ssd1306

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SSD1306/SSD1331/SSD1351/IL9163/ILI9341/ST7735/ILI9341 OLED display driver, PCD8544 LED display driver

• Introduction
• Key Features
• Supported displays
• Supported platforms
• Setting up
• License

Introduction

SSD1306 driver is Arduino style C/C++ library with unicode support. The library can be compiled for plain Linux (for example, raspberry spi), or you can use it with plain avr-gcc compiler without Arduino IDE. It supports monochrome and RGB oleds and has debug mode, allowing to execute code on PC, using SDL2.0. Initially the library is intended for very small microcontrollers (with a little of RAM). It was developed to use as few resources as possible, but still has powerful capabilities (NanoEngine), allowing to develop nice animation. It works on any powerful devices like raspberry pi, esp32; and can be easily ported to new platform.

You can find the online simulation for one of the examples from the library here

Key Features

• Supports color, monochrome OLED displays, and VGA monitor
• The library has modular structure, and some modules can be excluded from compilation at all to reduce flash usage.
• Needs very little RAM (Attiny85 with Damellis package needs minimum 25 bytes of RAM to communicate with OLED)
• Fast implementation to provide reasonable speed on slow microcontrollers
• Supports i2c and spi interfaces:
  • i2c (software implementation, Wire library, AVR Twi, Linux i2c-dev)
  • spi (4-wire spi via Arduino SPI library, AVR Spi, AVR USI module)
• Primitive graphics functions (lines, rectangles, pixels, bitmaps)
• Printing text to display (using fonts of different size, you can use GLCD Font Creator to create new fonts)
• Includes graphics engine to support double buffering on tiny microcontrollers.
• Can be used for game development (bonus examples):
  • Arkanoid game (arkanoid in old style API and arkanoid8 in new style API)
  • Simple Lode runner game.
  • Snowflakes

The i2c pins can be changed via API functions. Please, refer to documentation. Keep in mind, that the pins, which are allowed for i2c or spi interface, depend on the hardware. The default spi SCLK and MOSI pins are defined by SPI library, and DC, RST, CES pins are configurable through API.

Supported displays:

Supported platforms

Digispark users, please check compilation options in your Arduino prior to using this library. Ssd1306 library requires at least c++11 and c99 (by default Digispark package misses the options -std=gnu11, -std=gnu++11).

The goals of ssd1306 library

• To use as few RAM as possible
• To use as few Flash as possible
• To be as fast as possible
• To fit Arkanoid game example to Attiny85 microcontroller

Setting up

i2c Hardware setup is described here

Setting up for Arduino from github sources

• Download source from https://github.com/lexus2k/ssd1306
• Put the sources to Arduino/libraries/ssd1306/ folder

Setting up for Arduino from Arduino IDE library manager

• Install ssd1306 library (named ssd1306 by Alexey Dynda) via Arduino IDE library manager

Setting up for PlatformIO

• Open platformio.ini, a project configuration file located in the root of PlatformIO project.
• Add the following line to the lib_deps option of [env:] section: lexus2k/ssd1306
• Build a project, PlatformIO will automatically install dependencies.

Using with plain avr-gcc:

• Download source from https://github.com/lexus2k/ssd1306
• Build the library (variant 1)
  • cd ssd1306/src && make -f Makefile.avr MCU=<your_mcu>
  • Link library to your project (refer to Makefile.avr in examples folder).
• Build demo code (variant 2)
  • cd ssd1306/tools && ./build_and_run.sh -p avr -m <your_mcu> demos/ssd1306_demo

For esp32:

• Download source from https://github.com/lexus2k/ssd1306
• Put downloaded sources to components/ssd1306/ folder.
• Compile your project as described in ESP-IDF build system documentation

For wch32v003:

• Can be build using PlaftormIO, add the following line to platformio.ini file: platform = https://github.com/Community-PIO-CH32V/platform-ch32v.git

For more information about this library, please, visit https://github.com/lexus2k/ssd1306. Doxygen documentation can be found at github.io site. If you found any problem or have any idea, please, report to Issues section.

FAQ

How to select I2C bus on Linux?

Pass the bus number as busId to the init function. For example, if your display is on /dev/i2c-7:

// busId=7 maps to /dev/i2c-7, address 0x3C
ssd1306_i2cInit_Wire(7, 0x3C, -1, -1);

How to use Software I2C?

Software I2C is available on AVR platforms. Define CONFIG_SOFTWARE_I2C_ENABLE before including the library header, then use the standard init functions with your desired SDA/SCL pins.

How to use larger fonts?

Use ssd1306_setFreeFont() with a larger font, or use the 2x-scaled print functions (ssd1306_printFixed2x()). To generate custom fonts from TTF files, use tools/fontgenerator.py:

pip install freetype-py
python3 tools/fontgenerator.py --ttf myfont.ttf -s 16 -f new > myfont.h

How to turn the display on/off for power saving?

ssd1306_sendCommand(0xAE);  // Display OFF (sleep mode)
ssd1306_sendCommand(0xAF);  // Display ON

How to build Linux demos?

cd examples && make -f Makefile.linux PROJECT=demos/ssd1306_demo
# Or for a specific demo:
cd examples && make -f Makefile.linux PROJECT=demos/ssd1331_demo
# Or using the build script:
cd tools && ./build_and_run.sh -p linux demos/ssd1306_demo

License

The library is free. If this project helps you, you can give me a cup of coffee.

MIT License

Copyright © 2016-2023, Alexey Dynda

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.