Tufty 2040

A hackable, programmable badge with a 2.4″ (320 x 240) TFT LCD colour display, powered by

Raspberry Pi RP2040

.

We’ve had a lot of requests for an LCD version of 

Badger 2040

 so tada – meet our pal Tufty. In a nutshell, we’ve combined an RP2040 microcontroller with a nice, crisp LCD screen to make a snazzy, colourful programmable badge – perfect for identifying/expressing yourself at cybernetic conferences, 

illicit undersea research facilities

 or dodgy space station bars. Don’t limit yourself to hanging it around your neck (or tail) though, use it as a sleek display/control panel for sensor readouts, a photo frame for digitally generated art or for making/playing small games. Perhaps you could even have a crack at making it 

play Doom

?

Tufty comes fully loaded with a quintet of buttons so you can easily change what’s displayed on the screen, a slot so you can clip it onto a lanyard and a light-sensing phototransistor, which can be used to adjust the brightness of the screen automatically. On the back, you’ll find a majestic cyberpunk squirrel, a battery connector (with a nice wide input voltage) and the usual RP2040 old chestnuts – boot and power on/off buttons and a Qw/ST connector for attaching breakouts.

You can pick up a Tufty on its own, or for a bit more cashew can get a handy Tufty + Accessory Kit with a lanyard, AAA battery pack and USB cable. Select your desired option before adding it to your cart!

Features

• 2.4″ colour IPS LCD display (320 x 240 pixels)
  • Driver IC: ST7789v
  • Connected via parallel
  • Dimmable backlight (adjustable via PWM)
• Powered by RP2040 (Dual Arm Cortex M0+ running at up to 133Mhz with 264kB of SRAM)
• 8MB of QSPI flash supporting XiP
• Phototransistor for light sensing
• Five front user buttons
• Power and boot buttons (the boot button can also be used as a user button)
• White LED
• USB-C connector for power and programming
• JST-PH connector for attaching a battery (input range 3V – 5.5V)
• High-precision voltage reference for battery level monitoring.
• Qw/ST (Qwiic/STEMMA QT) connector
• Fully assembled (no soldering required)

• Schematic

• Dimensional drawing

• C++/MicroPython libraries

Tufty + Accessory Kit includes

• Tufty 2040
• 3 x AAA battery holder
• 3 x AAA batteries
• Velcro square
• Black lanyard (made from recycled plastic bottles!)
• USB-C to USB-A cable

Software

You can program Tufty with C/C++ or MicroPython. You’ll get the best performance using C++, but if you’re a beginner we’d recommend using our batteries included MicroPython build for ease of getting started. We’ve preloaded Tufty with a demo reel of fun examples to show you what it can do!

• Download Pirate brand MicroPython

   (special Tufty edition)

• Getting Started with Tufty 2040

• C++ examples

• MicroPython examples

• PicoGraphics function reference

The display functions in our new improved PicoGraphics library have been given a glow up – be sure to check them out! You can now:

• render JPEGs
• display QR codes
• draw weird polygonal shapes
• import sprites from a spritesheet
• use custom colour palettes (saving valuable RAM)

CircuitPython support is coming soon!

Connecting Breakouts

The Qw/ST connector on Tufty 2040 makes it super easy to connect up

Qwiic

 or 

STEMMA QT

 breakouts. If your breakout has a QW/ST connector on board, you can plug it straight in with a 

JST-SH to JST-SH cable

. 

Breakout Garden breakouts

 that don’t have a Qw/ST connector can be connected using a 

JST-SH to JST-SH cable

 plus a 

Qw/ST to Breakout Garden adaptor

. Want to use multiple breakouts at the same time? Try 

this adaptor

!

• List of breakouts

   currently compatible with our C++/MicroPython build.

Notes

• Measurements: 65.2mm x 52.7mm x 9.6mm (L x W x H, including connectors). The mounting holes are M2 and 2.9mm in from each edge. The corner radius is 3mm.
• We’ve designed Tufty 2040 to be accommodating about input voltage (3V – 5.5V), so it’s possible to use a variety of different batteries and battery packs. We’d recommend using a 3x AAA battery pack which should give you maximum juice whilst still fitting behind Tufty nicely.
• A 2x AAA battery pack will only work well if you use non-rechargeable batteries – the voltage from 2 rechargeable (NiMH) batteries (2.4V) is just not enough for the screen.
• Tuftys are hungrier than Badgers! Power consumption is around 80mA for the screen (at full brightness) and 20mA for the RP2040 – so 100 mA total. Tufty has a toggle power on/off button (instead of a reset button) to make it easy to turn it off to preserve power, and setting the backlight to dim/turn off automatically will also make your batteries last much longer.
• Alternatively, you can plug a LiPo/LiIon battery into the battery connector, with the following caveats. Please only consider this if the person wearing the badge is an adult and knows what they’re doing with LiPos!
  • A solid enclosure or backplate to protect the battery from damage whilst being worn is a very good idea
  • There’s no battery protection included on Tufty 2040, so you should only use it with LiPo batteries that include internal protection.
  • Unlike some of our other boards, Tufty 2040 doesn’t have battery charging circuitry onboard. You’ll need an external LiPo charger to charge the battery (like a 

    LiPo Amigo

    ).

• Sciurus Cybernetics employees should be careful when eating their last nut, in order to avoid kernel panic.