Ultratronics Pro with BTT TFT7.0

lmcbmai

I just purchased BigTree Tech's LCD touch screen TFT70-V3 and would like to use it with Ultratronics Pro (ArduinoDue) board. Looking at connectors available on Ultratronics - the only option I see is to use serial (RX/TX) interface. I wonder if anyone has touch screen connected via serial interface to ArduinoDue and could share relevant configuration file settings.
Another question - which display type should I use for BTT TFT70 in 1.0.x firmware?
Thanks

Repetier

These displays are not configured in firmware. So there you say no controller. All you do is configure second serial interface (bluetooth serial) to use the pins you connect it.

The main problem here is that the lcd must understand the repetier-firmware syntax/answers. They have a own firmware for the display of menus etc. and fetch all data via serial connection using regular gcodes. Just the way the repetier-server does it.

lmcbmai

@Repetier Thanks for quick reply ( as always :) )
<blockquote class="Quote">The main problem here is that the lcd must understand the repetier-firmware syntax/answers. They have a own firmware for the display of menus etc. and fetch all data via serial connection using regular gcodes.

This should not be a showstopper, since BTT screen firmware is open source and I've already have gotten feet wet with it fixing calibration bug and rebuilding it yesterday.
Adding this to my long to-do list. Will publish results here once available.

Repetier

Would be great. I have a 3.5 V2 TFT from them and want to add support to one of their boards so would be great if it works with our firmware as well.

lmcbmai

I finally completed hardware redesign of my printer and reached the point when I had an opportunity to work on TFT connectivity.

I was able to make TFT70 work with Ultratronics Pro using only serial TX/RX and power pins. I have not tested all the functions, but the main ones like homing, XYZ movements and heating extruder work and TFT shows that it is connected to Mendel printer.

Initially I also had Reset pin connected to mainboard's reset, but that caused some unexpected behavior described below.

I feed Raspberry Pi and TFT70 from 5V 14A power supply and Ultratronics from a separate 12V power supply. I added on/off switch to TFT and was hoping that it can be powered on even when the mainboard is off (not sure why I may need it, but I just wanted it that way :) ). That was not the case with Reset pin connected.

With reset pin connected, TFT would power up, but the screen would stay off and light up only when the mainboard gets power. That was resolved by removing reset wire.
I have a separate reset button for the mainboard and without reset wire connected, TFT's reset button affects only TFT.

Other issue that I had initially was conflict between Ultratronics' USB port connected to Octoprint and serial port connected to TFT70. They were fighting to each other (with TFT usually winning) but that was resolved after setting BLUETOOTH_SERIAL to 2 and moving wires from TFT to the secondary serial pins (RX - D19, TX - D18 on Ultratronics).

I yet need to test all different commands TFT can generate but overall glad to report that everything works fine on 1.x firmware version.

Thanks

Repetier

Great it works already in V1. For BTT SKR 2 I had some tests, but it is currently not wanting to show usb like in your case. So still searching root issue which is hard without anything to debug the problem.

lmcbmai

Appreciate your update and efforts. I will be leaving town for about 4 weeks this coming Saturday, so no rush on my side.

Repetier

Good to know. It's my weekend project to get it now working. After I'm so far I want to add support. Guess it is one tiny thing that is wrong:-)