlight and liquid crystals to show images or text. It matters because LCD modules usually need a display driver and enough controller pins or a bus interface to send image data.
- microcontroller
- A microcontroller is a small computer on a chip that runs your program and controls connected inputs and outputs. For this product, it is the part that reads buttons and sensors, drives the display and speaker, and communicates over Bluetooth.
- microSD card
- A microSD card is a small removable memory card used to store files such as audio tracks. For this product, the card is where the sound files live, so its capacity and formatting can affect how many sounds you can use.
- RAM
- RAM is temporary memory used while a device is running, and its contents are lost when power is removed. A “Run in RAM” mode is useful for testing settings without permanently programming the module, but it may not support every feature.
- Shield
- An add-on board that plugs into a main controller board to give it extra features such as sensing, motor control or communication. Knowing a product supports shields helps you judge whether it can connect neatly into an existing maker-board setup.
- SPI
- A fast serial communication bus often used for displays, memory cards, and sensors. It matters because SPI devices need specific pins for clock and data, plus a separate chip-select line for each device.
- TFT
- A thin-film transistor display is a common type of colour LCD used for graphics screens. Knowing a product is for TFTs helps you check that the driver board matches the display’s connector, resolution, backlight, and signalling method.
Find this product in
Displays & Screens
Related Tutorials
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