Sunton ESP32, ESP32 Development Board with TFT Touchscreen

Apr 2023
3 min

Sunton ESP32 is a series of very low-cost development boards that incorporate an ESP32 along with a touch TFT screen.

These types of boards appeared some time ago on sellers like AliExpress, and integrate an ESP32 + TFT + touch panel at a very low price.

I’ll be honest in saying that, at first, they seemed too cheap to be true. My first thought was that they would send you something that didn’t work, or simply not send you anything at all.

But after buying several screens and testing them quite a bit, I must say that not only do they work, but they are highly recommended machines. All of them have arrived well and functioning without defects.

We are actually looking at a series of development boards that mount an ESP32-D0WDQ6(WROOM), with a 32-bit Xtensa LX6 dual-core 160MHz processor, 520 KiB SRAM, and 16MiB flash memory.

sunton-esp32-2

There is a 2.8” version with a resolution of 240x320 or a 3.2” version with a resolution of 320x480. We also have the option of a resistive or capacitive touch panel. Logically, the capacitive one has better response and is somewhat more expensive.

{ “CPU and Memory”: [ { “label”: “Processor”, “value”: “32-bit Xtensa LX6 dual-core 160MHz (max 240 MHz)” }, { “label”: “Memory”, “value”: “520 KiB SRAM, external flash up to 16MiB” } ], “Connectivity”: [ { “label”: “WiFi”, “value”: “802.11 b/g/n 2.4GHz (supports WFA/WPA/WPA2/WAPI)” }, { “label”: “Bluetooth”, “value”: “v4.2 BR/EDR and BLE” } ], “Devices”: [ { “label”: “GPIO”, “value”: “32 pins” }, { “label”: “ADC”, “value”: “12-bit and 18 channels” }, { “label”: “DAC”, “value”: “2 of 8-bit” }, { “label”: “PWM”, “value”: “16 outputs (LED PWM)” }, { “label”: “Interfaces”, “value”: [“3x UART”, “4x SPI”, “2x I2S”, “2x I2C”, “CAN bus 2.0”] }, { “label”: “Capacitive Sensors”, “value”: “10x (on GPIO)” }, { “label”: “Others”, “value”: [“1 PWM output for motors”, “Temperature sensor”, “Hall effect sensor”, “Random number generator”, “RTC”, “IR controller (8 channels)”] } ], “Display”: [ { “label”: “Display”, “value”: “Touch TFT 2.8 in. or 3.2 in.” } ] }

sunton-esp32-1

In addition to this, the board features:

Touch TFT screen
SD Card slot up to 16Gb
Expansion cable x
Micro USB cable x
Speaker connector
Integrated RGB LED
Light sensor, for backlight control

We can find the board on international sellers, identified as an ESP32 development board with LVGL. While it’s true that running LVGL (like any other ESP32) doesn’t necessarily mean we have to use LVGL. Rather, sellers use it as a selling point.

Of course, like all ESP32s, it is compatible with the Arduino programming environment. That is, it is very easy to use the environment and libraries to adapt it to our DIY and IoT projects.

Regarding price, we can find the 2.8” model for about €14, shipping included. In the case of the 3.2” model, we find the resistive touch model for €18, and the capacitive touch for €21.

That is, given the characteristics of this board and the number of peripherals it integrates, it is a very affordable and interesting price.

The documentation is somewhat scarce, but I’ll leave you some links I’ve found:

On the other hand, here is a repo of mine with the LVGL code example, ready to work (including the LVGL library with some bugs fixed). Demo-ESP32-TFT-2.8-LVGL