Adafruit Qualia ESP32-S3 for TTL RGB-666 Displays

SKU: ADA5800 Brand: Adafruit

There's a few things everyone loves: ice cream, kittens, and honkin' large TFT screens....

$38.70 AUD, inc GST
$35.18 AUD, exc GST

Available with a lead time
Expect dispatch between Nov 20 and Nov 25

Quantity Discounts:

  • 10-25 $33.77 (exc GST)
  • 25+ $32.72 (exc GST)
- +

0 from local stock, 1 supplier stock; your order will dispatch between Dec 1 to Dec 10. And yes, stock levels and lead times are accurate!

Shipping:

  • $7+ Standard (5+ days*, tracked)
  • $11+ Express (2+ days*, tracked)
  • FREE Pickup (Newcastle only - must order online*)

Shipping costs may increase for heavy products or large orders.

Exact shipping can be calculated on the view cart page.

*Conditions apply, see shipping tab below.

There's a few things everyone loves: ice cream, kittens, and honkin' large TFT screens. Adafruit are no strangers to small TFT's - from Adafruit's itsy 1.14" color display that graces many-a-TFT-Feather to Adafruit's fancy 3.5" 320x480 breakout screen. But most people who dabble or engineer with microcontrollers know that you sort of 'top out' at 320x480 - that's the largest resolution you can use with every day SPI or 8-bit 8080 interfaces. After that, you're in TTL-interface TFT land, where displays no longer have an internal memory buffer and instead the controller has to continuously write scanline data over a 16 or 18 or 24 pin interface.

TTL interface TFT displays can get big: they start out at around 4.3" diagonal 480x272, and can get to 800x480, 800x600 or even 720x720. For displays that big, you need a lot of video RAM (800x480 at 24 bit color is just over 1MB), plenty of spare GPIO to dedicate, and a peripheral that will DMA the video RAM out to the display continuously. This is a setup familiar to people working with hefty microcontrollers or microcomputers, the sort of device that run cell phones, or your car's GPS navigation screen. But until now, nearly impossible to use on low cost microcontrollers.

The ESP32-S3 is the first low-cost microcontroller that has a built in peripheral that can drive TTL displays, and can come with enough PSRAM to buffer those large images. For example, on the Adafruit Qualia ESP32-S3 for TTL RGB-666 Displays, Adafruit use a S3 module with 16 MB of Flash and 8 MB of octal PSRAM. Using the built in RGB display peripheral you can display graphics, images, animations or even video (cinepak, natch!) with near-instantaneous updates since the whole screen gets updated every ~30FPS.

This dev board is designed to make it easy for you to explore displays that use the "secondary standard' 40-pin RGB-666 connector. This pin order is most commonly seen on square, round and bar displays. You'll want to compare the display you're using to this datasheet, if it matches you'll probably be good! One nice thing about this connector ordering is that it also includes pins for capacitive touch overlay, and Adafruit wire those up to the ESP32-S3's I2C port so you can also have touch control with your display.

On the Qualia board Adafruit have the S3 modules, with 16 pins connected to the TFT for 5-6-5 RGB color, plus HSync, VSync, Data Enable and Pixel Clock. There's a constant current backlight control circuit using the TPS61169 which can get up to 30V forward voltage and can be configured for 25mA-200mA in 25mA increments (default is 25mA). Power and programming is provided over a USB C connector, wired to the S3's native USB port. For debugging, the hardware UART TX pin is available as well.

Since almost every GPIO is used, and almost all RGB-666 displays need to be initialized over SPI, Adafruit put a PCA9554 I/O expander on the shared I2C bus. Arduino or CircuitPython can be instructed on how to use the expander to reset and init the display you have if necessary. The remaining expander pins are connected to two right-angle buttons, and the display backlight. 

The expander is what lets Adafruit have a full 4-pin SPI port and two more analog GPIO pins - enough to wire up an MMC in 1-wire SDIO mode along with an I2S amplifier to make an A/V playback demo. Maybe Adafruit can even eat ice cream while watching kitten vids! There is also the shared I2C port, Adafruit provide a Stemma QT / Qwiic port for easy addition of any sensor or device you like.

Technical Details

Product Dimensions: 57.3mm x 44.4mm x 7.1mm / 2.3" x 1.7" x 0.3"

Product Weight: 13.3g / 0.5oz

Documents

This product is listed in:

Development Boards>ESP32

Product Comments

Exact shipping can be calculated on the view cart page (no login required).

Products that weigh more than 0.5 KG may cost more than what's shown (for example, test equipment, machines, >500mL liquids, etc).

We deliver Australia-wide with these options (depends on the final destination - you can get a quote on the view cart page):

  • $3+ for Stamped Mail (typically 10+ business days, not tracked, only available on selected small items)
  • $7+ for Standard Post (typically 6+ business days, tracked)
  • $11+ for Express Post (typically 2+ business days, tracked)
  • Pickup - Free! Only available to customers who live in the Newcastle region (must order online and only pickup after we email to notify you the order is ready). Orders placed after 2PM may not be ready until the following business day.

Non-metro addresses in WA, NT, SA & TAS can take 2+ days in addition to the above information.

Some batteries (such as LiPo) can't be shipped by Air. During checkout, Express Post and International Methods will not be an option if you have that type of battery in your shopping cart.

International Orders - the following rates are for New Zealand and will vary for other countries:

  • $12+ for Pack and Track (3+ days, tracked)
  • $16+ for Express International (2-5 days, tracked)

If you order lots of gear, the postage amount will increase based on the weight of your order.

Our physical address (here's a PDF which includes other key business details):

Unit 18, 132 Garden Grove Parade
Adamstown
NSW, 2289
Australia

Take a look at our customer service page if you have other questions such as "do we do purchase orders" (yes!) or "are prices GST inclusive" (yes they are!). We're here to help - get in touch with us to talk shop.

Have a product question? We're here to help!

Write Your Own Review

Videos

View All

Guides

WiFi GlowBit Matrix Control with WLED and ESP32/ESP8266 Dev Boards – Make Pixel Art with No Code!

Nothing beats bright shiny colourful lights and adding an extra dimension only makes them better.&n...
Nothing beats bright shiny colourful lights and adding an extra dimension only makes them better.&n...

Understanding ESP32 Naming Conventions

Espressif is a constantly ground-breaking company that produces lots of really cool development mod...
Espressif is a constantly ground-breaking company that produces lots of really cool development mod...

The Maker Revolution

The Maker Revolution celebrates the creation of new devices and the modification of existing ones - ...
The Maker Revolution celebrates the creation of new devices and the modification of existing ones - ...

Projects

Interactive Exercise Bike - Pedal Powered Visuals

This project turns a cheap exercise mini bike into a virtual bike. I made this project with my brot...
This project turns a cheap exercise mini bike into a virtual bike. I made this project with my brot...

Accurate IoT Clock With ESP8266

Being punctual is important. Hence accurate time is required. Clocks tend to miss out when it comes...
Being punctual is important. Hence accurate time is required. Clocks tend to miss out when it comes...

Spirit In A Box Halloween Trick

IntroductionThis project was born from the desire to craft a captivating and spine-tingling magic t...
IntroductionThis project was born from the desire to craft a captivating and spine-tingling magic t...
Feedback

Please continue if you would like to leave feedback for any of these topics:

  • Website features/issues
  • Content errors/improvements
  • Missing products/categories
  • Product assignments to categories
  • Search results relevance

For all other inquiries (orders status, stock levels, etc), please contact our support team for quick assistance.

Note: click continue and a draft email will be opened to edit. If you don't have an email client on your device, then send a message via the chat icon on the bottom left of our website.

Makers love reviews as much as you do, please follow this link to review the products you have purchased.