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Predefined Boards

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pschatzmann edited this page Sep 19, 2026 · 6 revisions

TinyGPU provides LCDBoard, a common interface that bundles a display, an optional touch controller, an I2S pin assignment (for the board's audio codec/amplifier, if any), and an LED pin assignment behind a single begin() call. Instead of hand-wiring the SPI/QSPI bus, backlight pin, display controller init sequence, and touch controller for a given board, you construct the matching LCDBoard subclass and call begin().

#include <TinyGPU.h>
#include <TinyGPU/Boards/LCDBoards.h>
#include <TinyGPU/Surface/SpriteDisplay.h>

ESP32CheapYellowDisplay board;      // pick the class matching your board
SpriteDisplay<RGB565> display(board);

void setup() {
  board.begin();
  display.begin();
}

#include <TinyGPU/Boards/LCDBoards.h> picks the right implementation for the current platform automatically:

  • ESP32 / ESP32-S3 / ESP32-P4 → LCDBoardsESP32.h (real hardware boards, listed below)
  • STM32 (STM32duino/Arduino_Core_STM32) → LCDBoardsSTM32.h (real hardware boards, listed below)
  • Desktop with SDL2 available → LCDBoardsSDL.h (LCDBoardDesktopSDL / DesktopSDL) - opens an SDL2 window and maps the mouse to touch, so sketches written against LCDBoard run unmodified on a desktop for testing without physical hardware
  • Everything else → LCDBoardsCommon.h (just the platform-independent interface, no concrete board)

Additionally, TinyGPU/Boards/LCDBoardsTFTeSPI.h (LCDBoardTFTeSPI) can be included explicitly, on any platform, to drive a panel through Bodmer's TFT_eSPI library instead - useful if you already have a working TFT_eSPI User_Setup.h (and touch calibration) for your panel and would rather reuse it than re-wire the same panel through the board-specific pin tables below. TFT_eSPI is a separate, optional Arduino library and must be installed alongside TinyGPU.

Only boards that actually have an LCD are covered here. These board classes are cross-referenced from the arduino-audio-tools wiki's LCD Boards with Audio page, which documents the audio-codec side (I2S setup, codec init) for the same boards in more detail - see that page for background on the ES8311/ NS4168/NS4150 codecs and amps referenced below.

Board overview

Board class (alias) Display Touch Audio Notes
LCDBoardESP32S3_2_8Display (FBBA0125_002, ESP32S3HosyondLCD) ILI9341, 240x320, SPI FT6336G, I2C ES8311 codec + FM8002E amp (I2S) "2.8" ESP32-S3 Display"
LCDBoardGuitionESP32S3_4_3Display (JC4827W543C_I) NV3041A, 480x272, QSPI GT911, I2C NS4168 amp, speaker-out only (I2S) Guition ESP32-S3 4.3" Capacitive Touch Display
LCDBoardGuitionESP32_LVGL_2_4Display (ESP32_2432S028R, ESP32CheapYellowDisplay) ILI9341, 240x320, SPI CST816S, I2C Built-in mono amp via internal DAC (analog, no I2S) ESP32 Cheap Yellow Display
LCDBoardGuitionESP32H4_4_3Display (JC4880P443C_I_W) ST7701, 480x800, MIPI-DSI GT911, I2C ES8311 codec + NS4150 amp, speaker-out only (I2S) Guition ESP32-P4 4.3" Capacitive Touch Display; requires TINYGPU_HAS_ESP_LCD_DSI; also has WiFi SDIO + SD_MMC pins and a battery ADC
LCDBoardWeActMiniSTM32H750 (MiniSTM32H750, MiniSTM32H7xx) ST7735, 160x80, hardware SPI4 none none WeAct MiniSTM32H7xx (STM32H750VBT6/STM32H743VIT6), bundled ribbon/FPC-mounted 0.96" TFT
LCDBoardSTM32F723Discovery (STM32F723Discovery) ST7789H2, 240x240, FMC (8080-parallel) FT6x06/FT3x67, via BSP none tracked (codec is on SAI, not I2S) STM32F723E-Discovery on-board LCD/touch; requires the separate stm32f723-disco library
LCDBoardDesktopSDL (DesktopSDL) SDL2 window, size set at construction (default 320x240) Mouse-as-touch (TouchDriverSDL) none Desktop-only, no hardware required
LCDBoardTFTeSPI Whatever User_Setup.h configures Optional, via TFT_eSPI none tracked Works on any platform TFT_eSPI supports

ESP32-S3 2.8" Display (FBBA0125-002 / ESP32-S3 Hosyond Display)

Class: LCDBoardESP32S3_2_8Display (aliases FBBA0125_002, ESP32S3HosyondLCD)

ESP32-S3 2.8" Display
  • Display: ILI9341, 240x320, SPI - CS=10 DC=46 SCK=12 MOSI=11 MISO=13 BL=45. RST is tied to the board's EN line (no dedicated reset pin). Color inversion is enabled in begin() or colors render wrong on real hardware.
  • Touch: FT6336G (register-compatible with TouchDriverFT6236), I2C - SDA=16 SCL=15 RST=18, physical IRQ=17 (left unwired, forcing register polling).
  • Audio: ES8311 I2S codec - MCLK=4 BCK=5 WS=7 DOUT=8 DIN=6. Speaker amp (FM8002E) enable pin: IO1, active low. The codec needs its own I2C init (volume, mic gain, ...) that plain I2SStream does not provide - prefer arduino-audio-driver's ESP32S3HosyondDisplay board definition, which owns codec init and I2S pins together.
  • LED: single WS2812-compatible RGB LED on IO42.

Guition ESP32-S3 4.3" Capacitive Touch Display (JC4827W543C_I)

Class: LCDBoardGuitionESP32S3_4_3Display (alias JC4827W543C_I)

Guition ESP32-S3 4.3" Capacitive Touch Display
  • Display: NV3041A, 480x272, QSPI - CS=45 SCLK=47 D0=21 D1=48 D2=40 D3=39 BL=1, 32MHz.
  • Touch: GT911, I2C - SDA=8 SCL=4 INT=3 RST=38, address 0x5D.
  • Audio: NS4168 speaker amp, I2S - BCK=42 WS=2 DATA=41. No codec and no mic on this board (speaker output only), so a plain I2SStream is sufficient.
  • LED: none.

ESP32 Cheap Yellow Display (ESP32-2432S028R)

Class: LCDBoardGuitionESP32_LVGL_2_4Display (aliases ESP32_2432S028R, ESP32CheapYellowDisplay)

Also sold as "ESP32 Arduino LVGL WiFi&Bluetooth Development Board, 2.4" LCD TFT Module". This is the board TinyGPU's own examples (e.g. color-test) are tested against.

ESP32 Cheap Yellow Display
  • Display: ILI9341, 240x320, SPI - CS=15 DC=2 SCK=14 MOSI=13 MISO=12 RST=-1 BL=27.
  • Touch: CST816S, I2C - SDA=33 SCL=32 IRQ=36 (no RST pin wired).
  • Audio: built-in mono amplifier driven from the ESP32's internal DAC (analog output, not I2S) - i2s() is all -1 on this board. Use audio_tools::AnalogAudioStream instead of I2SStream.
  • LED: discrete RGB LED (3 separate GPIOs, active low) - R=4 G=16 B=17.

Guition ESP32-P4 4.3" Capacitive Touch Display (JC4880P443C_I_W)

Class: LCDBoardGuitionESP32H4_4_3Display (alias JC4880P443C_I_W)

Only available when TINYGPU_HAS_ESP_LCD_DSI is defined, i.e. on chips where the Arduino-ESP32 core ships esp_lcd_mipi_dsi.h (the ESP32-P4). Despite the class name (kept for historical/API-compatibility reasons), the chip on this board is an ESP32-P4, not an ESP32-H4.

Guition ESP32-P4 4.3" Capacitive Touch Display
  • Display: ST7701, 480x800, MIPI-DSI (native portrait).
  • Touch: GT911, I2C - shares the codec's I2C bus (SCL=8 SDA=7), RST=3, INT unused/polled.
  • Audio: ES8311 I2S codec - MCLK=13 BCK=12 WS=10 DOUT=9 DIN=48. NS4150 speaker amp enable pin: IO11 (setAmplifierActive(); active low internally, the method inverts it so true means "on"). No mic on this board. As with the 2.8" display above, the codec needs its own I2C init
    • prefer arduino-audio-driver's GenericES8311 board definition.
  • LED: none.
  • Also provides: WiFi SDIO pin setup (hostedSetPins(), called from begin()), SD_MMC pin setup (4-bit mode, called from begin() - note the TF card socket's LDO channel is recorded but not currently driven), and a battery() method returning charge percentage (0-100) via the board's ADC.

WeAct MiniSTM32H7xx (STM32H750VBT6/STM32H743VIT6)

Class: LCDBoardWeActMiniSTM32H750 (aliases MiniSTM32H750, MiniSTM32H7xx)

WeAct MiniSTM32H7xx

Build for FQBN STMicroelectronics:stm32:GenH7:pnum=WeActMiniH750VBTX (or the matching H743 pnum). This is the board's own bundled, ribbon/FPC- mounted 0.96" TFT - not a separate shield.

  • Display: ST7735, 160x80, hardware SPI4 - CS=PE11 DC=PE13 SCK=PE12 MOSI=PE14 RST=PE15, 15MHz (matches WeAct's own factory firmware's SPI4 clock). Panel init (offsets, MADCTL, display inversion) matches Adafruit_ST7735's INITR_MINI160x80_PLUGIN tab, the variant meant for ribbon/FPC-mounted mini panels like this one - not the plain INITR_MINI160x80 tab, which renders close but with wrong hues on this exact panel. writeCommand() (see ST7735DriverHardwareSPI in LCDBoardsSTM32.h) holds CS low continuously across a command byte and its data bytes, which this panel needs - closing and reopening CS between them makes it misparse the data as a new command.
  • Backlight: BL=PE10 (TIM1_CH2N, PWM-capable) - driven via analogWrite() in begin(); a plain digital HIGH left the backlight dark on real hardware.
  • Touch/I2S/LED: none on this board.

Two STM32duino core quirks worth knowing if you build a similar board yourself:

  • Passing NC as SPIClass's MISO pin hangs the core's spi_transfer() forever (TXP/RXP flag never sets) for SPI4 on this board's custom PeripheralPins_WeActMiniH7xx.c variant - worked around by giving SPIClass a real but physically-unwired MISO pin (PE5) instead; this panel has no MISO/SDO line at all.
  • SPI/Wire are separate libraries on STM32duino (unlike ESP32, where they're part of the core), so LCDBoardsSTM32.h #includes them explicitly - Emulation.h's __has_include passthrough alone isn't enough to get arduino-cli to add them as build dependencies.

STM32F723E-Discovery

Class: LCDBoardSTM32F723Discovery (alias STM32F723Discovery)

STM32F723E-Discovery

#include <TinyGPU/Boards/LCDBoardsSTM32F723Discovery.h> explicitly (not pulled in by LCDBoards.h's platform dispatcher, since it targets one specific STM32 board rather than being a platform default - the same reason LCDBoardsTFTeSPI.h is opt-in). Requires the separate, optional stm32f723-disco Arduino library installed alongside TinyGPU, and the STM32duino "STMicroelectronics:stm32" core with board "Discovery" / STM32F723E-DISCOVERY (pnum=DISCO_F723IE).

  • Display: ST7789H2, 240x240, wired to the STM32F723 via its FMC peripheral in 8080-parallel mode (not SPI/QSPI/DSI). Driven through stm32f723-disco's LCD class, itself a thin wrapper around ST's STM32Cube BSP BSP_LCD_* calls, which own the FMC init and panel sequence for this exact board - deliberately not re-derived as a native TinyGPU FMC bus driver, since getting the FMC bank/pin/timing mapping wrong without real hardware to test against would be easy to get subtly, silently wrong.
  • Touch: FT6x06/FT3x67 capacitive touch, auto-detected by the BSP (stm32f723-disco's TouchScreen class, wrapping BSP_TS_*). Supports up to two simultaneous touches.
  • Audio: on-board audio codec is driven over SAI, not I2S - i2s() reports "not present" (every field -1). See stm32f723-disco's own Audio.h for the SAI-based audio API.
  • LED: LED_RED/LED_GREEN/USER_BTN are ordinary Arduino digital pins defined by the STM32duino board variant itself (use the standard Arduino API directly) rather than pins this class tracks, so led() likewise reports "not present".

Desktop (SDL2)

Class: LCDBoardDesktopSDL (alias DesktopSDL)

Renders to an SDL2 window instead of physical hardware, so sketches written against the LCDBoard interface can be exercised on a desktop without any board. Window size defaults to 320x240 and is set at construction time (there's no fixed panel to match). The left mouse button stands in for a finger (see TouchDriverSDL). No backlight/I2S/LED hardware - i2s() and led() report "not present" (every field -1).

TFT_eSPI-backed boards

Class: LCDBoardTFTeSPI (#include <TinyGPU/Boards/LCDBoardsTFTeSPI.h>, not pulled in automatically by LCDBoards.h)

Wraps a single TFT_eSPI instance, shared between DisplayDriverTFTeSPI and an optional TouchDriverTFTeSPI. All panel-specific configuration (controller, pins, SPI frequency, ...) is TFT_eSPI's own User_Setup.h/User_Setup_Select.h, same as any other TFT_eSPI sketch - width/height are still passed to the constructor since callers may need them before begin() runs. Touch is opt-in via the constructor's hasTouch flag; when enabled, use tft() to reach TFT_eSPI's own touch calibration before calling begin(). No backlight/I2S/LED pin handling - TFT_eSPI's User_Setup.h covers the backlight pin (TFT_BL) if the panel needs one driven manually.

Further reading

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