Description
The ThingPulse Color Kit Grande is a modern IoT starter kit with extensibility built in. Order today and improve your skills with soldering and programming. We will guide you through the process with our step-by-step tutorial/guide for hardware incl. soldering and software is available on our documentation platform.
Hardware
Microcontroller
As this kit ships with our ePulse Feather ESP32 development board, the kit thereby inherits all the great features of said devkit.
Display
The large 3.5″ 320×480 color display also sports a high-precision capacitive touch interface. Contrary to resistive touch interfaces that often work best when using a stylus this auto-calibrated module offers a smartphone-like user experience.
Connector PCB
This is a DIY solder kit. Yet, the connectors for the display are already pre-assembled on the connector PCB, as those require a more experienced hand at the soldering iron. Hence, for the inexperienced solderer this offers the best of both worlds. Also, you may choose to not add the on-off switch or the Grove connector; both are optional.
The connector PCB offers extendability in two ways: the broken out pins of the microcontroller and the connector for the Grove system.
Color Kit Grande Projects
Our sample application (shown in the product images) is built on top of Bodmer’s TFT_eSPI library and a separate library for the FT6236 touch controller. The tutorial documents how to install and configure it. We also ported an LVGL sample application to this platform got give you a head-start if you want to work with LVGL (which is awesome!).
Furthermore, the hardware in this kit is compatible with the FreeTouchDeck project and the examples of the ESP32 TouchDown project. Please see our documentation for how to change pin assignments if you would like to use one of those sketches.
James (verified owner) –
Got my kit in today. All parts included, went very smoothly.
To be honest I was totally expecting the code not to compile. I followed each step and everything code & instructions was up to date. Compiled with no issues, flashed the board per the instructions and she came right up.
It’s rare nowadays to buy something like this that there are no issues.
Great job guys!!!
David (verified owner) –
Very easy to build with my new $9 soldering iron 😅
This is the project you want if you are looking for a beautiful IOT device that will turn heads at your desk. Just go slow when building and have fun. Wonderful weekend project.
Thanks to the developers for such quick response and solution to bug I found in 12vs24h time format!
Michael (verified owner) –
Very nice kit! Superb support!
I ordered two of them, just, you know, because. Sadly after assembling the first kit I discovered that the LCD was broken. I tried the second display to exclude any problems on the PCB and it worked. So the display was sadly toast.
I have to admit that I might have broken the display, when pushing it onto the double sided sticky pads, but I was careful. Since I didn’t test the display before mounting it, I simply don’t know. Removing it from the sticky pads was not looking nice either.
Anyways I contacted Thingpulse and they are sending a replacement!! How great is that?
I want to thank them here again!
So my advice is to test before mounting and be really gentle when putting the display on the PCB.
Ray Berkelmans (verified owner) –
The guys at ThingPulse have been making weather displays for many years now and the ESP32 Wi-Fi Color Display Kit Grande takes it to the next level – what an impressive kit! The 3.5″ TFT display is so much more visible and easy to read compared to the 2.4″ screen of the ESP8266 version (of which I have several!). Unlike the ESP8266 version, the ESP32 version does not have multiple screens to scroll through. That said, I mostly used my older versions as static displays anyway and scrolling through the screens only happened in the first few days. The software is honed to a tee and a masterclass in coding. The VS Code IDE for uploading the firmware can be a bit overwhelming for those who have only ever experienced the Arduino IDE before. But, don’t be put off. If I managed, you can too. Congrats to Dani and Marcel, well done guys!
Luc (verified owner) –
It’s easy – my biggest struggle was the error code ‘failed to write to target RAM’! Thanks to the ‘How To Install Drivers for WCH CH9102F USB to Serial Chips’ by adafruit, I could resolve soft-issues without doubt on my doubtful soldering skills. The Grande works now like a charm;-)
Marcel Stör (verified owner) –
Thanks for the feedback Luc, much appreciated! We are glad you like the kit. Also, thanks for the hint regarding the driver(s). We can easily add a note to our documentation and link to the Adafruit instructions.
Jason (verified owner) –
Would like to 3d print a case while I wait for this to arrive but I’m not able to download the files from the Fusion360 link shown above – any idea where I can find these?
Marcel Stör (verified owner) –
Thanks for the feedback. We added download links for STL and STEP above the embedded Fusion360 model. We hope that once you receive kit and start working with it you will consider upgrading your rating 🙂 Even if not, we are looking forward to feedback how to improve it, thanks.
Gareth (verified owner) –
I bought this kit after trying the tiny little version. Its top quality stuff and the comprehensive build instructions got me there once I had read them through several times. The customer support either via the FAQ (worth a browse before you email….) or by direct email is first class and patient with people who ‘should have read the instructions and the FAQ first…. 😉
The supplied .stl file for the case prints well and fits the display perfectly, making it a really nice addition to you desktop or shelf. For the functionality, quality and support this project is a bargain 🙂
Atze –
Bought this kit after trying to assemble an ili9341 with an esp8266 – but failed. The “kit grande” arrived and what should I say. Very good stuff well protected and from high quality. After some problems with the ribbon connector (my fault) and a hint from their support what to do, it now works brilliant. I had no experience with PlattformIO so far but the comprehensive build instruction finally got me to the target. After I got the “kit grande” up and running I tried the ili9341/eps8266 again. Even I haven’t bought it via the ThingPulse shop I received a full support and could finally get the small kit up and running as well. Thanks a lot for your your help – well done guys.
stockers99 (verified owner) –
Excellent product, good documentation & excellent customer support – 10 out of 10.
Will now buy the enclosure, which I believe is just about to go on sale.
Thanks for your help.
Mark Ennamorato (verified owner) –
Got my kit the other day and woke up early to put it together – super easy. Good instructions. Built the image and bam.. working *except* no .bmp images (others ran into this..just read the instructions dude!) and make sure no other serial process is using the serial port when you load the whole Filesytem Image. This is a *very cool* gadget for the price !!! Now I will start building something I wanted to do with it. Also very responsive support and really appreciate that because not usual these days!
Soubir (verified owner) –
Excellent product and great support!
I just received the kit today and was very excited to put it together, however, due to my excitement, i missed a couple of things and it didn’t work. Contacted Daniel and he immediately helped me out (not very common these days).
The instructions on the website are excellent, just follow them and everything works great!
Thank you Daniel really appreciate the support and the great product! (10/10)
Charlie (verified owner) –
Purchased this for a home IoT project. The assembly/soldering process was a piece of cake and I was up, running, and displaying the weather app in no time. Then with a bit of code manipulation and some new images uploaded, my home project was working like a champ. All of this basically took me a Saturday afternoon, which definitely speaks to the ease of use, not my skills as a developer 🙂 Nice job!
Edan (verified owner) –
Works easy from the sample code. However, I bought this with a goal of getting it up and running via ESPHome. The sample code’s pinouts (weirdly) don’t match what need to be used for ESPHome’s configs, and the photo on the ePulse Feather pinout also doesn’t seem to work. However, the Schematic on the ePulse Feather page actually has the correct pinouts. For others trying to get this up and running on ESPHome, below is what I used to get it up and running. Easy peasy once I had the right pin numbers.
Use the below, and then replace the display.lambda and the touchscreen.on_touch to your heart’s content with what you actually want it to display or do!
“`
i2c:
sda: 23
scl: 22
scan: true
globals:
– id: calibration_x
type: int
restore_value: no
initial_value: ‘0’
– id: calibration_y
type: int
restore_value: no
initial_value: ‘0’
font:
– file: “gfonts://Roboto”
id: roboto
size: 20
color:
– id: my_blue
blue: 100%
output:
– platform: ledc
pin: GPIO32
id: screen_led
light:
– platform: monochromatic
output: screen_led
id: backlight
default_transition_length: 0.5s
name: ‘Backlight’
restore_mode: ALWAYS_ON
display:
– platform: ili9xxx
model: ILI9488
cs_pin: 15
dc_pin: 2
reset_pin: 4
rotation: 0
color_palette: NONE
color_order: BGR
invert_colors: false
pages:
– id: calibration_page
lambda: |-
auto black = Color(0, 0, 0);
auto red = Color(255, 0, 0);
auto green = Color(0, 255, 0);
auto blue = Color(0, 0, 255);
auto white = Color(255, 255, 255);
it.filled_circle(20, 32, 15, black);
it.filled_circle(40, 32, 15, red);
it.filled_circle(60, 32, 15, green);
it.filled_circle(80, 32, 15, blue);
it.filled_circle(100, 32, 15, white);
it.line(id(calibration_x) – 10, id(calibration_y), id(calibration_x) + 10, id(calibration_y), id(my_blue));
it.line(id(calibration_x), id(calibration_y) – 10, id(calibration_x), id(calibration_y) + 10, id(my_blue));
it.printf(it.get_width() / 2, it.get_height() / 2, id(roboto), TextAlign::CENTER, “%d x %d”, id(calibration_x), id(calibration_y), COLOR_ON);
touchscreen:
– platform: ft63x6
transform:
swap_xy: false
mirror_x: false
mirror_y: false
on_touch:
– logger.log:
format: Touch at (%d, %d)
args: [touch.x, touch.y]
– globals.set:
id: calibration_x
value: !lambda ‘return touch.x;’
– globals.set:
id: calibration_y
value: !lambda ‘return touch.y;’
spi:
– id: spi_1
clk_pin: 5
miso_pin: 19
mosi_pin: 18
“`
Dani Eichhorn (verified owner) –
Thank you so much for sharing! I took your configuration as input and wrote a blog post about the Color Kit Grande and ESPHome. The framework now supports also LVGL widgets which is very exciting!
Here is the blog post: https://thingpulse.com/using-the-color-kit-grande-with-esphome-and-homeassistant/ and the yaml file is in this repository on github: https://github.com/ThingPulse/thingpulse-devices/blob/master/color-kit-grande/esphome/home-automation.yaml
Ben –
Easy assembling. Only soldering the headers, connector and switch via a very good step-by-step description.
The installation of Visual Studio Code and PlatformIO wasn’t that hard as well as downloading the example program.
By changing some settings in 2 files (platformio.ini and src/settings.h) after I had done my registration at OpenWeatherMap I was able to compile and upload the code. Unfortunately it didn’t work at first time. Checked the hardware, soldering and connectors a few times but didn’t see any issues. Checked the forum to find similar cases but there where none. I Contacted ThingPulse and within a few hours I got response from Dani. With some help I managed to get it to work.
Great job!
Roman Rauchwarter (verified owner) –
Easy assembling, excellent instructions how to upload software (and yes, I also forgot to upload the images, but re-reading the instructions and uploading the images worked).
I translated all texts in settings.h to gerrman, and there ist the only issue: all the fonts are missing one special german character (ß). So somtimes the wheater-text looks a bit funny (“Mä ig bewölkt” insted of “Mäßig bewölkt”).
But there is also a repository for using LVGL which vastly enhances the possibilities for this kit!
Excellent job!
Dani Eichhorn (verified owner) –
Thank you so much for sharing, Roman. Would you mind to share your German translation, so that others could also use it. Special characters characters that are non in ASCII set in plain Arduino ESP32 are indeed a bit of a problem. Does LVGL handle them correctly? That would be one more reason to create a LVGL version of the Weather Station…
Roman Rauchwarter (verified owner) –
I have created a pull request with the german translation.
Next I am going to experiment with LVGL.
Dani Eichhorn (verified owner) –
Thank you so much for the PR. I used your translation in a slightly different approach by moving them to “translation” files
George Wilson (verified owner) –
Got the Kit put together with no problems. I struggled a bit with platform i/o and didn’t follow the instructions closely enough. I got it up with text only. No graphics. After some e-mail exchange with the tech folks at thingpulse, I got it working. I have it mounted in a 3-d printed case so the project looks great. I am very pleased with the whole experience.
Even with my Sr Moment. (I am an 81 yr old retired engineer, trying to keep my skills up)