Arduino Explore IoT kit - MKR carrier display not working

I am doing the first project in the Arduino Explore IoT list. It involves reading a weather sensor (temperature and humidity). I was able to see real time readings for both of these through the serial monitor, however i was not able to get the reading on the MKR IoT carrier display when pressing a button. I used the debugging codes in the help library to determine that all the buttons worked. I also tried all the display test codes but none of them showed a response on the display, despite other parts of the board working such as lights. Trying to work out if there’s something else i can try or if carrier display is faulty.

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Hi Grahame,

Thanks for posting on the forum :partying_face:

No worries, we’ll see what we can do to help. Firstly, if possible can you please post a photo of how you’ve got this set up and link the .ino file that you’re using in order to output to the display? We’ll take a look at what’s going on.

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Thanks Bryce.

link to ino file:

Photo attached:



Thanks
Grahame

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Thanks Bryce, much appreciated.

Have loaded link to ino and some pics, hope it’s helpful.

Regards

Grahame

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Hi Grahame,

According to the Arduino Docs on the carrier library, there may be some things you need you need to add.

Try sticking this in your setup():

display.init(240, 240);
pinMode(TFT_BLACKLIGHT, OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(TFT_BLACKLIGHT,HIGH);

-James

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Thanks James, tried but unfortunately no success? Can you see in the link?

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When I tried inserting the code into the setup it originally gave me the error:‘display’ was not declared in this scope for line 11, which is: display.init(240, 240);. I tried changing this line to: carrier.display.init(240, 24);, but then it gave me the error: ‘TFT_BLACKLIGHT’ was not declared in this scope, for the next line. I am not sure what these two error messages mean? Any further suggestions?

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Hi Grahame,

Seems this product is a bit of a mess documentation-wise, as there are two different revisions of the carrier board with two different screens.

Easy fix that may work: Change BLACKLIGHT to BACKLIGHT in your code (I’m almost certain this isn’t a typo in the Arduino docs, but I’d hate for you to go digging deeper than you needed to:

From the look of things, the backlight is driven by an LED driver IC (U3 below) commanded by the BACKLIGHT pin:

Which is then connected to DISP_BL, which is connected to Pin 3:

So if the typo fix didn’t work, try changing it to Pin 3.

At the end of all this, it may just be a faulty board. Did you get the kit from us? We might want to do some testing on a unit from stock, or start an RMA.

-James

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Thanks James, appreciate your response.
I changed Blacklight to Backlight - this time i didn’t get an error message in the code but the screen still didn’t show anything.
I also tried changing it to PIN3, Pin3 and pin3 but they all gave an error message.

The Arduino Explore IoT kit was purchased from Core Electronics, and the carrier/display is part of the kit.(The SKU Product code is AKX00027).

Is there anything else we can try, or should we assume that the carrier/display part is faulty? Am keen to be able to use the kit!

Thanks
Grahame

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Hey Graham,

I should have been more literal, just the number “3” not “Pin 3”.

But it does seem like a faulty product. If you don’t have anything you think might work on your end, get in touch via email, and we’ll take it from there.

-James

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Thanks James. I tried just “3” it gave no error message but no success with the display. I’ll contact you via email.
Cheers
Grahame

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