SH1106-Based OLED Display

1.3 Inch Monochrome OLED Displays For Little Money

SH1106 is a OLED display driver very similar to the popular SSD1306. It supports monochrome displays with a maximum resolution of 132x64 pixels and typically uses I2C.

This driver is frequently used in 1.3inch 128x64 display breakout boards. The SH1106 is rather used in the 0.9inch 128x64 display breakout boards.

SH1106 boards use the pins GND and VDD in opposite order compared to SSD1306 (may be coincidental).

The same applies to breakout boards with integrated OLED displays like the keyboard-display-combo below:

These boards are available with 0.96inch and 1.3inch displays. Like with the standalone boards, SH1106 is typically used in the 1.3inch version.

The SH1106 is a great and economical OLED driver to display text and static images. Once you require animations like scrolling, the SSD1306 is much better suited (and even more so the many other any more advanced/expensive driver models): SH1106 does not come with any hardware animation or scrolling support.

Colors

The display comes in different colors: white, blue, yellow.

Libraries

The SH1106 does not have the same level of driver support that the SSD1306 enjoys.

That’s why users have started to tweak and adapt SSD1306 libraries to use them with SH1106. Unfortunately, adaptions were not always done according to standard.

There is one Adafruit library for example that was ported from their original SSD1306 but apparently tweaking was done rather rude so that errors in the header file produce linker errors now when using the code in platform.io.

U8G2 Library To The Rescue

If you cannot find a dedicated library for a particular monochrome display driver, then the library u8g2 is your best shot.

This library aims to be compatible to as many different drivers and different boards as possible. It runs fine in platformio, and I used it with a ESO32 S2 Mini.

Selecting OLED Driver

Since the library u8g2 is not targeting a specific driver, you can select the driver at the beginning of the code:

All examples start with a huge section of commented lines. Each line describes a particular driver and OLED hardware.

To select a particular driver (like the SH1106), uncomment the line for this driver in the resolution you require.

Example Code

The example code below is taken directly from the u8g2 examples.

I just removed the entire comment block at the beginning, and just kept the lines for the SH1106 I2C driver. Since I tested with a 132x64 pixel display, I uncommented the line for the 128x64 display.

There was nothing else to configure. The code compiled flawlessly in platform.io and ran perfectly on a ESP32 S2 Mini.

/*

  GraphicsTest.ino
  
  Some graphics/text output for U8x8 API

  Universal 8bit Graphics Library (https://github.com/olikraus/u8g2/)

  Copyright (c) 2016, [email protected]
  All rights reserved.

  Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, 
  are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

  * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list 
    of conditions and the following disclaimer.
    
  * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this 
    list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other 
    materials provided with the distribution.

  THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND 
  CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, 
  INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF 
  MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE 
  DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR 
  CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, 
  SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT 
  NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; 
  LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER 
  CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, 
  STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) 
  ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF 
  ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.  

*/
#include <Arduino.h>
#include <U8x8lib.h>

#ifdef U8X8_HAVE_HW_SPI
#include <SPI.h>
#endif
#ifdef U8X8_HAVE_HW_I2C
#include <Wire.h>
#endif

U8X8_SH1106_128X64_NONAME_HW_I2C u8x8(/* reset=*/ U8X8_PIN_NONE);
//U8X8_SH1106_128X32_VISIONOX_HW_I2C u8x8(/* reset=*/ U8X8_PIN_NONE); 

void setup(void)
{
  u8x8.begin();
  //u8x8.setFlipMode(1);
}

void pre(void)
{
  u8x8.setFont(u8x8_font_amstrad_cpc_extended_f);    
  u8x8.clear();

  u8x8.inverse();
  u8x8.print(" U8x8 Library ");
  u8x8.setFont(u8x8_font_chroma48medium8_r);  
  u8x8.noInverse();
  u8x8.setCursor(0,1);
}

void draw_bar(uint8_t c, uint8_t is_inverse)
{	
  uint8_t r;
  u8x8.setInverseFont(is_inverse);
  for( r = 0; r < u8x8.getRows(); r++ )
  {
    u8x8.setCursor(c, r);
    u8x8.print(" ");
  }
}

void draw_ascii_row(uint8_t r, int start)
{
  int a;
  uint8_t c;
  for( c = 0; c < u8x8.getCols(); c++ )
  {
    u8x8.setCursor(c,r);
    a = start + c;
    if ( a <= 255 )
      u8x8.write(a);
  }
}

void loop(void)
{
  int i;
  uint8_t c, r, d;
  pre();
  u8x8.print("github.com/");
  u8x8.setCursor(0,2);
  u8x8.print("olikraus/u8g2");
  delay(2000);
  u8x8.setCursor(0,3);
  u8x8.print("Tile size:");
  u8x8.print((int)u8x8.getCols());
  u8x8.print("x");
  u8x8.print((int)u8x8.getRows());
  
  delay(2000);
   
  pre();
  for( i = 19; i > 0; i-- )
  {
    u8x8.setCursor(3,2);
    u8x8.print(i);
    u8x8.print("  ");
    delay(150);
  }
  
  draw_bar(0, 1);
  for( c = 1; c < u8x8.getCols(); c++ )
  {
    draw_bar(c, 1);
    draw_bar(c-1, 0);
    delay(50);
  }
  draw_bar(u8x8.getCols()-1, 0);

  pre();
  u8x8.setFont(u8x8_font_amstrad_cpc_extended_f); 
  for( d = 0; d < 8; d ++ )
  {
    for( r = 1; r < u8x8.getRows(); r++ )
    {
      draw_ascii_row(r, (r-1+d)*u8x8.getCols() + 32);
    }
    delay(400);
  }

  draw_bar(u8x8.getCols()-1, 1);
  for( c = u8x8.getCols()-1; c > 0; c--)
  {
    draw_bar(c-1, 1);
    draw_bar(c, 0);
    delay(50);
  }
  draw_bar(0, 0);

  pre();
  u8x8.drawString(0, 2, "Small");
  u8x8.draw2x2String(0, 5, "Scale Up");
  delay(3000);

  pre();
  u8x8.drawString(0, 2, "Small");
  u8x8.setFont(u8x8_font_px437wyse700b_2x2_r);
  u8x8.drawString(0, 5, "2x2 Font");
  delay(3000);

  pre();
  u8x8.drawString(0, 1, "3x6 Font");
  u8x8.setFont(u8x8_font_inb33_3x6_n);
  for(i = 0; i < 100; i++ )
  {
    u8x8.setCursor(0, 2);
    u8x8.print(i);			// Arduino Print function
    delay(10);
  }
  for(i = 0; i < 100; i++ )
  {
    u8x8.drawString(0, 2, u8x8_u16toa(i, 5));	// U8g2 Build-In functions
    delay(10);		
  }

  pre();
  u8x8.drawString(0, 2, "Weather");
  u8x8.setFont(u8x8_font_open_iconic_weather_4x4);
  for(c = 0; c < 6; c++ )
  {
    u8x8.drawGlyph(0, 4, '@'+c);
    delay(300);
  }
  

  pre();
  u8x8.print("print \\n\n");
  delay(500);
  u8x8.println("println");
  delay(500);
  u8x8.println("done");
  delay(1500);

  pre();
  u8x8.fillDisplay();
  for( r = 0; r < u8x8.getRows(); r++ )
  {
    u8x8.clearLine(r);
    delay(100);
  }
  delay(1000);

}

This is the platformio.ini I used to compile the sketch in platformio and run it on a ESP32 S2 Mini:

[env:lolin_s2_mini]
platform = espressif32
board = lolin_s2_mini
framework = arduino
lib_deps = 
	olikraus/U8g2@^2.35.19

Data Sheets

SH1106

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(content created Apr 28, 2024)