PiCB-TFT

Description

this project came about when i decided to try and build a gameboy advance with a pi zero in there. all the ili9341 screens you can buy have the connections on the end, which both get in the way, and stop you trimming them down!!

so i decided to make a better board for these screens, and while i was at it, i thought i may as well tack the Pi on the back too!!

the device could actually be used for anything. the 8 mounting points are drilled to make it easier to remove them if they are no needed, thus adding flexability.

the pins at the bottom of the board allow access to the 22 x unused gpio ports, 4 x 5v pins (in or out), 4 x 3.3v pins, and 8 x gnd pins (ignore the spare wire, thats to fix a fault in the board ;) )

if you fancy making your own, the board is on OSH park https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/WlYzXwyM

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Power Testing
moosepr • 03/21/2017 at 10:06 • 0 comments

So i thought i would do the obligatory power test on the new board
we are running a new Zero W, with wifi and bluetooth on, keyboard and mouse attached via the bluetooth (microsoft wedge)
fired up firefox and clicked the first youtube video to keep the cpu at full tilt, and the most i saw on the power meter was 0.26ma

sat idle on the desktop was flitting round the 0.13ma mark

had it on while installling the xserver and xfce desktop environment, and some playing, and its only used just over 300mah in just under 2 hours

now even if my previous tests showing the guage is about 10% out, thats still not bad!!!!

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Discussions

Miroslav Zuzelka wrote 01/30/2018 at 00:09

Hi, awesome project. Can I ask what resolution is this screen and do you have link, so I can buy some? Many thanks.

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moosepr wrote 01/30/2018 at 11:39

hi there. It is a basic 2.8" 18 pin ili9341 screen. It has a 240x320 resolution, and i normally just grab them from china like this https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1pcs-2-8-inch-TFT-LCD-Module-without-Touch-Panel-ILI9341-Drive-IC-240-RGB-320/32845973656.html

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moosepr wrote 07/25/2017 at 17:47

Yeah I'm using smd pad and soldering the pi flat against that. Makes it a pain to solder, but super skinny

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jaromir.sukuba wrote 07/25/2017 at 18:33

Do you reflow the pads with solder paste/hot air, or just manually with solder/soldering iron?

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moosepr wrote 07/25/2017 at 22:25

It's currently manual solder. Tin the board, flux the pads then solder through from the top. You get the odd bad joint but it's normally easy to fix. I have pondered solder paste and hot air, but my worry is floating the pi processor off its balls

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jaromir.sukuba wrote 07/26/2017 at 12:42

My hot-air is Atten 858D and works just fine for occasional low-volume jobs and hobby work. You can order it from usual Asian sources for price as low as 35-40USD, just enter "858d hot air" into aliexpress search. Years ago I bought it locally for 38EUR and works with no problems whatsoever.

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jaromir.sukuba wrote 07/26/2017 at 10:57

If you are worried about the CPU, you can cover it with something, Kapton tape is common for this task, I love to use aluminum adhesive tape. Just cover parts that are sensitive to heat and you can apply hot air as needed. I use this technique to shield thermoplastic connectors when doing rework on populated boards.

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moosepr wrote 07/26/2017 at 11:11

ah ok. I dont actually have any 'proper' hot air gear. just a paint stripper currently. Might have to upgrade once I have space

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jaromir.sukuba wrote 07/25/2017 at 13:46

From pictures I can't tell - how do you solder the pi zero to ley flat on your PCB? Or is there clearance between your PCB and pi?

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PiCB-TFT

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