FT812 and ESP32-DevKit V1 30 GPIO. How to use in Arduino IDE and Espressif IDE

[dhionnystrauss]

Dear Dr Riedel,
Thank you very much for the EVE Library. I appreciate it. I have an ESP32-DevKit V1 with 30 GPIO and a 5-inch TFT NHD-5.0-800480FT-CTXL-T with FT812 Driver. Also, I have the Espressif IDE and Arduino IDE running correctly on my PC. I am trying to use the FT800-FT813 library, but I could not even set up the right folder and file format for a Project in Espressif IDE and Arduino IDE. I appreciate your guidance on this Dr Riedel. Thank you so much.

[RudolphRrr]

Hi.
Not a doctor. :-)

I have not checked the Espressif IDE and quite frankly I have no idea why there had to be yet another IDE and I really do not like Eclipse.
Also it has been a while that I used the Arduino IDE - which version btw.?
I will check out Espressif IDE when I am back home.
Generally I recommend using PlatformIO with VSCode, but I also recognize that that PlatformIO has
a number of limitations, still it is the most unified development platform I found so far.

Generally it should look like what I am doing with Microchip Studio for ATSAM:
https://github.com/RudolphRiedel/FT800-FT813/tree/5.x/examples/EVE_Test_SAMC21_EVE2-50G

So I put a sub-folder with the library in the project folder.
I am using the same approach in the STM32 CubeIDE.
No idea what Espressif IDE projects look like.

And then the tricky part, afaik the Arduino IDE does not allow this, but the configuration of my library is supposed to be done with macros thru build flags, like -DEVE_SCK=12.
IDEs like Microchip Studio or STM32 CubeIDE allow these to be setup in the project configuration, PlatformIO has the platformio.ini for this.

If you can not set these thru the environment, you need to edit files in the library.
In EVE_config.h you could put
#define EVE_NHD_50
in line 92.

The pin configurations are either in
/EVE_target/EVE_target_Arduino_ESP32.h
or in
/EVE_target/EVE_target_ESP32.h

And there is support code in
EVE_cpp_target.cpp (Arduino)
or
EVE_target.c
However, this probably does not need to be adjusted.

[RudolphRiedel]

I am trying to download and install Espressif IDE, easier said than done.
Took me a while to find the Offline installer and it is only 3.1.0 with the most current version beeing 3.5.0.

Anyways, installed the GB monster, created a new C/C++ project which compiles.
I tried to update, does not work with all files selected.

Whatever, checked the project Properties and now I am lost because these are not actually the properties of my project.
I can't even find out how to set the optimization level.

Adding files to the project does nothing, they are displayed but not compiled, odd.

[dhionnystrauss]

Hello Rudolph. I have for you the Following, hopefully will help you Run the Espressif IDE nicely. https://docs.espressif.com/projects/espressif-ide/en/latest/index.html
https://docs.espressif.com/projects/arduino-esp32/en/latest/
https://espressif.github.io/esp32-c3-book-en/chapter_4/4.3/4.3.2.html
What ESP32 are you currently using Rudolph?
Let me tell you that I already downloaded Visual Studio and installed the Platform IO. Now trying to understand how to use it.
Thank you so much Rudolph. Very best regards to you. Thank you.

[RudolphRiedel]

If that works for you, just check out https://github.com/RudolphRiedel/FT800-FT813/tree/5.x/examples/EVE_Test_ESP32_PlatformIO :-)

[RudolphRiedel]

Looks ok to me.
https://github.com/RudolphRiedel/FT800-FT813/tree/5.x/examples/EVE_Test_Arduino_PlatformIO would be the one to check out then.

The only odd part about this is that it allows to build for a whole lot of different Arduinos, includin a couple of ESP32 variants.

[RudolphRrr]

I usually do not care much about the default project structure. :-)
For example, I would never split the source and the header files for a small project.

And in regards of this library here, I normally use a library reference and so PlatformIO downloads it and it lands in .pio.
I never tried to put a library folder in the lib folder.

[RudolphRiedel]

I just tried it and put the library in a /lib/EmbeddedVideoEngine folder, then I commented out lib_deps from the platformio.ini - and it just builds like that for the Arduino example.
Might not be as conveniant, but sometimes not having dependencies that could change is a good thing.
Good to know that PlatformIO works like this without the need to change anything like include paths.

[RudolphRrr]

I was travelling for my company the past two days, not like a vacation, but a lot of driving. :-)
And no, I have no experience with the SSD1936, apart from that I can not find cheap panels, I am quite happy with the EVE chips as I can connect these to practically anything and still get a high framerate at very little load on the controller and get highly responsive UIs.
Oh well, I would never again buy a panel with resistive touch, which adds to the challenge of finding panels.

[RudolphRiedel]

Hello, I see the program, but I wonder, why do I see the program. :-)
And I wonder now, why am I even looking at the progam. :-)

Anyways, looking for hspi->transfer I just found this: https://randomnerdtutorials.com/esp32-spi-communication-arduino/
So this is using the SPI class but not like one would expect if you are familiar with Arduino.

What I would do is to check with a logic-analyzer what the SPI is actually doing, instead of staring at the code.

But since I do not have this option, I am staring at the code a little.

hspi->begin(HSPI_SCLK, HSPI_MISO, HSPI_MOSI, HSPI_SS);

You are initializing the SPI class to use the chip-select pin, it is supposed to control it.
So every hspi->transfer() call should set and release chip-select.
Your multi-byte transfers should be a series of single byte transfers like this - which would obvious on a logic analyzer trace.

void loop() {

TFT_5_Init;
Exampledisp;
delay(10000);
}

Put the TFT_5_Init() call in setup, there is no need to reset the display over and over again.

spisnData8()

I see that it is not used in the code, and it has no use, this function has no purpose in contect of the EVE chips.

spisnData24(hspi, 0x610000); // Choose the system clock frequency, with an assumed value of 60MHz

This is sending the CLKSEL host command with the parameter byte set to 0 which results in the PLL clock set to default - 60MHz
Your comment is a bit odd.

int spireadRegBytes(int address4, int bytestoread)

int - yuck
And using a generic function instead of specialized functions "saves" memory, but wastes time.

hspi->transfer((address4 >> 16) & 0xFF); // READ (often indicated by MSB set to 1)

Does not make a difference, but the comment is plain wrong for EVE, MSB is 0 on READ.

hspi->transfer((address4) & 0xFF);

valueread = hspi->transfer(0x00); // Send dummy byte to receive data

It is necessary for READ operations to send another dummy byte after the address, so what you are currently reading
is not the actual result.

void spiwriteReg16(int address2, int value2)
hspi->transfer((address2 >> 16) & 0xFF); // Write command (often indicated by MSB set to 1)

Now the comment is more correct, but the MSB is not actually set.

hspi->transfer((value2 >> 8) & 0xFF);
hspi->transfer((value2)&0xFF);

For EVE, the endianess of the data is not the same as for the address, so for data you send the low byte first.

[dhionnystrauss]

Hello. Thank you, Rudolph. I am currently reading and updating your details. Thank you so much.

[RudolphRiedel]

Hello,

you did not fix the chip-select:

vspi->begin(VSPI_SCLK, VSPI_MISO, VSPI_MOSI, VSPI_SS);

This initializes the SPI class with automatic chip-select control and then you continue and try to use manual control as you need
to since you are doing multiple spi->transfer() for a single frame.
The result should be that for each byte transferred the chip-select goes low and high which is not what is needed.

I highly recommend getting a logic analyzer.
One of the very cheap and older "24 MHz" models would do, although would require to lower the SPI clock to not more than 6MHz and even then these barely allow to check what is basically going on.
There are newer models available, look for "Logic Analyzer V6.0 RP2350 Pico 2", I found these starting at $30.
These are based on this project: https://github.com/gusmanb/logicanalyzer.

[dhionnystrauss]

Hello Rudolph, yes, because in this case I am only using HSPI. And not declaring VSPI. Is this correct? Also do you mean that I would not need to put low manually the Chip Select because I am using already the spi->beginTransaction and spi->endTransaction?

[RudolphRiedel]

What I mean is, remove the chip-select from the call: vspi->begin(VSPI_SCLK, VSPI_MISO, VSPI_MOSI);

When you have it in the call you are telling the class to assert control over the pin.

[dhionnystrauss]

Okay. Thank you so much. I will try it in a few minutes. Thank you so much Rudolph.

[dhionnystrauss]

Also I saw this PIN 12 is also used for the MISO, right?

[RudolphRiedel]

You are right and I have no idea how I missed this, so select a different pin for PD.

[dhionnystrauss]

Also, I got everything connected already.

[RudolphRiedel]

Well, does it do anything?
And what does your hardware look like, especially how are you supplying power to the display?

Oh yes, what does it look like with the logic-analyzer?

[dhionnystrauss]

Tried to see if that had a Logic Analyzer but it shown a lot of noise I could not use it

[dhionnystrauss]

And Working My Friend!!!!

[RudolphRiedel]

Each target is build individually with the pins given for the target - and I needed to setup different pins for the boards I tested this with.

[RudolphRiedel]

Same as before.
To clarify, if the pins are not given, default values are used.
The ESP32 specific code is in src/target/EVE_target_Arduino_ESP32.h or EVE_target_ESP32.h

What I just noticed though is, that is not the Arduino example, that is the one that is ESP32 specific and for ESP-IDF.
The display code is the same, at the application level, the initialization in the main.c is different though.

[dhionnystrauss]

Well, I compiled. Downloaded and did not work in ESP32. Okay. I really appreciate your help on that Rudolph I can try it on my ESP32. Thanks

[RudolphRiedel]

That is odd, I tested that example before, but I guess I need to test it again.

[RudolphRiedel]

Ok, I got hit with this when trying to compile the ESP-IDF project for the ESP32-S2 I had lying around:
MissingPackageManifestError: Could not find one of 'package.json' manifest files in the package

I really like PlatformIO for how uncomplicated it usually is, then it pulls crap like this for no apparent reason that you can not repair.
The first reference I found was from the PlatformIO community, jan 2024, and what was tagged as "solution" was that it worked again after re-installing PIO - unbeliveable.

But well, I ended up deleting the whole .platformio folder after deleting packages and frameworks did not work.

I did not have to do anything, just wait for PIO to download the necessary packages, again.

And now I have the example code up and running on a RVT50H which has a BT817.

I am not sure where I left my other ESP32 boards, I do not need to clean my desk, I need to reset it. :-)