Cheap way to add a semi-decent display?

mawg

I am not talking about the OLED Expansion (https://onion.io/store/oled-expansion/).

I am looking for a cheap way to attach a display, minimum 5" to the Omega2. I don't mind black & white, if it is cheaper.

I was thinking maybe an Arduino Dock (https://onion.io/store/arduino-dock-r2/) ad appropriate display, but is there anything cheaper?

Normally, I would just SSH in, but sometimes I can't communicate with the Oemega2, because of changes which I have made, and don't want to factory reset it, just attach a display and USB keyboard (which I have).

Any ideas? Cheap & cheerful is best; nothing fancy or expensive.

Robin Lefever

@Graham-Keellings Hi Graham, I have found that you can buy the same screen that onion are using in the OLED expansion and just plug it in directly yourself. I'm not sure how cheap you want but you can get them for 4.5 on Amazon and cheaper on Ebay eg here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0746JRHSM/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

You can address it just using the I2C connections and power from the Onion. I keep meaning to write a quick howto on it...

I did see someone else's page about this, that I should reference also.

I plugged it into a dock here when I was trying it out but it can connect just to the pins on the onion.

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While on the conversation of making things cheaply, I have also had some adaptors printed in china to breakout the pin pitch size up from 2.00 to 2.54mm so that they are easier to stick into breadboards or stripboards etc. I think they cost about 24 pence each? Makes using the Onion much more affordable.

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Again, I keep meaning to write up some how-to for all this too

brolly759

I went on Alibaba / Aliexpress and found the factory that makes the oled display 1". tested and works, cost is only like a dollar and change.

Attaching TFT displays to the onion , there are issues with SPI from what I remember. Nexon is one way to go but that is all screen driven over serial.
There are "ways" to do video over USB... kind of like webcam over USB just in the other direction Good luck though. Here is a reference:

https://hackaday.com/2013/01/07/adding-an-lcd-screen-terminal-for-tp-link-routers/