I have a SainSmart 2.8″ TFT LCD Display Touch Screen a couple of years ago from MicroCenter. I want to use it on the Raspberry Pi and was surprised that no one has posted how to do this. I looked into this a bit and it looks like it should be easy enough. One of the things that throws folks off is the display is 16 bit verses 8 bit that is typically used on these displays. You can still use them with only 8 bits of data. Unfortunately SainSmart does not provide information on their product pages to allow their products to be used with anything other that their adapters or other products.
Here are some useful links that will be used in this writeup.
- Product Page for SainSmart 2.8″ TFT LCD Display Touch Screen
- Discussion page on Raspberry Pi Forum
- Zip file mentioned in the Raspberry Pi Forum post by M15H
- Posts on Adafruit’s Leaning site
LCD | Raspberry Pi | ||
---|---|---|---|
Pin | Function | Pin | Function |
1 | GND | 6, 9, 14, 20, 25, 30, 34, 39 | GND |
2 | VCC | 1, 17 | 3V3 |
3 | NC | ||
4 | RS | 12 | GPIO 18 |
5 | WR | 11 | GPIO 17 |
6 | RD | 1, 17 | 3V3 |
7 | DB8 | 15 | GPIO 22 |
8 | DB9 | 16 | GPIO 23 |
9 | DB10 | 18 | GPIO 24 |
10 | DB11 | 19 | GPIO 10 |
11 | DB12 | 22 | GPIO 25 |
12 | DB13 | 21 | GPIO 9 |
13 | DB14 | 23 | GPIO 11 |
14 | DB15 | 24 | GPIO 8 |
15 | CS | 7 | GPIO 4 |
16 | F_CS | ||
17 | RESET | 26 | GPIO 7 |
18 | NC | ||
19 | LED-A | 1, 17 | 3V3 |
20 | NC | ||
21 | DB0 | 6, 9, 14, 20, 25, 30, 34, 39 | GND |
22 | DB1 | 6, 9, 14, 20, 25, 30, 34, 39 | GND |
23 | DB2 | 6, 9, 14, 20, 25, 30, 34, 39 | GND |
24 | DB3 | 6, 9, 14, 20, 25, 30, 34, 39 | GND |
25 | DB4 | 6, 9, 14, 20, 25, 30, 34, 39 | GND |
26 | DB5 | 6, 9, 14, 20, 25, 30, 34, 39 | GND |
27 | DB6 | 6, 9, 14, 20, 25, 30, 34, 39 | GND |
28 | DB7 | 6, 9, 14, 20, 25, 30, 34, 39 | GND |
29 | D_CLK | ||
30 | D_CS | ||
31 | D_DIN | ||
32 | D_BUSY | ||
33 | D_OUT | ||
34 | D_Penirq | ||
35 | SD_OUT(F_SI) | ||
36 | SD_SCLK(F_SCK) | ||
37 | SD_DIN(F_SO) | ||
38 | SD_CS | ||
39 | F_WP | ||
40 | F_HOLD |

ILI9325
http://www.anya.bagge.no/hacks/2018/02/17/tft-panel/
https://www.raspberry-pi-geek.com/Archive/2014/07/TFT-touchscreens-for-the-Raspberry-Pi
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=208264
- Fresh install of Raspberry Pi OS