{"id":13337,"date":"2015-09-08T09:15:12","date_gmt":"2015-09-08T08:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.recantha.co.uk\/blog\/?p=13337"},"modified":"2015-09-08T09:18:43","modified_gmt":"2015-09-08T08:18:43","slug":"raspberry-pi-7-touch-screen-a-first-look-at-the-long-awaited-screen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.recantha.co.uk\/blog\/?p=13337","title":{"rendered":"Raspberry Pi 7″ touch screen – a first look at the long-awaited screen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"fully_assembled_front\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Mike: Here’s a guest post from my good friend Tim Richardson<\/a>. He got hold of one of these screens early and was kind enough to write a review. All the photos (except the picture of the Pi, which is a stock image) were taken by Tim.<\/em><\/p>\n

Introduction<\/h2>\n

A long, long time ago, at a CamJam<\/a> not far, far away, Raspberry Pi Trading (the commercial arm of the Raspberry Pi Foundation) brought along and demonstrated a 7\u201d touch screen that looked pretty similar to the Google Nexus 7.<\/p>\n

The team became really busy with the B+, the Pi2 and other projects, with the screen taking a lower spot in their order of priority. It also had to go through a number of rounds of EMC<\/a> testing to ensure that the screen and driver board did not affect radio and other equipment. Well, after a (too long) delay, RPT has finally released the screen<\/a>! Check out their announcement post, with tonnes of technical detail here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You can get hold of a screen from The Pi Hut here<\/a><\/p>\n

What do you get for your \u00a350?<\/h2>\n

Yes, that\u2019s just \u00a350! \u00a0Of course, you get the screen. It\u2019s only 800×480 pixels, which is smaller than I was hoping, but it is very clear. You also get the driver board, a short ribbon cable, some spacer screws, and some jumper wires. Yes, it\u2019s a kit that you have to put together yourself. But it is really easy. It took me about 5 minutes, and part of that was finding my shorter jumper wires as the ones supplied are a little longer than necessary.<\/p>\n

And you now have a use for that mysterious Display Connector that sits right on the edge of the board.<\/p>\n

\"dsi_connector\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Preparing your Pi<\/h2>\n

Before connecting your Pi to the screen, you should first ensure you have updated it to the latest version of Raspbian. I understand that NOOBS does not (currently) work, as when that boots it does not have the drivers required for the board.\u00a0 In Raspbian, open a terminal window (if you are in Desktop mode) and issue the following commands, one after the other, waiting for the previous one to complete before going onto the next. The first two are really the only ones required, but the other three ensure that your Pi has the latest and greatest version of Raspbian. Answer \u2018Y\u2019 to any prompts:<\/p>\n