Aquaponic DIY Automation Blog

800 X 480 – 5″ HDMI display – Jessie with Pixel – resolution issue – Raspberry Pi March 16, 2017

This display was purchased to allow a graphical interface element to the automation effort of aquaponic systems.  So I was very happy to find this display and it could easily be integrated into the overall design with a very small footprint.

ADAFRUIT is quite clear that that this 5″ HDMI display will not work without changes to the “config.txt” file to set-up for the different display size.  In this case 800 X 480 resolution.  The documentation to make these changes is very good and works as documented.

THAT IS UNTIL A NEW RELEASE OF RASPBERRY PI OS —

As always technology never stands still.  Advances are made almost daily when it comes to Raspberry Pi and the OS is no exception. In late 2016 a new upgrade was rolled out called “JESSIE” with Pixel.  There was a lot of buzz about this new upgrade and it does look and perform much better over all.  Once you upgrade or update there is no going back.

The problem with the “JESSIE” upgrade is that now the solution provide by ADAFRUIT for the 5″ HDMI display no longer worked very well and was unusable as a display on the Balcony Gardens.

A fix was needed, but since “JESSIE” was so new no one was really aware of this resolution issue and the resolution issue was not even being talked about on ADAFRUIT site or in the Raspberry Pi forums.

After a lot of searching and months later a solution was found.

Long story so I will not go into details of the issue, but have documented it all in an Instructable that can be found here:

Instructable – 800 X 480 5″ HDMI display – resolution issue

HERE IS THE FIX AND LINK TO THE SOLUTION:

Actual changes needed in the “config.txt” file for use:

In the file /boot/config.txt add the following text to the end of the file:

#increase HDMI signal strength

config_hdmi_boost=4

#remove black borders

disable_overscan=1

#set specific CVT mode

hdmi_cvt 800 480 60 6 0 0 0

#set CVT as default

hdmi_group=2

hdmi_mode=87

dtoverlay=ads7846,cs=1,penirq=25,penirq_pull=2,speed=50000,keep_vref

_on=0,swapxy=0,pmax=255,xohms=150,xmin=200,xmax=3900,

ymin=200,ymax=3900

dtoverlay=w1-gpio-pullup,gpiopin=4,extpullup=1

Save the config file and then do this: (see note below about this one)

sudo apt -get install xinput-calibrator

I have not tried using the above install command, because I was able to gain the results I needed without it.  I believe like Auvy that sometimes less is more!

HERE IS THE LINK TO THE SOLUTION AS SHOWN ABOVE:

AMAZON SOLUTION – 5″ HDMI display – JESSIE – Pixel – resolution issue