Fixing Arduino TFT LCD White Screen Problems

My Arduino TFT Touch Screen Project

I’m working on a hobby project where I’m building Arduino gadgets.

The biggest problem working on Arduinos is that they are more or less experimental and finding drivers and software packages can be quite challenging. Often, it becomes the most time consuming part of any Arduino project.

Arduino TFT LCDs

Recently, I’ve started experimenting with Arduino TFT LCDs and what a joy it is to find all the missing libraries and “How-To” resources to pull this off.

I’m posting this information because it helped me with the issue I was having.

Sometimes it is not just the drivers, but the software to makes Arduino hardware run that often sends you down the rabbit hole. Often, you’ll spend hours troubleshooting your project over a code bug but never being 100% sure you hardware isn’t failing.

Once I finally found the right drivers and a couple of code tweaks, I finally got the 2.4 inch TFT LCD to work a bit and even a drawing app that let you draw with your finger or stylus.

You can find more detailed information and some sample code on Arduino’s Liquid Crystal page.

Arduino Code Example: TFT LCD
(lcd.ino)

As you can see in the code example below, #include <LiquidCrystal.h> LiquidCrystal lcd(12, 11, 5, 4, 3, 2); void setup() { lcd.begin(16, 2); lcd.print("hello, world!"); } void loop() { }

Arduino Code Example: TFT LCD
(lcd_clear.ino)

This example is similar but we added a line to “setCursor”.

I saved this file as lcd_clear.ino then pushed it to the Arduino and it ran. 

#include <LiquidCrystal.h>

LiquidCrystal lcd(12, 11, 5, 4, 3, 2);

void setup() {
  lcd.begin(16, 2);
  lcd.setCursor(2, 1);
  lcd.print("TGIF!!!");
}

void loop() {
 
}

Troubleshooting Arduino TFT LCDs

Below are some videos that were helpful to me in troubleshooting my Arduino TFT LCD problems. Use these video along with the resources I reference earlier and I’m sure you’ll find a way to make it all work.

Video: Arduino TFT White Screen Fix

Video: Arduino TFT Touch Screen Tutorial

Author: Rick Cable / AKA Cyber Abyss

- 16 year US Navy Veteran. - 20 years in software development and many other IT roles. - Currently in role as senior full-stack software developer supporting multiple teams and products at a large healthcare organization. - Part-time Hacking, Lock Picking and OSINT enthusiast. - Founder of FinditClassifieds.com in 1997 to present. - Co-founder of LK2 Software 1999-2002.