Inkplate 6 FLICK touch screen, backlight, and Raspberry Pi serial connection

Soldered_Bot · February 27, 2025, 7:05pm

Customer:

I got the Inkplate 6 FLICK and I’m trying to figure out how to work with the touch screen and backlight. Can you point me in the right direction? Also, I’m trying to see if I can directly connect it to a Raspberry Pi via serial in graphics mode, not text mode.

Originally submitted via email support on 27 February 2025. Migrated to the forum for community visibility.

Soldered_Bot · March 4, 2025, 9:06am

Soldered Support:

We have these examples in the Inkplate library:

github.com/SolderedElectronics/Inkplate-Arduino-library

examples/Inkplate6FLICK/Basic/Inkplate6FLICK_Simple_Frontlight/Inkplate6FLICK_Simple_Frontlight.ino

master

/**
 **************************************************
 * @file        Inkplate6FLICK_Simple_Frontlight.ino
 * @brief       Frontlight control demo for Soldered Inkplate 6FLICK.
 *
 * @details     Demonstrates how to enable and control the frontlight on the
 *              Inkplate 6FLICK. The example allows adjusting frontlight
 *              brightness through the Serial Monitor by sending characters
 *              that increase or decrease intensity. A small light animation
 *              ("lightshow") can also be triggered.
 *
 *              Frontlight brightness range is 0-63.
 *              display.frontlight.setState(true) enables the frontlight driver
 *              circuit and display.frontlight.setState(value) sets the
 *              brightness level. Expected output: the frontlight turns on during
 *              setup, the brightness level changes when '+' or '-' is sent via
 *              the Serial Monitor, the current brightness value (0-63) is
 *              printed in the Serial Monitor, and the 's' command runs a short
 *              brightness sweep animation.
 *

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github.com/SolderedElectronics/Inkplate-Arduino-library

examples/Inkplate6FLICK/Basic/Inkplate6FLICK_Touch_In_Area/Inkplate6FLICK_Touch_In_Area.ino

master

/**
 **************************************************
 * @file        Inkplate6FLICK_Touch_In_Area.ino
 * @brief       Touchscreen touch-in-area demo for Soldered Inkplate 6FLICK.
 *
 * @details     Demonstrates how to use the Inkplate 6FLICK touchscreen by
 *              detecting touches inside a defined rectangular area. A black
 *              rectangle is drawn on the display; when the user touches inside
 *              the rectangle, it moves to a new position. Partial updates are
 *              used for fast redraws, with an occasional full refresh when the
 *              rectangle position resets.
 *
 *              Touch detection uses touchscreen.touchInArea(x, y, w, h), and the
 *              touchscreen is initialized and powered on with
 *              touchscreen.init(true). Expected output is the rectangle moving
 *              when touched inside its bounds, with the touchscreen init status
 *              printed in the Serial Monitor.
 *
 * Requirements:
 * - Board:      Soldered Inkplate 6FLICK

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To connect and use Inkplate with a Raspberry Pi, you would have to use peripheral mode: GitHub - SolderedElectronics/Inkplate-Peripheral-Mode-Raspberry-Pi-Example: Some example code for how to drive Inkplate with a Raspberry Pi using peripheral mode · GitHub - See the README there for the tutorial.

There is no native implemented ‘graphics’ mode where Inkplate serves as a display for the Raspberry Pi, but there is the peripheral mode which implements drawing and display refresh functions over Serial. You would send Serial commands similar to how you would write Arduino code.

Note that the current state of the peripheral mode example for Inkplate 6 FLICK is not fully functional. We are working on a full re-write of the peripheral mode: Inkplate-Arduino-library/examples/Inkplate6FLICK/Diagnostics/Inkplate6FLICK_Peripheral_Mode/Inkplate6FLICK_Peripheral_Mode.ino at master · SolderedElectronics/Inkplate-Arduino-library · GitHub

Soldered_Bot · March 6, 2025, 9:02am

Soldered Support:

Here are a few approaches for your project:

Use Inkplate as a display by sending the framebuffer in your own communication protocol via USB Serial (or even faster, SPI). The fastest method is to use Black and White mode and use Inkplate to ‘unpack’ the message and then display what’s in the buffer. With this approach, you would need to render the terminal in your host machine into a bitmap before it gets sent.
Send text displayed in the terminal and then write the graphics on Inkplate using Adafruit GFX (which is in the Inkplate library). This will be faster overall, but you’d need to implement writing the text lines on Inkplate. Adafruit GFX has a text printing option which can use custom fonts, so you can use a monospace font and essentially emulate the terminal look on your Inkplate.

Check out this example for Inkplate 6 FLICK with printing text and partialUpdate:

github.com/SolderedElectronics/Inkplate-Arduino-library

examples/Inkplate6FLICK/Basic/Inkplate6FLICK_Partial_Update/Inkplate6FLICK_Partial_Update.ino

master

/**
 **************************************************
 * @file        Inkplate6FLICK_Partial_Update.ino
 * @brief       Partial update scrolling text demo for Soldered Inkplate 6FLICK.
 *
 * @details     Demonstrates how to use the partial update functionality of the
 *              Inkplate 6FLICK e-paper display. Partial updates refresh only
 *              the changed portions of the screen, making updates significantly
 *              faster and reducing power consumption compared to full refreshes.
 *              This example scrolls a line of text across the display using
 *              repeated partial updates.
 *
 *              Partial updates are available only in 1-bit display mode. It is
 *              recommended not to use partial update immediately after power-up -
 *              perform a full refresh first. To prevent image ghosting, a full
 *              refresh should occur after several partial updates (e.g. every
 *              5-10 updates); this example uses setFullUpdateThreshold() to
 *              manage that automatically. The leaveOn parameter keeps the
 *              e-paper power supply active to speed up consecutive updates.
 *

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Combine this with frontlight and receiving data from Serial and it would be a great project!