Check carefully to make sure you are running the right example and creating the matching ThinkInk type for your display or you won't see anything happen on the EPD (or the image may be really weird looking).

2.7" Tri-Color 264x176 Pixel Display

For the 264x176 Tri-Color displays, below is a tri-color demo.

The EYESPI version of the 2.7" eInk Display breakout uses the EK79686 chipset - previously we were using the IL91874 chipset.
Angled shot of a Adafruit 2.7" Tri-Color eInk / ePaper Display with SRAM - Red Black White.
Easy e-paper finally comes to microcontrollers, with this breakout that's designed to make it a breeze to add a tri-color eInk display. Chances are you've seen one of those...
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Top down view of a Adafruit 2.7" Tri-Color eInk / ePaper Shield with SRAM - Red Black White.
Easy e-paper finally comes to microcontrollers, with this breakout that's designed to make it a breeze to add a tri-color eInk display. Chances are you've seen one of those...
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The demo updates every 15 seconds, which is fine for demonstrating the functionality for a short time. NOTE it is recommend not to update more often than 180 seconds if you are planning on running any code long term to protect the display.

Open up FileExamplesAdafruit_EPD→ThinkInk_tricolor

Configure Pins

No matter what display you have, you will need to verify that your pins match your wiring. At the top of the sketch find the lines that look like:

#define EPD_DC      10
#define EPD_CS      9
#define SRAM_CS     6
#define EPD_RESET   8 // can set to -1 and share with microcontroller Reset!
#define EPD_BUSY    7 // can set to -1 to not use a pin (will wait a fixed delay)

If you wired the display differently than on the wiring page, adjust the pin numbers accordingly.

Shield Configuration

For the shield, since the pins are fixed, you can just use these settings:

#define EPD_DC      9
#define EPD_CS      10
#define SRAM_CS     8
#define EPD_RESET   -1
#define EPD_BUSY    -1

Configure Display Type & Size

Find the part of the script where you can pick which display is going to be used. The eInk displays are made up a combination of a Chipset and a Film in different sizes. Adafruit has narrowed it down to just a few choices between the size of the display, chipset, and film based on available combinations. In the sketch, it is sorted by size, so it's easy to find your display.

For the ILI91874 display, you will use the ThinkInk_270_Tricolor_C44 display initializer.

Just uncomment these lines, and comment out any other line that is creating a ThinkInk display object

// ThinkInk_270_Tricolor_C44 display(EPD_DC, EPD_RESET, EPD_CS, SRAM_CS,
// EPD_BUSY, EPD_SPI);

For the EK79686 display, you will use the ThinkInk_270_Tricolor_Z70 display initializer.

Just uncomment these lines, and comment out any other line that is creating a ThinkInk display object

// ThinkInk_270_Tricolor_Z70 display(EPD_DC, EPD_RESET, EPD_CS, SRAM_CS,
// EPD_BUSY, EPD_SPI);

Upload Sketch

After checking the pinouts and the display type one more time, go ahead and upload the sketch to your board. Once it is done uploading, open the Serial Monitor.

The display should start running a series of display tests

This guide was first published on May 17, 2022. It was last updated on Mar 29, 2024.

This page (Arduino Usage) was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

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