SainSmart 2.8″ TFT LCD Display Touch Screen on Raspberry Pi

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.

1. Product Page for SainSmart 2.8″ TFT LCD Display Touch Screen
2. Discussion page on Raspberry Pi Forum
3. Zip file mentioned in the Raspberry Pi Forum post by M15H
4. 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	-23-	-GPIO 11-
30	D_CS	-26-	-GPIO 7-
31	D_DIN	-19-	-GPIO 10-
32	D_BUSY
33	D_OUT	-21-	-GPIO 9-
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
•