Template:8inch DSI LCD(with cam) User Manual

Features

• 8inch capacitive touch screen. 800x480 hardware resolution
• Capacitive touch panel, support 5-point touch
• OV5647 camera, 500W pixels, 72.9° diagonal field of view, resolution 2592×1944
• Supports Pi 4B/3B+/3A+/3B/2B/B+/A+. Another adapter cable is required for CM3/3+/4a:DSI-Cable-15cm
• Directly drive LCD through DSI interface of Raspberry Pi, refresh rate up to 60Hz
• Drive the camera directly through the CSI interface of Raspberry Pi, the video frame rate supports 1920×1080p@30, 1280×720p@60, 640×480p@60, 640×480p@90
• Working with Raspberry Pi, supports Raspberry Pi OS/Ubuntu.
• Support backlight adjusts by software.

Featured design

1. LCD FFC cable anti-interference design, more stable for industrial application
2. VCOM voltage adjustment for optimizing display effect
3. Power supply via pogo pins, eliminating messy wiring
4. Two types of 5V output headers, for connecting cooling fan or other low power devices
5. With OV5647 camera, 500W pixels, 72.9° diagonal field of view, resolution 2592×1944
6. Large front panel design, make it easy to match user-defined cases, or to be integrated into sorts of devices
7. Adopts SMD nuts for holding and fixing the board, more compact structure

Working with Raspberry Pi

Hardware connection

1. Use a 15PIN FPC cable to connect the display interface to the DSI interface of the Raspberry Pi.
2. Use a 15PIN FFC cable to connect the camera interface to the CSI interface of the Raspberry Pi.
3. For ease of use, the Raspberry Pi can be screwed to the back of the display.

The installation effect is shown in the following figure: (The Raspberry Pi will supply power to the LCD through the thimble)

Software settings

Support Raspberry Pi OS / Ubuntu systems for Raspberry Pi.

1) Download image from the Raspberry Pi website.

2) Download the compressed file to the PC, and unzip it to get the .img file.

3) Connect the TF card to the PC, use SDFormatter software to format the TF card.

4) Open the Win32DiskImager software, select the system image downloaded in step 2, and click‘Write’ to write the system image.

5) After the image has finished writing, save, and quit the TF card safely.

6) Power on the Raspberry Pi and wait for a few seconds until the LCD displays normally. And the touch function can also work after the system starts.

Backlight Controlling

• Open a terminal and type the following command to adjust the brightness.

sudo su
echo X > /sys/class/backlight/rpi_backlight/brightness

X can be value in range 0~255. The backlight is darkest if you set it to 0 and the backlight is set to lightest if you set it to 255

echo 100 > /sys/class/backlight/rpi_backlight/brightness
echo 0 > /sys/class/backlight/rpi_backlight/brightness
echo 255 > /sys/class/backlight/rpi_backlight/brightness

• We also provide a example for brightness adjusting, you can download and install it by following commands:

wget https://www.waveshare.net/w/upload/3/39/Brightness.tar.gz
tar -xzf Brightness.tar.gz
cd brightness
./install.sh

After connecting, you can choose Menu -> Accessories -> Brightness to open the adjustment software

Note: If you use the 2021-10-30-raspios-bullseye-armhf image or the laster version, please add the line dtoverlay=rpi-backlight to the config.txt file and reboot.

Disable touching

If you want to disable the touch function, you can modify the config.txt file, add the following line to the file and reboot the system.(The config file is located in the root directory of the TF card, and can also be accessed through the command: sudo nano /boot/config.txt):

disable_touchscreen=1

Note: After adding the command, it needs to be restarted to take effect.

Use the camera

If you don't know the difference between the two branches of Raspberry Pi OS, you can check the following introduction #Introducing the Raspberry Pi OS fork

Raspberry Pi OS bullseye branch

In this branch, the libcamera camera subsystem interface is used by default. And the camera interface is turned on by default.

The camera can be controlled with the following commands:

#libcamera-hello is a simple "hello world" program, which mainly starts the camera preview function and displays it on the screen.
libcamera-hello //The preview window is displayed for about 5 seconds
libcamera-hello -t 0 //You can display the preview window for a long time, use ctrl+c to end

#libcamera-jpeg is a simple application that runs the preview window and then takes a high resolution still image.
libcamera-jpeg -o test.jpg //Show a preview window for about 5 seconds or so, then save the full resolution JPEG image to test.jpg

#libcamera-still is a more sophisticated still image capture application, mainly to simulate raspistill
libcamera-still -o test.jpg //The preview window is displayed for about 5 seconds, and then the image is saved to test.jpg

#libcamera-vid is a video shooting application. The Raspberry Pi's hardware H.264 encoder is used by default.
libcamera-vid -t 10000 -o test.h264 //Save a 10 second video to test.h264
vlc test.h264 //The resulting file can be played using vlc

#libcamera-raw Basic application that captures raw frames directly from the sensor, without showing a preview window.
libcamera-raw -t 2000 -o test.raw //Save the 2 second video to test.raw

More detailed information can be found at: libcamera and libcamera-apps

Note: On some motherboards, using libcamera may report an error, you can try to execute the following commands

sudo raspi-config -> Advanced Options -> Glamor -> Yes(Enabled) -> Ok -> Finish -> Yes (Reboot)

Raspberry Pi OS buster branch and Ubuntu

The raspicam camera subsystem interface is used by default on these systems. The camera interface is enabled by default in Ubuntu. In the Raspberry Pi OS buster branch, you need to execute the following command to open the camera interface
sudo raspi-config -> Interface Options -> Camera -> Yes -> OK -> Finish -> Yes (Reboot)

The camera can be controlled with the following commands:

#raspistill is an application that runs a preview window and then takes a high-resolution still image.
raspistill -o cam.jpg //A preview window is displayed for about 5 seconds, then the image is saved to cam.jpg
raspistill -vf -hf -o cam2.jpg //Flip Vertical and Flip Horizontal

#raspivid is a video shooting application.
raspivid -o vid.h264 //Save the 5 second video to test.h264
raspivid -o video.h264 -t 10000 //Record 10 second video
raspivid -vf -hf -o video.h264 -t 10000 //Flip Vertical and Flip Horizontal

More detailed information can be found at: Raspicam command

Introducing the Raspberry Pi OS fork

On December 2, 2021, the Raspberry Pi OS for Raspberry Pi split into two branches, the Buster branch and the Bullseye branch.

The Buster branch is a continuation of the old system, which is more stable and uses raspicam as the default camera subsystem.

The Bullseye branch adds some new features, including KMS as the default display driver and libcamera as the default camera subsystem.
Mirror download address
More detailed information can be found at:

Raspberry Pi Branch Details

Buster Release Notes

Bullseye Release Notes

Notes:The above information was updated on January 24, 2022. Due to the frequent update of the Raspberry Pi image, when you see this information, the relevant information may be out of date. The actual performance of the image shall prevail. This is for reference only.