Frequently Asked Questions
Our support team sometimes notices they’ve received the same question a few times. When that occurs, we add it to our FAQ queue, to make a blog post accessible to everyone. These FAQs include how to get devices working, questions about the display industry, questions about microcontrollers, and more! Do you have a question not covered here? Contact Crystalfontz Support.
Wishlist Giveaway!
We want to give you what you want! Let us know what Crystalfontz displays or breakout boards are on your wish list. We’ll be selecting a few winners, so let your friends know! Maybe a transparent OLED and breakout board? Maybe an EVE module for a project with some cool graphics? You tell us! Christmas […]
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Turn HDMI Display Backlight Off When Raspberry Pi is Off
We were recently working with a customer who was using our 10.1″ HDMI display with a Raspberry Pi, but he had run into a problem. When the Raspberry Pi shut down, he needed the display backlight to also turn off and stay off. Since the backlight on the display turns on if uncontrolled, when the
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On the Level: Arduino and Displays
A Crystalfontz aficionado may notice that we sell and recommend an Arduino clone, the Seeed Studio Seeeduino, for use with many of our displays. The Seeeduino is a clone of the extremely popular Arduino Uno microcontroller. However, the Seeeduino offers one major advantage over the standard Arduino Uno; it can level shift its I/O lines
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Small TFT Display Kit Giveaway
Enter to win Crystalfontz’s August/September giveaway. Entries close September 13, 2020. Giveaway extended to October 1! The winner will receive a 1.3″ TFT LCD module with a breakout board, wired up to an ESP32 running demo code to play video! Small TFT Display Kit The giveaway product may be an engineering sample. Any taxes, duties,
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Choosing a Display: Overview
There is a wide world of display technology out there and it can be difficult to decide which type of display will work best for a given project. This post will help narrow down your options. Remember that the display is often the main human interface to a product, so it’s important to find a
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ZIF Connectors: Everything You Need to Know
There are two main ways a display can be connected to a PCB. Some displays are solder-down, requiring fine pitch soldering to connect the tail to the contacts on the PCB. Others use Zero Insertion Force (ZIF) connection. With a ZIF connection, the tail of the display is simply slid into a connector. The tail
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Transparent Display: How to Hack Together Your Own Transparent Display
DIY Transparent Display The transparent display we offer for sale (CFAL12856A0-0151) is an OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) display. OLED displays produce images by emitting light in the corresponding color. To produce black in a normal OLED, the pixels are simply turned off. With the transparent display, if the pixels are turned off, the display
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FTDI/Bridgetek Embedded Video Engine (EVE) Modules
What makes EVE modules so great? Crystalfontz EVE modules include an EVE graphic controller from FTDI/Bridgetek making it easy to use and control the display, touch, backlight, and audio features of an embedded system. Each of the controllable features appears to the host MCU as a memory-mapped SPI device. The host MCU sends commands and
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Why does my ePaper display not work with my ePaper Adapter Board?
Why doesn’t my ePaper display work with my ePaper Adapter Board?
Why does my ePaper display not work with my ePaper Adapter Board? Read More »
FAQ: How does ePaper work with such low power consumption?
Electronic paper or ePaper modules have one outstanding feature: Once an image is written to an ePaper module, the image will stay there indefinitely, even if no power at all is supplied to the ePaper module. How does ePaper work? It is done with one of the first widely produced examples of nanotechnology. Inside the
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FAQ: What is the best display for an Arduino?
The best display for an Arduino is the one that makes your project work great and look great. Short answer: the Crystalfontz 96×64 OLED or the Crystalfontz Arduino shield kit with a graphic LCD display. Long answer: Crystalfontz has many displays, and lots of them can easily work with an Arduino — but you need
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