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Hi all.
I've got Venus 2.42 running on a Pi3 B+, with a 3.5" GPIO LCD. After much faffing, I've got it displaying the output as per this image:
Unfortunately, that's as far as it gets. I've renamed the headless file, and that makes the last underscore stop flashing at boot, as if it crashes. With the headless file still there, it flashes and is responsive.
Everything else about it works fine - just no display. The remote console is working as it should.
Does anybody have any ideas?
Simon
I'm still trying to figure out how you delete this headless file...
Hi Simon!
For me also was complicated to work touchscreen 3.5 gpio. Here I published my solution: https://www.buentutorial.com/touchscreen-3-5-venus-en-raspberry/
@Luis del Campo has already written the answer nicely in his linked blog post, but it's in not in English so I've summarized it here for convenience.
Instructions:
1. Insert the SD card into a PC and goto the Boot partition.
2. Download LCD-Show package, extract then copy the "tft35a-overlay.dtb" file from the "/usr" folder of the archive to the "/u-boot/overlay/" directory.
3. Edit the "/u-boot/config.txt" and update the "[all]" section as follows:
[all] dtparam=spi=on dtoverlay=tft35a, rotate-270 display_default_lcd=1
4. Put the SD card back in the Raspberry Pi, connect power and wait for it to boot.
5. Enable super-user mode by holding the right button/arrow on the Settings->General screen option "Access level" which defaults to "User+Installer", but will change to "Superuser" after a few seconds. New menu options will also appear.
6. Use the "Set root password" option to set a complex password for root (and login via SSH).
7. Enable the "SSH on LAN" option.
8. Login via SSH from the PC:
ssh root@venus.local
9. Install the touchscreen calibration tools:
opkg update opkg install tslib-calibrate
10. Calibrate the screen:
ts_calibrate Tap
11. Disable headless mode and reboot to see:
mv /etc/venus/headless /etc/venus/headless.off reboot
Note: Only changes to the original instructions are the removal of the export commands after installing the calibration tool. If it doesn't run then enter these commands and try again (you can run "export" to confirm they were set the same by default).
export TSLIB_FBDEVICE=/dev/fb0 export TSLIB_TSDEVICE=/dev/input/touchscreen0
Note: To re-calibrate the screen or run any other command-line utilities interactively on the touchscreen, re-enable headless mode:
mv /etc/venus/headless.off /etc/venus/headless reboot
Followed your steps using my RPI4 but couldn't get past step 9 as am getting failed to download. I can view the display but the touch is not working. Any help on how to opkg installed calibrate.
Thanks
Can you please confirm that with the following, I should be seeing boot text when the Pi is starting as my display is blank? I think I have a Chinese clone of the MPI3501 Display that has a 2-pin fan connector and differs from the stock one ever so slightly. I can't for the life of me get it working with Victron but it works fine with a standard Pi Debian image.
/etc/venus/headless
Yes, when running headless you will see boot text and then a command prompt.
when running headles.off you will see boot text then the gui screen.
i have the same problem with 3.5 inch screen. the touchscreen is working but the display won't. I tried connecting the pi on a hdmi and it worked fine. can anyone help? Thanks
A blank screen suggests to me that the tft35a overlay is not suitable for your particular display.
Chinese clones rarely come with any useful technical info so you are left in the dark about how to drive them.
hello, I have a similar problem with the MPI3508 hdmi display, everything works, but when I calibrate to the crisis it doesn't respond, I think that thanks to hdmi the touch will be set differently :(
Has anyone upgraded to VenusOS 2.90 or higher and used these instructions? I can't get it to work after trying to upgrade from 2.89(latest version can use).
For v2.90 or higher just get lit up backlight and nothing else showing on screen.
For those that are still using this screen, I got it working with this thread https://github.com/wild-mustango/VenusOsTFT35. However, while it now worked, it ran like a dog so I bit the bullet and used a 5" TFT on a Pi3 and it rocks (based on this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvGdNOZQ0Rw). Backlight also works using a switch built into the back of the screen (5 or 6 different levels including OFF).
