T-Display-S3 – A 1.9-inch ST7789 Powered LCD Development Board with WIFI & BT

Chinese manufacturer, LILYGO has continued its run of form, taking the maker niche of the hardware component market by storm with the release of incredibly thoughtful development boards and kits. It recently began selling its newest display module development board; the T-Display-S3 ESP32-S3; the latest member of the LILYGO T-Display series family.

An improvement over other members of the family, the display comes with an expanded screen of 1.9-inch, some distance over the largest member which has a 1.14″ display screen. However, the display retained some familiar features like using the same MCU as the T-QT v1.0 display. It runs the ESP32-S3R8 dual-core LX7 microprocessor with 8MB PSRAM, 16MB Flash, Wi-Fi 802.11, and BLE 5 with mesh support, which provides all the wireless connectivity features on the development board, and 13 GPIOs, 10 ADCs, 4 SPIs, 7 Touch, 2 UART and 2 CLK interfaces for I/O expansions to enable users to connect diverse type of sensors and actuators.

Designed for continuous uninterrupted operations, the T-Display-S3  module supports dual power supplies as it has a USB type-C through which power can be provided from a 5V external power adapter, and a 2-pin JST GH 1.25mm header through which a Li-Po battery can be connected. The board comes with LEDs to measure the battery life along with operational buttons like a boot button, a reset button, and IO14 programmable button for onboard functionalities.

It is the second display module board from LILYGO, after the T-QT V1.1, with an acrylic plate to protect the display. The 1.9-inch LCD is a 170 x 320 pixels full-colour IPS TFT display with an ST7789V 8-bit parallel interface controller that takes a 3.3V power supply just to be suitable as your display equipment.

Some highlight features and specifications of the T-Display S3 are provided below:

Specification of T-Display-S3:

• MCU: ESP32-S3 Xtensa dual-core LX7 @ 240 MHz
  • Memory: 8MB PSRAM
  • Storage: 16MB flash
• Wireless:
  • Wi-Fi 802.11 and BLE 5 + BT mesh.
• PCB antenna and external u.FL antenna support
• Display: 1.9-inch 320×170 px IPS full-color LCD with the ST7789V 8-bit parallel display driver chip
• Expansion:
  • 4-pin connector with 3.3V, GND, and 2x GPIO/UART
  • 12-pin dual in-line headers including up to 13x GPIO, 4x SPI, 10x ADC, 2x UART, 2x CLK, 7x Touch, 1x 5V, 2 x 3.3V, and 5x GND
  • 1x USB Type-C port for power and programming
• Power Supply (dual):
  • 5V via USB Type-C port
• 2-pin JST GH 1.25mm header for connecting LiPo batter
• Misc: Boot, Reset, and IO14 buttons
• IO04 LED for detecting battery voltage
• Dimensions: 2 x 26 x 10mm

The LCD module supports Arduino-IDE and MicroPython programming frameworks. More technical information about its software, examples, and how to get started with the board can be found on the LILYGO Github repository.

For purchase, the T-Display-S3 shipped along with a JST 125mm 2P and 2 x PH2 .54 pins ( 1x 12P) are available on aliexpress at $16.64 (including shipping).

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