Need to find the right Arduino board for my project

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gremlininusa
 
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Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2023 2:11 am

Need to find the right Arduino board for my project

Post by gremlininusa »

Hi all,

First time posting here. I appreciate any help.
At work I am assigned to handle a project, and I want to use Arduino board to accomplish it. Here are the requirements:
1. Small board since size is important. I will say around 20mm x 35mm will work. Of course, the smaller the better. If not I need to negotiate the requirements with other people.
2. I need to use the board to drive LCD display module such as "2.0" 320x240 Color IPS TFT Display with microSD Card Breakout - EYESPI".
3. I need to use one or two buttons. With a press on the button the LCD will switch to a different images.
4. This project will be housed into a small rectangular plastic housing and is powered by a small Li-Ion or Li-poly battery. So I need this board to be operated from 3.3V. If the board can provide charging function then it is perfect.
5. Speed is not important.
6. It will be great if example codes can be run on that board.
So I guess the requirements are not that difficult to achieve. Finding the board in small size is the challenge. Any suggestion is appreciated.

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michaelmeissner
 
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Joined: Wed Aug 29, 2012 12:40 am

Re: Need to find the right Arduino board for my project

Post by michaelmeissner »

The ItsyBitsy processors are just slightly too big (36.0mm x 17.8mm x 4.3mm / 1.4" x 0.7" x 0.2").

The QT PY series are somewhat smaller (22.0mm x 17.8mm x 5.7mm / 0.9" x 0.7" x 0.2"). They have less pins (13 GPIO pins) available than the ItsyBitsy processors. You need 7 or 8 pins to drive the display, so you should have 2 pins to drive the buttons. You can solder on the li-ion/li-poly battery BFF to the QT PY to provide for running the device. If you plug in the USB C cable, it will charge the battery. The battery charger when soldered in will increase the height of the board, but it won't increase the width or length of the board. The battery BFF does have an on/off switch that controls whether the battery provides power.

If you are willing to pay a little bit more, there at QT PY's that have either wifi and/or bluetooth support built-in, so that future versions could interact with other devices.

You can program QT PY's with either Arduino or CircuitPython. The Adafruit Leaning center should have various codes using either Arduino or CircuitPython. You may have to edit the code to change the pins that are hooked up to the display.

While the newer displays have the eyespi cable, so far there aren't boards (particularly ItsyBitsy or QT PY) that have the eyespi cable built-in. This means you will need to solder some wires to hook up the display (plus soldering to add the BFF and adding 2 buttons).

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gremlininusa
 
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Re: Need to find the right Arduino board for my project

Post by gremlininusa »

Thank you Michaelmeissner for the reply. I did not notice the QT PY series in my earlier search, and the battery BFF seems to be a good match. I will spend some time to review the QT PY series. I can do soldering. Not a problem. I appreciate your help.

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