BeagleBone LCD7

Descriptions
The BeagleBone LCD7 Cape provides an LCD solution with touchscreen capability for BeagleBone boards. The 7" TFT LCD screen, attached to the topside of the board, can display up to a resolution of 800x480 and is a 4-wire resistive touchscreen. The board is equipped with seven buttons located at finger-friendly positions. These buttons include power, reset, and five user buttons, which are mapped to different GPIO signals. The backside of the cape is where the BeagleBone and additional cape can be mounted.

Note: Bracket stands are not included

FAQ
Please visit our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page for additional help.

Revision A3
In revision A3 the Enter button has been moved from GPIO3_19 to GPIO0_3 and LCD_DVDD_EN has moved from GPIO1_31 to GPIO0_2. These changes in GPIOs are to support awake interrupt in sleeping mode.

The PCB revision is also changed from BB-Bone-LCD7-PCB-03 to BB-Bone-LCD7-PCB-04.

The latest revision A3 have 10 eMMC pins removed from the LCD7's expansion connector. This removal is due to the fact that this LCD7 Cape was originally designed for the BeagleBone (White); thus, when using with BeagleBone Black, these eMMC signals are subjected to load and noises, creating problems with booting and using the eMMC.

Revision A2
The only design change in A2 is that the LCD_AVDD_EN signal is moved from pin 42 of connector J2 to pin 20 of connector J1. In revision A1, LCD_AVDD_EN signal is mapped to GPIO0_7 which is also a DMA interrupt. By moving LCD_AVDD_EN signal, this DMA interrupt is now available when BeagleBone is used with LCD7 Cape. Both revisions should not have any functional difference.

The PCB revision is also changed from BB-Bone-LCD7-PCB-02 to BB-Bone-LCD7-PCB-03.

Revision A1
Initial release of BeagleBone LCD7 Cape

Known Issues
We have been reported by a small number of users that their LCD7 Capes revision A3 have some issues with BeagleBone Black. These issues could be hanging during boot or crashing when accessing Angstrom system menu. The LCD7 Cape was originally designed for BeagleBone (White), which boots from SD card. When using with BeagleBone Black and booting from eMMC, the integrity of eMMC signals on some LCD7 Cape may be affected. If your LCD7 Cape have this issue, there are three work-arounds below:  Note: if using this method, you need to purchase 2 cape expansion connectors for use on J1 and J2.
 * Boot your BeagleBone Black + LCD7 setup from SD card.
 * Cut 10 eMMC pins on connector J1 of your LCD7 Cape: 3-6, 20-25. You can visit this link for which pins are eMMC signals. The photo on the right shows J1 connector after the eMMC pins are removed.
 * Instead of permanently removing the eMMC pins on your LCD7 Cape, you can also use one of these Cape expansion connectors between the BeagleBone Black and LCD7 Cape. By using this connector, you can remove its eMMCs instead of the ones on LCD7 Cape. The photo on the right shows the Cape expansion connector is used and its eMMC pins are removed instead of the ones on LCD7 Cape.



Software Support

 * BeagleBone LCD7 Cape revision A1
 * Compatible with BeagleBone using Angstrom release 05-09-12 onward.
 * NOT compatible with BeagleBone Black


 * BeagleBone LCD7 Cape revision A2
 * Compatible with BeagleBone using Angstrom release 06-18-12 onward.
 * Compatible with BeagleBone Black using Angstrom release 2013-06-20 onward. However, only booting from SD card is supported. Note: Using Angstrom release earlier than 2013-06-20 on BeagleBone Black and LCD7 may DAMAGE your BeagleBone Black. Ensure you are using 2013-06-20 or later.


 * BeagleBone LCD7 Cape revision A3
 * Compatible with BeagleBone using Angstrom release 08-14-12 onward.
 * Compatible with BeagleBone Black using Angstrom release 2013-06-20 onward. Note: Using Angstrom release earlier than 2013-06-20 on BeagleBone Black and LCD7 may DAMAGE your BeagleBone Black. Ensure you are using 2013-06-20 or later.


 * Official BeagleBone Black image releases can be downloaded here
 * Official BeagleBone image releases can be downloaded here
 * Other BeagleBone image releases can be downloaded here

Please follow the instructions here to write the image file to your SD card on a Windows machine.

Getting Started
Required Setup:
 * A BeagleBone LCD7 Cape
 * A BeagleBone (with supported software)
 * A 5V DC power supply (we recommend 5V - 2A)
 * A Stylus (optional)

Following the instructions below to start using your BeagleBone LCD7 Cape:
 * 1) Mount the BeagleBone to the BeagleBone Connectors on the LCD7 Cape.
 * 2) * Note: The BeagleBone Connectors are the set of male connectors on the backside of the LCD7 Cape.
 * 3) Make sure the SD card using with BeagleBone has Angstrom image 6-18-12 or later.
 * 4) Plug in a 5V DC power supply to the DC connector on the LCD7 Cape.
 * 5) * Note: We recommend using a 5V - 2A supply. However, more current supply may be required if more capes or peripheral devices are connected.
 * 6) Following screens will be displayed on the LCD screen:
 * 7) * BeagleBone logo
 * 8) * Angstrom log-in prompt
 * 9) * Auto Calibration utility
 * 10) Follow the instructions given by the Auto Calibration utility to calibrate the LCD7 touchscreen.
 * 11) * Note: The Auto Calibration utility is automatically displayed when the card is used for the first time. This utility can be run again under menu System > Administration > Calibrate Touchsreen
 * 12) After calibrated, the Angstrom desktop will be displayed on the LCD screen.

You can start using the board.

Rotating LCD Screen
Thanks to Louis McCarthy and Gary Mort for the instructions below. These instructions were tested on "Linux beaglebone 3.8.13 #1 SMP Tue Jun 18 02:11:09 EDT 2013 armv7l GNU/Linux" release of Angstrom. The original thread on Google Groups can be found at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/beagleboard/9-MMmO66HrU

Rotating console
systemctl stop gdm echo 3 > /sys/class/graphics/fbcon/rotate systemctl restart gdm
 * To restart the display manager:

Using fbdev
opkg update opkg install xf86-video-fbdev Section "Device" Identifier "Builtin Default fbdev Device 0" Driver "fbdev" Option "Rotate" "CCW" EndSection Section "InputClass" Identifier "evdev touchscreen catchall" MatchIsTouchscreen "on" MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*" Driver "evdev" Option "SwapAxes" "true" Option "InvertX" "true" EndSection xinput set-int-prop "ti-tsc" "Evdev Axis Calibration" 32 3733 367 79 3992; xinput set-int-prop "ti-tsc" "Evdev Axes Swap" 8 1;
 * Edit the "Device" section of /etc/X11/xorg.conf to:
 * Add two Options to "evdev touchscreen catchall" identifier of /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-evdev.conf:
 * Modify /etc/pointercal.xinput to:

Specifications
Followings are some specifications of the BeagleBone LCD7 Cape:

Signal Usage
The BeagleBone LCD7 Cape uses 39 signals including:
 * VDD_3V3EXP
 * VDD_5V
 * DGND
 * PWR_BUT
 * SYSRESETn
 * GPIO1_28
 * EHRPWM1A
 * GPIO1_16
 * GPIO1_19
 * I2C2_SCL
 * I2C2_SDA
 * GPIO1_17
 * GPIO3_19
 * GPIO3_16
 * AIN0
 * AIN1
 * AIN2
 * AIN3
 * LCD_AVDD_EN
 * LCD_VSYNC
 * LCD_HSYNC
 * LCD_PCLK
 * LCD_EN
 * LCD_DATA[0..15]

Distributors

 * BoardZoo (USA)
 * Digikey (USA)
 * Farnell (UK)
 * Lextronic (France)
 * Mouser Electronics (USA)
 * Special Computing (USA)
 * Tenet Technetronics (India)
 * Tigal (Austria)

System Reference Manual

 * Latest

BeagleBone LCD7 Revision A3
To download all files at once please click here
 * Bill of Materials
 * Manufacturing Files
 * Schematic (PDF)
 * Schematic (OrCAD)

BeagleBone LCD7 Revision A2
To download all files at once please click here
 * Bill of Materials
 * Manufacturing Files
 * Schematic (PDF)
 * Schematic (OrCAD)

BeagleBone LCD7 Revision A1
To download all files at once please click here
 * Bill of Materials
 * Manufacturing Files
 * Schematic (PDF)
 * Schematic (OrCAD)

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