Hi,
I’m considering purchasing a Pico Display Pack. Could someone who has one please confirm that the backlight is adjustable and that it can go pretty dim - my eyes are quite light sensitive. When set to the lowest value is there much light bleed from the backlight?
The reason I ask is that the Pico Explorer Base display’s backlight is not adjustable and is pretty bright.
Cheers,
Steve
I have both screens and neither spill much light out of the edges. A small application of Blue Tak could probably reduce even that to zero.
See video here: Pimoroni Pico Display Workout : 3 Steps - Instructables
Many thanks for the reply Tony and for pointing me at the excellent tutorial and video.
I see you have set the backlight to 90% in the code. Judging from the video I would guess that my Pico Explorer display is putting out quite a bit more light even taking into account the 10% reduction. There is no way I can get a black background - it is a mid-grey due to the bright backlight. I’m currently using the Explorer to prototype a clock / timer. I’m moving the time around every five seconds and I can still see screen burn-in after a few minutes. I’ve turned the display off for a while since and it looks like it may not be permanent - I hope. I am looking to purchase the Pico Display pack sometime soon.
I’ve adjusted the exposure on this photo so it looks like what I see:
Cheers,
Steve
In version 0.0.7 of the Pimoroni UF2 they have taken out the backlight method for Explorer. It is still there on Display and essential! Are you using the latest version?
Looking at the screen with black background set (0,0,0) it is quite bright and the true black fame is much darker.
I can see in your photograph that you are getting the similar ‘burn’ marks on the background that I saw. It does not appear to have done any permanent damage. Perhaps you could just use (128,128,128) grey rather than (255,255,255) full, brilliant white for the characters and so reduce the contrast.
Have you got an SSD1306 128 x64 screen. I’ve got that working effectively and have put up a tutorial here:
SSD1306 With Raspberry Pi Pico : 6 Steps - Instructables
No backlight to worry about.
Please, let me now how you get on with Pico Display when it arrives.
Not backlight problems here but it is slower and far less refined.
Many thanks for your reply.
Your suggestion of setting the text to grey has helped cut down the burn-in effect quite a bit. I had a look at your Instructable about the SSD1306 and I am now (as a result) thinking of switching to one of the 128x32 derivatives that I can get two of for about £9. As you say, no backlight to worry about on those.
I’m currently running the Pico for a few days to see how accurate the time remains. I’m hoping not to have to buy a RTC module as they are quite expensive.
Cheers
Thanks again for the link. I got two SSD1306 128x32’s today. They’re tiny but very clear and sharp. I got them with headers pre-soldered and got them working pretty easily thanks to your code from micro Python on the Explorer board. I suspect that getting them working from C++ may be a bit more of a challenge.
