You can test your assembled shield using the example code from the library.
Start by installing a bunch of libraries!
Open the Arduino Library manager
Install the Adafruit GFX Library
If using an older version of the Arduino IDE (pre-1.8.10), also locate and install the Adafruit_BusIO library (newer versions do this automatically when using the Arduino Library Manager).
Adafruit ST7735 Library
Adafruit seesaw Library
You can read more about installing libraries in our tutorial.
Restart the Arduino IDE.
1.8" Shield with seesaw
If your shield looks like this, you have the 1.8" seesaw version (the most recent) which will work with just about any/all boards. For this version load up the seesaw_shield18_test example
Upload to your microcontroller, and open the serial port watcher at 9600 baud:
The sketch waits until the serial port is opened (you can make it auto-start once you know things are working by removing the while (!Serial); line
Check that the seesaw chip is detected, you should see text display on the TFT after a quick draw test.
If you don't have an SD card inserted, it will fail to init the SD card, that's ok you can continue with the test
Once you've gotten this far try pressing all the buttons on the board (except for RESET) to activate the invert-blinking loop.
For more details about seesaw, check out our guide - we made a nice wrapper for the 1.8" TFT to control the backlight and read buttons but it still might be useful to know the underlying protocol
Displaying a Bitmap
If you have parrot.bmp stored on the SD card you will get a nice parrot display once the buttons have all been pressed
Page last edited March 08, 2024
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