Arduino HMI shield powered by advanced graphics controller

22nd August 2016

Mick Elliott

0 0

CleO, thetouch-enabled display shield from FTDI Chip is in stock at Mouser Electronics. Using this intelligent, simple-to-program, full colour TFT display board, engineers of all experience levels can develop imaginative and compelling human machine interfaces (HMIs) while taking advantage of extensive tutorials with over 80 different programming topics and 20 example projects.

Featuring FTDI Chip’s highly advanced graphics controller and microcontroller technologies, CleO provides the Arduino market with a display solution that possesses exceptional capabilities.

CleO features an HVGA 320 × 480 pixel resolution, 3.5-inch TFT display with resistive touchscreen that enables smooth animation of anti-aliased graphics or video playback at rates of up to 60fps.

An FTDI Chip FT810 embedded video engine (EVE) IC powers the HMI operation, while a low-power, 3.1 DMIPs/MHz FT903 Super-Bridge microcontroller offers access to an Arduino Uno over SPI and a central hub for fast interface accessories, such as a camera.

The board incorporates 8 MBytes of eFlash memory for embedded data storage of display or audio objects, with a Micro-SD card socket for external storage up to 32 GBytes.

Connectivity options include an SPI interface to the main system’s processing resource, a parallel camera interface, FT903 input/output (I/O) expansion, and USB DFU port for firmware updates.

The shield’s PWM audio output and built-in speaker amplifier facilitate incorporation of sounds into the HMI implementation.

For optimum performance, engineers can drive CleO using FTDI Chip’s NerO, an energy-efficient, Arduino Uno R3-compatible module, which can provide 1A at 5V without overheating.

With the NerO, engineers can power CleO’s display simultaneously with accessories like the CleO speaker and 5 megapixel CleO camera.

The long pin version of the NerO allows engineers to mount it directly to CleO, leaving the shield headers fully exposed for further I/O expansion.

If using a board other than NerO, engineers can use the CleO-RIO module, which provides pins and reverse-I/O capabilities necessary to connect an Arduino Uno-compatible board.