This tutorial will explain how to connect and setup an I2C OLED screen to display System Status as show in the following captures : ![system status](/img/i2c/capture_01.png) ![system time](/img/i2c/capture_02.png) !!! info You can find I2C OLED display on Aliexpress.com. Search for "i2c oled 1.3". ## Connect OLED Display The I2C interface on Helios4 board is located at header **J9** which exposes the SoC I2C Bus 1. Below is the header pin-out, the little arrow on the PCB indicates the GND pin. ![I2C Pinout](/img/hardware/i2c_pinout.png) You will need to use Male to Male Jumper Wire (a.k.a Dupont Cable) to connect your display to Helios4 board. Connect matching pin on each side (GND to GND, VDD to VDD, SDA to SDA, etc...). Ideally you use cables of different colors to easily check that your wiring is correct. ![oled i2c wiring](/img/i2c/wiring_01.jpeg) ![board i2c wiring](/img/i2c/wiring_02.jpeg) ### Check I2C Communication To check if the system can communicate with the OLED device, we should first scan the I2C bus to see if we can detect the device. 1. Install the Linux i2c tools. ``` $ sudo apt-get install i2c-tools ``` 2. Use **i2cdetect** tool to scan I2C Bus 1. ``` root@helios4:~# i2cdetect -y 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f 00: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 10: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 20: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 30: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 3c -- -- -- 40: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 50: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 60: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 70: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ``` Here we can see there is a device detected at the address 0x3c. We can conclude is our OLED screen, unless you have connected more than just one I2C device on the **J9** header. ## SYS-OLED Application **sys-oled** is an application to display Helios4 system status on I2C OLED display. * Based on [luma.oled](https://github.com/rm-hull/luma.oled) * Inspired from luma.oled [sys_info.py](https://github.com/rm-hull/luma.examples/blob/master/examples/sys_info.py) example ### Installation ``` git clone https://github.com/helios-4/sys-oled.git cd sys-oled sudo ./install.sh ``` ### Configuration #### 1. Configure OLED display model Test which display model is the correct one by launching manually **sys-oled** and trying different display model as parameter until the System Status is showing correctly on the display. Example : ``` sudo sys-oled --display ssd1306 sudo sys-oled --display sh1106 ``` Supported values : ssd1306 (default), ssd1322, ssd1325, ssd1327, ssd1331, ssd1351, sh1106. Once you know which display model is the correct one, edit */usr/local/etc/sys-oled.conf* and update the **DISPLAY=** line. #### 2. Configure storage info For now **sys-oled** is a very crude python app that will require you to edit it directly in order to customize what you want to display. Edit **sys-oled** script and look for the *status()* function. ``` sudo nano /usr/local/bin/sys-oled ``` You can edit the following lines to define for which storage devices you want to display info. ``` d.text((0, 27), disk_usage('sd', '/'), font=font, fill="white") d.text((0, 39), disk_usage('md0', '/mnt/md0'), font=font, fill="white") ``` In the above example, we are displaying **sd** (SDcard) usage which is the rootfs mounted on *'/'*. We are also displaying **md0** (RAID array) that is mounted on *'/mnt/mnd0'*. The values *(0, 27)* and *(0, 39)* correspond to the X, Y positions of displayed texts. #### 3. Start the service The install script will have automatically setup **sys-oled** to start at every startup. Now you can either restart your Helios4 or you can launch directly the service with the following command: ``` systemctl start sys-oled.service ``` ### Note This sys-oled app was developed and tested only with the OLED model SH1106 which has a matrix panel of 132 x 64. If you use a different model that has a smaller resolution, you might need to tweak the coordinate values.