40-pin TFT Friend - FPC Breakout with LED Backlight Driver

This breakout board is something we designed in-house to help us work with 'dot-clock' 40-pin TFT displays that require the RGB pixel data to be clocked in continuously. These displays have 40-pin Flex PCB (FPC) cables and often require a boost converter for the backlight LED, which makes them annoying to breadboard. To make them breadboardable, we stuck a 40-pin FPC and a FAN5333-based backlight driver with adjustable current onto a labeled breakout board. Now you can poke and probe each pin!

The backlight driver defaults to 25mA and can boost up to 24VDC for up to 7-LED strings. Check your display datasheet for the string configuration, and short out the jumpers to increase the backlight current.

Comes with one assembled and tested PCB. Header and TFT display is not included! We have 4.3" with touchscreen and 5.0" (with and without touchscreen) displays in the shop that work well with this. The 4.3" tend to like 25mA backlight drive, the 5.0" look good with 50mA backlight.

We don't have a tutorial on using this breakout or how to interface with these displays and you must have a processor that can drive the display! This is a tool designed for more advanced makers who already have a microprocessor that has dot-clock-type TFT support built in and just want a wiring assistant. You can grab the Eagle CAD files here