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Flexible Grayscale Display - 1.81"
This product has gone red! Pick up the current version here.
Pong on a coffee mug! Why not? This is a small flexible, grayscale OLED display. That's right, we said flexible. We've been hearing about flexible displays for years, it's finally here! You can't fold it like paper but this OLED from Wisechip can be bent to a 40mm radius without damage. The display is than 0.5mm thick, less than 0.5 grams, and can display some impressive graphics with great contrast.
The OLED display is 1.81" long with 160x32 4-bit grayscale pixels. The interface is 3-wire SPI and each pixel requires 4 bits. This means you will need a processor capable of storing a local array of 80*32 = 2,560 bytes in order to truly flex (pun intended) the power of the grayscale display. Basic 8-bit Arduinos can communicate with the display and do things like text but graphics will be tricky.
The carrier board generates the 12V required to drive the OLED display. The carrier board also has a signal buffer so that you can drive the display from any 3.3V or 5V microcontroller. However, because of the nature of the TXB0104 you must power the board with 3.5V or more. Your microcontroller can be 3.3V or 5V but we recommend you power the carrier board with 5V.
We've ported the MicroOLED library so you can do things like print text (two sizes) and the neat 7-segment number font. The library is complete and can be downloaded from the Arduino library manager (search "flexible oled"). We've provided a pile of examples to get you started. You can even help us make the library better!
We do not plan to regularly produce SparkX products so get them while they’re hot!
Experimental Product: SparkX products are rapidly produced to bring you the most cutting edge technology as it becomes available. These products are tested but come with no guarantees. Live technical support is not available for SparkX products. Head on over to our forum for support or to ask a question.
- 3.3V Regulator - VCC can be 3.5V to 5V
- Level Shifter - Provides logic protection and conversion from 3.3 to 5V
- 11 pin swing connector - Connection to display
- Weight:
- Display: 0.54g
- PCB: 3.73g
- Dimensions:
- Display: 16mm x 56mm
- PCB: 16mm x 64mm
All datasheets posted with explicit permission from Wisechip (thank you Wisechip!)
- Display Datasheet including bend radius maximums and display dimensions
- SSD1320 Command Set
- SSD1320 Protocol Datasheet
Hardware:
- Schematic
- Eagle Files
- Please visit the repo for the latest version of the files.
Software:
- We've written a full fledged Arduino library. You can download it via the library manager or from github.
Flexible Grayscale Display - 1.81" Product Help and Resources
Flexible Grayscale OLED Hookup Guide
May 31, 2018
Figure out how to get images displaying on your new flexible OLED screen.
Only flexible in the long dimension
This display can only flex along it's long dimension. Attempting to bend the display along the short dimension will destroy it.
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Any plans to work on a full color version? Or something a little bigger? Or both? I want something like this for my wrist-mounted Pi-Zero project.
We'll carry larger and color displays as they are commercially available. Right now this is the limit of what Wisechip can manufacture.
What is that example image from? I'm glad you asked! We talk about it over here on the SparkX blog.
Hello,
Someone can tell me if this flexible display can be folded in the width direction or not ?
Thank you
Does this product offer returns? Mine arrived damaged and I want to know the return policy.
Hi, I received my order of 2 Flexible OLEDs, but after installing the library, connecting wires to Arduino Mega 2560(I tried a Leonardo too) both screens show no sign of life with any of the example sketches... Any help? Arduino powered by USB 2/3 port, breakout board connected as follows: pin 3.3/5v -> arduino 5v, gnd -> gnd, SCLK -> pin 13, SDIN -> pin 11, !CS -> pin 10, !RES ->pin 8 I also contacted your support team via mail, and sent a photo, but received no answer. Those display aren't exactly cheap, import duties costed as much a s a screen themselves, so some help would be appreciated! Thanks!
I'm having the exact same problem, How did you solve it?
While the header comment says to connect !RES to 8 the code to init the library says:
SSD1320 flexibleOLED(10, 9); //10 = CS, 9 = RES
So... If you just move the RES line on the Arduino from 8 to 9 you should see the monkey!
Thanks for he help but I got that part unfortunately. I got it to work on a bunch of Arduinos but for some reason it won't work on a Mega or a Micro for me. Is there something about the SPI mode? Has anyone got these to work with a Mega. Thanks in advance.
So figured this out. For anyone else trying to use on the Mega or any other AVR based board, you need to set pin 53 to output or it is possible the board will go into SPI slave mode. Just put:
pinMode(53,OUTPUT);
before the initialization of the board. Everything works then.
So which pins did you use on the Mega? thanks!
Why the one per person limit on this?
EDIT: Ok makes since now!
Because Nate hasn't been trained on our system in awhile :) Sorry, should have been set to limit of four. Should be fixed now.
I want to limit SparkX qtys because of limited supply. If a given product sells well then the product goes to 'reds' and at that point the limits are generally removed.