Adafruit

3.5in 320x480 Capacitive Touch TFT Breakout Board

Name: 3.5in 320x480 Capacitive Touch TFT Breakout Board
Brand: Adafruit
SKU: AF-5846
Price: 98.2 AUD
Availability: OutOfStock

· MPN: ADA5846

Breakouts Displays Displays & User Interface LCD & OLED Displays Arduino Display Modules Touchscreens

$98.20 |

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This colour touchscreen LCD gives your project a bright, high-resolution interface with a 3.5" diagonal TFT panel and capacitive touch already attached. With...

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This colour touchscreen LCD gives your project a bright, high-resolution interface with a 3.5" diagonal TFT panel and capacitive touch already attached. With 480x320 pixels and individual RGB pixel control, it offers far more display space than small monochrome screens.

The onboard display controller includes RAM buffering, so the microcontroller does not have to do most of the heavy lifting. You can drive the display using either an 8-bit interface for speed or SPI when you want to keep the pin count down.

Touch communication uses I2C, with an optional IRQ pin for touch detection. If you are using the SPI and I2C interfaces, the built in EYESPI connector makes it quicker to hook up without a bundle of jumper wires.

Adafruit provides a detailed tutorial with wiring, test and example code. There are separate optimised graphics libraries for 8-bit and SPI use, plus a touch screen library that can detect up to 5 multi-touch points.

Features:

Colour TFT display: 3.5" diagonal screen for graphical projects.
Capacitive touch: Detects finger presses anywhere on the screen.
RAM-buffered controller: Built-in controller reduces the workload on your microcontroller.
Interface options: Supports 8-bit mode or SPI mode.
I2C touch interface: Uses I2C pins for touch screen communication.
Optional IRQ: IRQ pin available for touch screen detection.
EYESPI connector: Built in connector for quick SPI and I2C interfacing.
Graphics library: Open source 8-bit library can draw pixels, lines, rectangles, circles, text, and more.
SPI library: Separate SPI library is provided and heavily optimised.
Touch library: Detects up to 5 multi-touch points.
Example support: Tutorial includes wiring, test and example code.

Specifications:

Display size: 3.5" diagonal
Resolution: 480x320 pixels
Backlight: 6 white-LED backlight
Pixel control: Individual RGB pixel control
Touchscreen: Capacitive touchscreen attached
Display controller: Built into it with RAM buffering
Display interface modes: 8-bit or SPI
8-bit mode data lines: 8 digital data lines
8-bit mode control lines: 4 or 5 digital control lines
8-bit mode total lines: 12 lines total
SPI mode pins: 5 pins total (SPI data in, data out, clock, select, and d/c)
Touch communication: I2C pins are required
Touch IRQ: IRQ pin for the touch screen detection
Quick connector: Built in EYESPI connector for SPI and I2C interfaces
Multi-touch: Detects up to 5 multi-touch points

A great fit for interactive dashboards, handheld controllers, data displays, and other maker projects that need both colour graphics and touch input.

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.
IRQ: IRQ (interrupt request) is a signal line a device uses to alert a microcontroller that something needs attention, so the microcontroller does not have to poll continuously. Wiring an IRQ pin to a free input lets code respond promptly to events such as new data being ready.
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.
LED: A light-emitting diode (LED) is a small electronic component that emits light when current flows through it in the correct direction. Because it only conducts one way, its polarity matters, and a through-hole LED must be soldered the correct way around to light up.
microcontroller: A microcontroller is a small computer on a single chip that runs a stored program and controls connected inputs and outputs such as buttons, sensors, displays and communication interfaces. In a device built around one, it is the part that executes the code and coordinates the device's behaviour.
Multi-touch: Multi-touch means the touchscreen can detect more than one finger contact at the same time. This matters for interfaces that use gestures such as pinch-to-zoom, two-finger scrolling, or on-screen controls used together.
RAM: RAM (random-access memory) is fast, temporary memory a device uses for working data while it is running; in its common volatile form, its contents are lost when power is removed. Some devices offer a mode that applies settings to RAM only, which is handy for testing changes temporarily because they are not stored permanently and disappear at power-off.
RGB: Short for red, green and blue, the three primary colours of light that are mixed in varying amounts to make a wide range of colours. In electronics RGB can refer to an LED or pixel that blends these three colours, or to a colour signal or interface that carries separate red, green and blue channels.
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.