What is it?

An open source shield for the ESP8266 D1 Mini with a ST7789 Colour TFT screen

It has the following features:

• 240 x 240 ST7789 Colour TFT Display.
• Compact size due to SMD female headers.
• 2 push buttons
• All other available pins broken out to a header (including the i2c pins)

OSHWA Certification pending.

NOTE: This is NOT compatible with the ESP32 board that is shaped like a D1 Mini! It will likely damage your ESP32.

Why did you make it?

So many of my projects involve displaying data fetched from the internet, which means the majority of my projects involve connecting a display to ESP8266. I wanted to make a device that would make this as simple as possible.

Even for projects involving a sensor and a display, I found it frustrating to have to the same wiring for the displays I was using over and over again.

I recently came across the S77789 display and I was really impressed by it. A relatively high resolution display (in Arduino terms at least) with full colour makes it a really nice display to work with!

What makes it special?

While there are some display shields for ESP8266 boards, they usually use very small screens with low resolutions. Using the SMD female header to connect the D1 mini to the shield allowed me to use the large display while keeping the overall size of the board as small as possible.

What is included?

• Assembled D1 Mini TFT Shield (other than the buttons)
• 2 SMD Buttons

What else is required?

To use the shield, you will need a D1 Mini ESP8266 board with male headers soldered.

Documentation & Examples

You can find documentation for this shield and some example code for using it on the projects GitHub page

FAQ

Why are there 2 rows of headers either side? 2x8 SMD headers are much stronger than 1x8 SMD headers, so I thought it would make sense to use the 2x8 ones. The space was needed for the display anyways.

Is it compatible with the ESP32 D1 Mini? No, I thought it would be better for prototyping if the second row of headers were connected to the inner row, so you could just connect dupont wires directly into the shield. The consequence of this is that ESP32 version of the D1 mini would have GPIO pins connected to each other and some even connected directly to power pins. Let me know if you have interest in a version for the ESP32!

Why don't the buttons come assembled? There is a couple of reasons for this:

1. They would increase the thickness of the board for shipping

2. The screen protector tag is in the way of soldering or hot airing it, and I thought keeping that on during transit would make sense

3. Not all projects will require the buttons.

Will it arrive ok? I sure hope so! I bought cardboard packing boxes especially for this product that has worked fine in some tests that I have run, so I am confident it should reach you fine!

Batch info

V1.2 , current batch - Assembled by myself. (Oven Reflow with unleaded solder)