Overview

The Pico Display Base Board v1.5.2 is a printed circuit board (PCB) designed for a Raspberry Pi Pico “RP2040” board (“Pico”) and a SSD1963 LCD display board. The 24-bit graphics are fast because it uses eight data lines. The pictures demonstrate the Pico Display Base Board hosting a five (5) inch 800x480 pixel display and a seven (7) inch 800x480 pixel display.

The Pico Display Base Board is designed for generic PicoMite projects. The PCB is especially suitable for projects requiring a large LCD Display with a touchscreen and integrated SD card. The included PDLB desktop software provides a drag-n-drop canvas Integrated Development Environment (IDE) to layout the PicoMite advanced graphic controls. Affordable displays simply insert into the Display Port. A separate power connector provides power to the seven inch display and optionally it can power the whole system.

The PCB includes various onboard components and ports for external devices. The male headers provide a flexible means to wire connections to the components. The ports have PCB connections to Pico pins and permit an easy way to simply insert the external devices. There should be no need to solder any wires nor drill holes for any parts.

The product is only the PCB. The Pico, LCD display board, wires and the external devices are not included. However these low-cost components are available from popular online retailers.

Component Details

The matching Pico male headers provide an easy means to wire to onboard devices or to test the with a Logic Analyzer. The male headers can also be used to add connections to sensors and devices on an external breadboard. The PCB supports several external devices via ports:

• The SSD1963 LCD Display with integrated Touch and SD Card.
• DS3231 board with a 3-volt CR2032 coin battery.
• 0.96 inch OLED display board.
• Infrared Receiver board.

The 40-pin Display Port is wired to specific GPIO pins to provide an 8-data line interface for the 24-bit color 800*480 LCD display and SPI pins for the Thin Film Transistor (TFT) Touchscreen and SD Card. The PCB includes jumpers for LCD display power and for the display board’s optional flash chip.

Five inch SSD1963 LCD Display, Touch, and SD Card

The Display Port supports 5-inch LCD displays. A 3v3 jumper pin allows displays up to five inches to operate from Pico power. The SSD1963 display boards all have a “standard” 40-pin male header, and so the 5-inch display board is just inserted into the matching 40-pin female port on the PCB.

Seven inch SSD1963 LCD Display, Touch, and SD Card

The Display Port supports 7-inch LCD displays. 3V3 and 5volt jumper pins provide logic and power the backlight of the seven inch display. The SSD1963 display boards all have a “standard” 40-pin male header, and so the 7-inch display board is just inserted into the matching 40-pin female port on the PCB.

PicoMite Support

This PCB is special because of the display interface that can drive the LCD display, touchscreen and the integrated SD card. And, because of its compatibility with the PicoMite firmware. The PCB was designed for a project using the PicoMite firmware. The PicoMite firmware provides the MMBasic language and supports all of the external devices (mentioned above). MMBasic extends the GW BASIC language and includes advanced graphics, PIO support, virtual and SD filesystem, seamless RTC interface, and easy-to-use interfaces to many popular sensors.

The PicoMite software will configure a display for the OLED or the SSD1963 (but not both at the same time).

video: YouTube Video Link

PicoMite is available at https://geoffg.net. Authors: Peter Mather, Geoff Graham, and Mick Ames.

Pico Display Layout Builder (PDLB) Companion Software

The PDLB desktop software assists a designer with creating PicoMite Advanced Graphic programs. The software operates on Microsoft Windows and presents a virtual 800x480 pixel canvas with PicoMite graphic tools called Controls. The designer can drag-n-drop the Controls onto to canvas positioning them or resizing as desired. A Controls properties can be edited including color, x/y location, caption, and default or value. The PDLB software also allows grouping Controls into “setup” screen pages. When ready, the PDLB software will generate a text file with all of the MMBasic statements. As an add-on can be specified, the PDLB software will interact with the PicoMite Utilities (MMedit5/MCC) to deploy the generated code.

Link to Datasheet