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SSD1306 display drivers and font rendering

subalpinecircuits.com

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Re: SSD1306 display drivers and font rendering

#31

Post by mrheosuper »

generj wrote: post #6

This display is the modern 16x2 display for hardware hackers: cheap and versatile. One of my favorite hacks is running this display over HDMI [0]. Note that it’s possible to refresh it at higher rates by using partial refreshes. Or even higher to 150 fps [1]. [0] https://hackaday.com/2022/04/01/making-your-own-technically-... [1] https://hackaday.com/2018/05/08/push-it-to-the-limit-ssd1306...

Not really, the ssd1306 has quite short lifespan

I used one to display network statistic on my homelab server, after a year, many pixels is supper dim. They are clearly burned in. I think the display is not meant to be used for long time, but rather for short time. Meanwhile i have seen 16x2 lcd being used for over decade without issue

Re: SSD1306 display drivers and font rendering

#32

Post by mrheosuper »

bmink wrote: post #23

I’m actually working on code for esp-idf / SSD1309 right now, a little bigger than the 1306. I went through a similar arc as OP. I was actually surprised / disappointed by the poor quality of the drivers out there. If you instrument and log the bytes u8g2 sends to the device and how the buffer is sent, you see it’s pretty messy, inefficient and hacky. Seems like everyone copy+pasting everyone else’s code, without und…

that's the problem with Arduino library, they are hacky and messy

Re: SSD1306 display drivers and font rendering

#33

Post by lifeline82 »

grmnygrmny2 wrote: post #7
arghwhat wrote: post #5

Go for the SPI version, which is the same chip but just s different breakout board. Many ESP32's can only do 400kHz I2C, whereas their SPI peripheral can often do 80 MHz or more (although you wouldn't want to go that fast here). 400kHz sort of works, but if you also want to handle other I2C devices it can easily become a problem.

(author here) I've been pondering this, yeah. I'm currently sharing the I2C bus with a DAC and that's working alright, but the refresh rate issue is enough to make me consider SPI. I know the SPI peripheral supports DMA as well, and the I2C one doesn't (sort of? I know there's "async" transmit now but can't tell if that's really doing DMA)

[dead]

Re: SSD1306 display drivers and font rendering

#34

Post by f_devd »

mrheosuper wrote: post #31
generj wrote: post #6

This display is the modern 16x2 display for hardware hackers: cheap and versatile. One of my favorite hacks is running this display over HDMI [0]. Note that it’s possible to refresh it at higher rates by using partial refreshes. Or even higher to 150 fps [1]. [0] https://hackaday.com/2022/04/01/making-your-own-technically-... [1] https://hackaday.com/2018/05/08/push-it-to-the-limit-ssd1306...

Not really, the ssd1306 has quite short lifespan I used one to display network statistic on my homelab server, after a year, many pixels is supper dim. They are clearly burned in. I think the display is not meant to be used for long time, but rather for short time. Meanwhile i have seen 16x2 lcd being used for over decade without issue

Potentially the pixels are being driven stronger than spec'ed (or the spec is too agressive also possible), OLEDs typically have that issue but can last longer with a lower max power.

Re: SSD1306 display drivers and font rendering

#35

Post by btreecat »

peteforde wrote: post #18

I really love the u8g2 library, but unfortunately I love my SSD1327 OLED even more. It supports 16-tone greyscale (which u8g2 cannot do) allowing 80s/90s video game style image dithering. Getting up and running with lvgl was honestly kind of brutal, but now that it's done, I am generally happy with it. As you determined, it's much more of a UI toolkit than u8g2; the sort of thing designed with fancy thermostats and s…

I would make use of such a bootstrap project!
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