Repost: Ebay tiny 128x64 and 128x32 OLED graphic displays

[Phil_G]

Back in the 'Reunited' days we had a thread discussing the merits of small, cheap ebay OLED displays, with examples of code, graphics and available fonts. These are handy, easy to use screens connected by I2C (just four wires including power).

This is an attempt to recreate that thread, but theres no backup and nothing on Wayback, so its just the bits I remember. Please chip in as before!

There are two popular sizes, in 1.3" and even smaller 0.96" formats. They're also available in half-height which is 128 pixels wide by 32 high. Heres one alongside a standard 16x2 LCD:

...and heres the larger one (only 1.3" !!!)

Here's Ian D's impressive 'analogue' panel meter:

Its possible to get six lines of 21 characters using a small font, its still very readable:

Here's my campervan monitor screen showing voltages & Ah to and from the batteries:

Here are a few graphics created specifically for these displays, with the code that drives them:

Here's Martins Reedy-Ten display:

These displays use a library called "U8glib", there is a version 2 with more stuff but more overhead, personally I still use the original U8glib as it works perfectly. Why change?
The library is here, click "Clone or download" and in Arduino import the library as a zip.
https://github.com/olikraus/U8glib_Arduino

In the sketch, the header should use SSD1106 for the 1.3" display and SSD1306 for the 0.96":

#include <U8glib.h>
U8GLIB_SH1106_128X64 u8g(U8G_I2C_OPT_NONE|U8G_I2C_OPT_DEV_0); // for the 1.3"
or
U8GLIB_SSD1306_128X64 u8g(U8G_I2C_OPT_NONE|U8G_I2C_OPT_DEV_0); // for the 0.96"


Something to watch out for - spot the difference!

To create the graphics, to date I've used a program called 'Graphene' which is almost impossible to find, hence I've attached it here. There were no instructions so I've added a 'read me' to the zip. Max has since found a brilliant alternative which can either be used online, or saved for offline use: viewtopic.php?f=81&t=787#p6324

The graphic is created using your fave graphics program, I use Paint Shop Pro. Its sized to suit the display, ie 128 pixels by 64, or 128 by 32 for the half-sized displays. It has to be just two colours, black & white, and saved as .png format (Portable Network Graphic).

Because of the very low resolution (128x64) its essential to 'zoom-in' to pixel level and manually tidy up the graphic within Paint Shop Pro or whatever. If you reduce a photo to two colour levels then scale it down to 128x64 it will hardly be recognisable!

Heres a typical 'manually reworked' 128x64 picture:

rider_bw.png (1.01 KiB) Viewed 11208 times

Cheers
Phil

.

[RON]

Here’s an addition to the 0.96 oled.
It’s a split screen blue/yellow version, quite common on eBay and only a few quid. This is what they look like.

[Martin]

This one looks interesting. 1.6-inch, cheap £2.94, 65K colours, 5V compatible; best of all, supposed to be readable in full sunlight. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000116854157.html Might be a better tool for transmitter and other outdoor projects where the normal OLED displays we use are often unreadable.



Downsides are slightly heavy 100mA maximum current draw, 4-wire SPI interface, not I2C, and the graphic RAM is write-only via the SPI interface - which makes complex graphics with limited RAM microcontrolers (like the smaller Arduinos) harder.

I've ordered a couple to test out.