Setting up MHS-3.5inch display with Raspberry Pi 4

So recently i bought a raspberry pi 4B together with a MHS3.5 inch LCD display. So let’s go about setting this up.

There are two ways of getting the display work with the Pi.

1. Easy way: Download the raspbian image preloaded with the display driver.
2. Standard way: Download the official raspbian image, then clone the repo https://github.com/goodtft/LCD-show.git and install the driver via SSH.

Now if you already have the pi setup, you will be going with the standard way.

Remember when you plugin the display, it’s right aligned to the pi pins.

Easy way:

So we get started by downloading the Raspbian image preloaded with the MHS display driver. We will be downloading the image from a Chinese mirror, so if you have a trust issue, please move to Standard way.

Dowload the custom image: MHS3528–3.5inch-2019–09–26-raspbian-buster.7z

Once done, unzip it and flash it to your Micro SD card. You may use BalenaItcher if you are on Mac. You can download the flash tool via https://www.balena.io/etcher/. There is also a tutorial on doing this on the official raspberry pi website: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installation/installing-images/.

If you are using Windows, use https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/. But before flashing, make sure to format your SD card with FAT.

Once done, attach the display to your pi. Insert the MicrosSD card and power up your Pi. We are done!!! You will see a white blank screen for ~10 sec, after that the display should boot up magically!!!

You can now configure your wifi via the display and setup SSH to your pi. You can find several tutorials on doing this if you dont know how.

The Standard way:

Download the official raspbian image and flash it to SD card. Please follow this official guide. https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installation/installing-images/

Now let’s power on your Pi. If you do not have an external monitor, you can either use an ethernet cable or setup auto-connect to your wifi via config file.

Using Ethernet: you will need an ethernet cable to setup SSH. Here is an excellent step-by step tutorial on setting up ethernet on your Pi: https://medium.com/@tzhenghao/how-to-ssh-into-your-raspberry-pi-with-a-mac-and-ethernet-cable-636a197d055.

Using config file: Please follow the official guide on setting up wifi via command line: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/wireless/wireless-cli.md

If you have a monitor, hook it up via your HDMI adapter setup the wifi. Open terminal on your pi and type:

hostname -I

Once you have the IP, you can then use terminal (if you are using unix(Mac/Linux) or Putty for Windows.

For Mac/Linux, u would type:

ssh pi@<IP_ADDRESS_HERE>

By default password would be raspberry. You can later change it using passwd command.

Once the Wifi setup, clone the repo and finally install the driver:

sudo rm -rf LCD-show
git clone https://github.com/goodtft/LCD-show.git
chmod -R 755 LCD-show
cd LCD-show/
sudo ./LCD35-show

Depending on the display size, you will have to choose the correct shell script from the directory. For me since i’m using 3.5 inch, i execute LCD35-show.

finally, reboot your pi, and your display should now load up!!!

sudo reboot

Thats all.

have fun with your Pi !!!