7.5inch e-Paper

Introduction

Note: The raw panel require a driver board, If you are the first time use this e-Paper, we recommend you to buy the HAT version or buy more one driver hat for easy use, otherwise you need to make the driver board yourself.And this instruction is based on the HAT version.

800x480, 7.5inch E-Ink display HAT for Raspberry Pi, SPI interface

【Version update instructions】：

This product has been updated to V2 version with higher resolution, supporting 800x480 resolution (V1 version has 640x384 resolution)

The hardware structure and interface of V2 version of this product are compatible with V1 version, but the software needs to be updated

Interfaces

VCC	3.3V
GND	GND
DIN	SPI MOSI
CLK	SPI SCK
CS	SPI chip select (Low active)
DC	Data/Command control pin (High for data, and low for command)
RST	External reset pin (Low for reset)
BUSY	Busy state output pin (Low for busy)

Working principle

Introduction

This product is an E-paper device adopting the image display technology of Microencapsulated Electrophoretic Display, MED. The initial approach is to create tiny spheres, in which the charged color pigments are suspending in the transparent oil and would move depending on the electronic charge. The E-paper screen display patterns by reflecting the ambient light, so it has no background light requirement. Under sunshine, the E-paper screen still has high visibility with a wide viewing angle of 180 degree. It is the ideal choice for E-reading.

Communication protocol

Note: Different from the traditional SPI protocol, the data line from the slave to the master is hidden since the device only has display requirement.

CS is slave chip select, when CS is low, the chip is enabled.
DC is data/command control pin, when DC = 0, write command, when DC = 1, write data.
SCLK is the SPI communication clock.
SDIN is the data line from the master to the slave in SPI communication.

SPI communication has data transfer timing, which is combined by CPHA and CPOL.

CPOL determines the level of the serial synchronous clock at idle state. When CPOL = 0, the level is Low. However, CPOL has little effect to the transmission.
CPHA determines data is collected at the first clock edge or at the second clock edge of serial synchronous clock; when CPHL = 0, data is collected at the first clock edge.

There are 4 SPI communication modes. SPI0 is commonly used, in which CPHL = 0, CPOL = 0.

As you can see from the figure above, data transmission starts at the first falling edge of SCLK, and 8 bits of data are transferred in one clock cycle. In here, SPI0 is in used, and data is transferred by bits, MSB first.

Documentation

Instruction about make new font

Schematic

Demo code

Github

Datasheets

Related Resources

This is a post in Arduino Form about our SPI e-Paper thanks to ZinggJM, maybe you want to refer to.

Waveshare e-Paper display with SPI

Related applications (shared by user)

Question:

Working requirements of e-Paper?

Answer:

Two-color B/W e-paper
- 【Working】Temperature: 0~50°C; Humidity: 35%~65%RH
- 【Storage】Temperature: ≤30°C; Humidity: ≤55%RH; Max storage time: 6 months
- 【Transport】Temperature: -25~70°C; Max transport time: 10 days
- 【Unpack】Temperature: 20°C±5°C; Humidity: 50%RH±5%RH; Max storage time: Should be assembled in 72h
Three-Color e-Paper
- 【Working】Temperature: 0~40°C; Humidity: 35%~65%RH
- 【Storage】Temperature: ≤30°C; Humidity: ≤55%RH; Max storage time: 3 months
- 【Transport】Temperature: -25~60°C; Max transport time: 10 days
- 【Unpack】Temperature: 20°C±5°C; Humidity: 50%RH±5%RH; Max storage time: Should be assembled in 72h

When store three-color e-Paper, please refresh it to white, and keep the screen upward. Note that you need to update it at least every three months.

Question:

What do you need to note about e-Paper refreshing?

Answer:

Refresh mode
- Full refresh: e-Paper flicker when full refreshing to remove ghost image for best display.
- Partial refresh: It don't flicker if you use partial refresh (only some of the two-color e-paper support partial refresh). Note that you cannot use Partial refresh all the time, you should full refresh e-paper regularly, otherwise, ghost problem will get worse even damage.
Refresh rate
- When using, you should set the update interval at least 180s.(except Partial supportable types)
- Please set the e-Paper to sleep mode or power off it directly, otherwise, the e-Paper is damaged because of working in high voltage for long time.
- You need to update the content of three-color e-Paper at least one time every 24h to avoid from burn-in problem.
Working place
We recommend you to use the e-Paper indoor. If you need to set the e-paper outdoor, Please place the e-paper in shadow and protect it from UV. When you designed you e-paper product, you should take care about the working situation like temperature, humidity, etc.

Question:

How much could the flexible e-paper be bended

[Collapse] Answer:

The IC part of e-Paper cannot be bended, you can bend the display area in degree larger than 60°C

Question:

Why the e-Paper cant work with Arduino?

Answer:

The I/O level of Arduino is 5V, and the e-Paper should be driven with 3V3. If your Arduino cant drive the e-Paper successfully, please try to convert the level to 3.3V

You can also try to connect the Vcc pin to the 5V of Arduino to see whether the e-Paper works, but we recommend you not to use 5V for a long time.

Question:

Why does the color of e-Paper look a little black or grey?

Answer:

You can try to change the value of Vcom on demo codes.

Question:

Three-color e-paper looks more red/yellow than the picture on website?

Answer:

Because of different batch, some of them have aberration. Store the e-Paper right side up will reduce it. And if the e-Paper didn't be refreshed for long time, it will become more and more red/yellow. Please use the demo code to refresh the e-paper for several times in this case.

Question:

Why my e-paper has ghosting problem after working for some days

Answer:

Please set the e-paper to sleep mode or disconnect it if you needn't refresh the e-paper but need to power on your development board or Raspberry Pi for long time.Otherwise, the voltage of panel keeps high and it will damage the panel

Question:

Why the FPC of the e-Paper is broken after using for some times?

Answer:

Please make sure you have used it in correct way.

TAG： Raspberry Pi 5 Serial MPUUART Raspberry Pi 5 PCIe to ISO 2-CH RS485 /2-CH RS232 / USB /UART / TTL Raspberry Pi 8 inch DSI LCD Display With 5MP Front Camera MIPI 800×480 Capacitive TouchScreen UART To WiFi ADXL356BEZ Pi5 Case Intel BE200 Wireless WLAN Card Gigabit Tri-Band WiFi7 Bluetooth 5.4 M.2 MU-MIMO IEEE 802.11 Milk-V Duo S eMMC version firmware burning ESP32-Hi Mechanical Dog ESP32 C3 Servo AI Voice Chat Development Board Deepseek Smart Car Raspberry Pi 5 Raspberry Pi 5 PD Activation Raspberry Pi5 Raspberry Pi HQ Camera Official Original High Quality For M12 Lenses 12.3MP IMX477 Sensor Raspberry Pi 5 5V5A Power Raspberry Pi Camera 12MP Sony IMX708 autofocus HDR Module 3 Sensor Assembly E-Paper Font Tutorial Raspberry Pi Display JETSON NANO MINI ESP32-S3 7inch LCD Display 7 inch TouchScreen 7B 1024&times;600 N16R8 CAN RS485 Sensor

7.5inch E Ink raw display, black, white, 800×480

TAG： Spotpear Milk-V Duo Thermal imaging camera Type-C Power Adapter Pi5 Case Tripod For Raspberry Pi Official Touch Display 2 / Waveshare 7inch DSI LCD (H) / Waveshare 7-DSI-TOUCH-A Raspberry Pi 5 inch DSI MIPI LCD TouchScreen Display 720x1280 For Luckfox Lyra RK3506/ESP32-P4/Luckfox Omni3576 Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32C6 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth5.0 SeeedStudio Arduino SuperMini Tiny FT232RNL USB TTL Industrial UART Raspberry Pi 5 Terminal Debug D-Robotics RDK S100 Camera Expansion Board MIPI + GMSL Interface ESP32-S3 Industrial-Grade IOT RS485 CAN Communicator WiFi Bluetooth RS485 to Relay SpeedyBee F405 Mini BLS 35A FC ESC Stack Flight Controller DJI FPV Drone RP2040 LoRa Raspberry Pi 5 PCIe WIFI7 Screen ESP32-S3 LVGL Industrial RS232 to RS485 ESP32 S3 touchscreen Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 CM5 IO Board SIM8262E M2 3G 4G 5G GNSS Sub-6G PCIe USB3.1 GPIO M.2 LTE-A NSA SA DFOTA VoLTE SIMCOM