connecting i.MX7D Sabre(MCIMX7SABRE) and E-INK panel(IMXEBOOKDC4)

[#1]

Hardware connection:

there are two board-to-board connectors on E-INK daughter card IMXEBOOKDC4, while there is only one on i.MX7D Sabre board, as the picture below. This might be a bit confusing to connect the two:

Checked with internal, the original design was trying to wire both eLCDIF and EPDC bus out to one daughter card, add the flexibility to have different configurations on one display daughter card(LCD/EPD). On i.MX7D Sabre board, only one connector is available for EPDC bus.

Here is how we connect i.MX7D Sabre and IMXEBOOKDC4:

Software setup:

here we use pre-build L3.14.38_6UL7D_Beta Linux as our boot-image, steps to setup/boot/test EPDC:

1. download and decompress BSP pre-build image package "L3.14.38_beta_images_MX6UL7D.tar.gz", you should be able to find the SD image in it -- "fsl-image-gui-x11-imx7dsabresd.sdcard"

2. program the SD image on your SD card(>800 MBytes) with command(I'm running this in Ubuntu): "dd if=fsl-image-gui-x11-imx7dsabresd.sdcard of=/dev/sdb;sync"

3. insert SD card to the slot(J6) on i.MX7D Sabre board, connect debug-UART and power-on the board

4. modify the u-boot environment variables as below:

     a.) setenv fdt_file imx7d-sdb-epdc.dtb

          (originally this is "fdt_file=imx7d-sdb.dtb")

     b.) setenv mmcargs 'setenv bootargs console=${console},${baudrate} root=${mmcroot} epdc video=mxcepdcfb:E060SCM,bpp=16'
          (originally this is "mmcargs=setenv bootargs console=${console},${baudrate} root=${mmcroot}")

5. boot into Linux kernel, run unit-test: "/unit_tests/mxc_epdc_fb_test.out", should be able to have test patterns running on EPD.

[mayliu]

Hi Jim,

  Since we want to connect our 9.7" panel to IMXEBOOKDC4, we need the schematic to confirm the pin connection, do you have the IMXEBOOKDC4 schematic documents? PDF format would be fine, thanks a lot!

[jim_lin]

Hello May,

sorry, I've checked with internal but so far can't find the schematics, will keep looking.

Jim.

[aravinthkumarja]

in imx6 sololite Android 4.4.3 E-INK not working.. Additionally any think i want to do.

[jim_lin]

if my memory serve me right, Android 443 BSP comes without EINK support(can double-check the BSP release note), you would need to contact your local Sales person/FAE to get the patch to make EINK work, FYI~

Jim.

[martinsandsmark]

Hi!

We've followed the instructions provided here to the letter, but the contents on the display are corrupted:

We've tried running all of the three different unit tests; mxc_epdc_fb_test.out, mxc_epdc_v2_fb_test.out and mxc_epdc_x11_fb_test.out. For the two first ones we have tried both with and without killing the X11 session. We have rebooted inbetween running each of the unit tests. All of them display similar corrupted output.

The md5sum of the fsl-image-gui-x11-imx7dsabresd.sdcard image we have is ae624eb0fdacf795a8574764443782c9. We also tried using the fsl-image-gui-x11-imx7dsabresd.sdcard image (with the md5sum fb52fc457fb5c97f2bb79c9a67c269e6), with the same results.

We have also verified the physical connections.

Any ideas for how our team can debug this further?

[torus1000]

We hope receive the IMXEBOOKDC4 schematic too.

[ivarvikoren]

Good morning.

The schematics for the Eink Display Daughter card (ED 4) can be found on the I.MX7x Extranet site here:

https://www.nxp.com/livelink/livelink?func=ll&objId=234961174&objAction=browse&viewType=1

Best regards,

Ivar.

[ivarvikoren]

Good afternoon Tohru.

I am sorry but I cannot send you the design files for the E-ink daughter card, there are more than one file.  They are all marked confidential so I cannot send them to companies, which I do not know for sure have a NDA in place with NXP.  So I have
to refer you to your local NXP representative, sorry.  They can get you access to the extranet site in less than a day if the company you work for have a NDA with NXP.  If you do not have one. it takes a little bit longer time.  If you are doing a iMX7 design, there are other files at the extranet site that would help you doing your design, I would recommend you to get access.

I tried to send you this message though the file upload site in your post, but the login and password did not work.

Best regards,

Ivar

[ianweston]

Hi Martin,

I've just started up my i.MX7 Sabre with the IMXEBOOKDC4 and i'm having the exact same problem as you had. can i ask - did you ever resolve this issue? and if so, could you tell me how?

Many thanks! its a frustrating problem!

Ian.

[markruthenbeck]

All,

I have been able to recreate the issue shown here, and I have the solution :smileyhappy:

I am using a production rev C iMX7 SABRE board and the ga software release l4.1.15.

The instructions on the reference page is for ver 3.14.38.

To make the EPDC DC4 board work, the ONLY item that needs to be changed from the stock u-boot environment is to use teh EPDC dtb file.:

     setenv fdt_file imx7d-sdb-epdc.dtb

          (originally this is "fdt_file=imx7d-sdb.dtb")

Boot the system, and log in.

run the test at: /unit_tests/mxc_epdc_v2_fb_test.out

There is NO need to add the "epdc video=mxcepdcfb:E060SCM,bpp=16' to the boot args.

Let me know if there are additional questions,

mark

[markruthenbeck]

All,

Having the boot args line with video=...:E060SCM... is selecting the wrong panel the proper number for the EBOOKDC4 panel is ED060XH2C1. By substituting this correct model number in the line, all things work correctly. The reason it works without this arg, is that the DC4 panel is listed first in the 'struct imx_epdc_fb_mode.

Cheers,

mark

[ianweston]

Hi Mark,

Thank you! this works perfectly now! - which is a huge relief!

Thanks also for the added information on the E060xxx device selection, I'm sure that will be valuable to know when we start to play around with the hardware.

Many thanks again.

Ian.

[martinsandsmark]

Hi!

Sorry for not updating my post and answering sooner, I was away on summer holidays.

But we fixed it by updating the arguments passed to the kernel to use the ED060XH2C1 display model. So just follow the instructions in the document above, but replace

setenv mmcargs 'setenv bootargs console=${console},${baudrate} root=${mmcroot} epdc video=mxcepdcfb:E060SCM,bpp=16'

with

setenv mmcargs 'setenv bootargs console=${console},${baudrate} root=${mmcroot} epdc video=mxcepdcfb:ED060XH2C1,bpp=16'

I hope this helps.

And on an unrelated note, does anyone know how to edit ones last name? Seems like the NXP forums decided that my last name should be "OS Engineering"...

--

Martin Sandsmark

[jeffsonxu]

Hi, Martin,

great to have your information to add 9.7" E-Ink display on our EVK.

Now we have a complete customized E-Ink panel, but at moment the waveform is not yet available, how to rapidly test the panel with the current unit-test application with only modifing the driver code or so?

Could you please give me some suggestion on that?

Appreciate very much for your help!

BR,

Jeff

[adamkaliszewski]

Hi,

how can I get permissions to External Site ? We want to check compatibility between ED133UT2 and IMXEBOOKDC4.

Best Regards, 

Adam