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Hardware

What inoCORE runs on. Everything here comes from the catalogue that ships with inoGUI, so a board is listed only once it has actually been checked.

This page is an outline

The sections and the shape of each table are fixed. The full listings are being filled in; the counts below are what the catalogue holds today.

The four kinds of entry

The catalogue is a hierarchy, and knowing which level you are at answers most questions:

Kind What it is In the catalogue
Module A radio module or a system-in-package — the chip as it is actually bought, by ordering code. 66
Dev kit A ready-made development board from a manufacturer. 7
Preset A dev kit plus blocks wired to it in a defined way, with a wiring diagram on its card. 4
Board A finished board made by inovaea. 5

One entry means one exact wiring. That is what lets a panel refuse a package that was not built for it.

Processors

Family State
ESP32 classic Supported. Smaller SPI displays rather than large glass.
ESP32-S3 The reference platform. Everything is verified against it.
STM32, selected parts Supported.

Display controllers

A display is not a peripheral: its controller and its pins are compiled in, so the panel is chosen with the board rather than added to a project. These are the controllers the SPI display driver handles.

Controller Commonly Notes
ST7735 S6D02A1 ILI9163 128×128 to 128×160 The small colour panels
ILI9225 176×220
ST7789 240×240, 240×320 Two driver variants: a full one and a minimal one
GC9A01 240×240, round The round panels, for a dial
ILI9341 240×320 The most common panel of all; an alternative driver exists for the awkward ones
ILI9481 ILI9486 R61581 RM68140 ST7796 320×480
HX8357B HX8357C HX8357D 320×480
ILI9488 320×480 See the warning below
RM68120 480×800
SSD1351 small colour OLED
SSD1963 480×272 and 800×480 Large glass. Three variants, and the 800 one has an alternative timing
EPD electronic paper

ILI9488 on a shared SPI bus

This controller's data output does not go high-impedance when its chip select is released, so it fights anything else on the same bus. If the display shares SPI with a memory card or another chip, leave its output disconnected.

An ILI9486 on a Raspberry Pi style board runs at 20 MHz at most. Pushing it further looks like it works and then corrupts the picture under load.

Modules

Being filled in. The table will carry, for each ordering code: flash size and type, PSRAM size and type, antenna (a PCB antenna or a connector) and temperature range.

Memory type is not a detail

Two modules with the same size of PSRAM are not interchangeable. The wider kind carries trends and images; the narrower kind does not, and it cannot be changed after a board is made.

Dev kits

Dev kit Processor On the board
ESP32-DevKitC V4 ESP32 the plain starting point
ESP32-S3-DevKitC-1 ESP32-S3 the reference module; capable of a display
LaskaKit ESPlan ESP32 Ethernet and RS485, with termination on the board
LilyGO T-CAN485 ESP32 CAN and RS485 transceivers on the board
TTGO T-Display ESP32 a small colour display built in
Adafruit HUZZAH32 Feather ESP32 battery charging
SparkFun Thing Plus ESP32 ESP32 battery charging

Presets

A preset is a dev kit with a defined set of parts wired to it, so that a runtime exists for exactly that arrangement.

Preset Built on For
DevKitC with WebVisu ESP32-DevKitC V4 the smallest possible start: logic and a browser, no display
T-Display TTGO T-Display the first SPI display
S3 with a 480×272 display ESP32-S3-DevKitC-1 a display on wires
S3 with CAN ESP32-S3-DevKitC-1 a drive over CANopen

Boards by inovaea

Board Family Display Buses
inoCORE32-TM inoCORE none — WebVisu is the interface Ethernet, CAN, RS485, I²C
inoCORE OEM inoCORE none CAN, RS485, I²C, SPI, serial
inoHMI 3,2" inoHMI 480×272 Ethernet, CAN, RS485, I²C, SPI, serial
inoHMI 4,3" inoHMI 480×272 CAN, RS485, I²C, SPI, serial
inoHMI 5,3" inoHMI 800×480 Ethernet, CAN, RS485, I²C, SPI, serial

Peripheral chips

Chips that hang on a board's own I²C and SPI buses and are added to a project from the catalogue. What they do at run time is under peripherals and system services; how they are added is a fifteen-second clip.

Chip What it is
ADS1115 Four analogue inputs over I²C.
TCA9555 Sixteen digital pins over I²C.
PCF8563 A real-time clock, battery backed.
FRAM and EEPROM Retentive memory, for values that must survive a power cut.