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SHARP Memory Display Breakout - Silver Monochrome (1.3", 96x96)

Our friends over at Adafruit have made this nifty, little breakout using one of SHARP's silver monochrome memory displays. This little board houses a 1.3", 96x96 screen that performs similarly to an e-paper display with its ultra-low power usage and an LCD with its fast-refresh rates. The SHARP Memory Display does not include a backlight and is readable in daylight but you may need a little assistance reading it in the dark with an external light source.

The display requires to be powered with 3V (with 3V logic), and is placed on an assembled breakout board with a 3V regulator and level shifting circuitry. Meanwhile the current draw depends on refresh rate, so at 1Hz the display will be at 12uW (4uA @ 3.3V). It should be noted that the display is write only and though it may only need three pins to send data through it also means that the all 96x96 bits (1152 bytes) will need to be buffered by a microcontroller driver like on an Arduino Uno. In doing this you will take up about half of the available RAM on your dev board.

  • 1x SHARP Memory Display Breakout
  • 1x Header Strip - 13x1

SHARP Memory Display Breakout - Silver Monochrome (1.3", 96x96) Product Help and Resources

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Skill Level: Noob - Some basic soldering is required, but it is limited to a just a few pins, basic through-hole soldering, and couple (if any) polarized components. A basic soldering iron is all you should need.
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Core Skill: Programming

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2 Programming

Skill Level: Rookie - You will need a better fundamental understand of what code is, and how it works. You will be using beginner-level software and development tools like Arduino. You will be dealing directly with code, but numerous examples and libraries are available. Sensors or shields will communicate with serial or TTL.
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Core Skill: Electrical Prototyping

If it requires power, you need to know how much, what all the pins do, and how to hook it up. You may need to reference datasheets, schematics, and know the ins and outs of electronics.

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Skill Level: Rookie - You may be required to know a bit more about the component, such as orientation, or how to hook it up, in addition to power requirements. You will need to understand polarized components.
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Comments

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  • aaronvegh / about 9 years ago / 1

    One feature I'm not clear about from the description: does this display maintain its image when it has no power? That's how e-paper works, and it's not clear if this display has that property.

    • I Dream of JNE / about 8 years ago / 1

      Section 6-4 of the datasheet says that with no display update, it draws 6uW, so that implies that unlike a non-hybrid e-paper display this thing can NOT keep the image after losing power. So not good for a very low-power system. :-(

  • SICCREATIONS / about 9 years ago / 1

    I have a question and I was wondering why are there capacitors, i think resistors or a diodes not sure around the flex cable connector and the HC4050? I understand there's a volt regulator - is it to regulate power for the power supply header pin? I've seen a you tube video where a person just soldered a flex cable connector and some header pints without the HC4050 - bunch of capacitors and resistors and the display worked fine. Thanks for response.

  • Member #775474 / about 9 years ago / 1

    Hi hi hello,

    I am trying to use this display with a PSoC4. How easy is it to replicate the Arduino library onto my platform (PSoC Creator)? Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

  • OBP / about 10 years ago / 3

    Is there a schematic available?

  • Member #531518 / about 10 years ago / 1

    Hi all,

    I work with this lcd and different library as Adafruit gfx Library and Adafruit SHARP memory. I want use parameter setRotation(0,1,2 or 3); but when I write for example in my program "display.setRotation(2);" there is nothing, never rotation but the screen displays a text !

    Why is it ?

  • djman123 / about 10 years ago / 1

    What's up with you guys jocking adafruit?

  • I have been playing those display. The sharp memory LCD are awesome! This LS013B4DN04 is mirror like. When all pixel are black, you can see your face in it.

    This is a 96x96 pixel screen. The peeble watch and othe smart watch use 144 x 168 or 128x128 resolution screen. Those resolution can not be run on a Arduino 328! There is not enough RAM to display. It's a write-only display. The entire display has to be writting in RAM before sending to the screen. 128 x 128 = 16384 bits = 2.048 kB -> Arduino 328 = 2kB

    I started by using that breakout board and putting my own 128x128 display.... that did not work. I use a atmega32u4 to make it work.

    • Actually this isn't necessarily true. Each horizontal line of the display is addressable, so you can start writing to the display at any line address. It is NOT a requirement that you write to the entire display at once.

      If you have a image that takes up the entire display (i.e. all 96x96 pixels) then what you're saying would be true. But if, for example, you wanted to print the phrase "Hello World" in the middle of the display and the characters were only a maximum of 25 pixels high, then you would only need enough memory to buffer 96x25 (or 300 bytes). Pretty much any 8 bit micro has enough memory for that - and more.

      • 8r13n / about 10 years ago / 1

        I can confirm this. I use this display and it's big brother. Both allow you to update one line, a series of lines or the entire screen in a single SPI command. It's trivial really.

      • Hi RobK, do you have some libraries? Did you write code for this? I did try lots of people code. I will look into what you said. Thank you

        I still want to use the 328 with my projet. I am using low power so when I use the 32u4 I disable the USB then screwing up the bootloader. I am in the middle of writting a code to detect batterie vs USB and go in sleep mode.

        • Hi Robomaniac, I wrote my own code for the display in C. It's pretty straight forward if you have it connected to the micro's SPI port. The datasheet details the commands you need to send in order to clear the display, write data to the display, and invert the COM signal (which needs to be done once a second).

          The only thing to keep in mind is that communication is one way. I.e. you can write data to the display but there's no way of reading data back.

          • s-light / about 10 years ago / 1

            the u8glib can use less ram than the hole pixels of the display needs - it can render the screen in parts.. https://code.google.com/p/u8glib/

            for the sharp memory displays there is a driver at (i dont have tried it.. just found it) https://github.com/pabigot/bsp430/blob/next/src/boosterpack/sharp96/u8g_bsp430.c

            i have used the u8glib with an EA DOGXL160-7 http://www.lcd-module.de/produkte/dog.html that has 160x104 pixel and 4 levels ( black, dark, light, white) it has worked with an atmega328 - in my final hardware i used a ATmega1284P - that has really much space.. so i could experiment with different libs.. i like the u8glib api - its simple and 'intuitive' ;-)

  • Member #484945 / about 10 years ago / 1

    Hey Sparkfun bros, might wanna proofread the description a bit :)

    But, actual question, at the 1Hz refresh rate, is it the board, with regulator, that's drawing 12uW, or just the LCD module itself?

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