Touchscreen and Camera not Recognized

Question

Hello,

I recently got my first Pi along with a touchscreen, and camera. I'm going to be using it to connect my 3d printer to my network and view the video feed. I successfully got the print server image loaded and it worked great. I went to add the touchscreen and camera and I get nothing. I can connect the HDMI and view the desktop, but the screen and camera are not initialized. I have run the update and upgrade commands, tried different power supplies and sources, different ribbon cables, dis connected and reconnected all of the ribbon cables that came pre-attached, even loaded a new micro SD card with the stretch image... still nothing. I can't find anything else online that might help, so here I am.

TIA.

shabaz · Accepted Answer

Hi Kenny,

I think I see the problem, but I don't have an easy solution.

If you look at the photos at Raspberry Pi 7” Capacitive Touch Display: Assembly and Enclosure you'll see that the connectors have a lever, and the spring contacts mate on the other side.

Notice that the Lever portion is facing away from the Pi. The contacts are facing toward the Pi.

Now, if you compare with your Pi in the photo below, you can see that the lever is facing toward the pi! Unless I'm mistaken, that means the contacts are on the wrong side. The way you've got the flat flex inserted, I believe no pins are making contact because the contacts on the Pi are on the other side:

In fact both your connectors on the Pi look to be the wrong way around. I've checked four Pi's here, and none of them match your photo. Also, you can't just rotate the flat flex, because then the pins will be back-to-front when connected to the display board. An option could be to use a different flat flex which has the contacts exposed on the other side for just that Pi end. In other words, a flat flex that isn't rotated, but just translates the pins to be exposed on the other side. Such flat flex does exist, but yours isn't that type.

There was someone else who had the same issue a few months back, but they didn't report back what their resolution was. Basically, the Pi appears to have had its connectors inserted the wrong way around, so you should be able to return it under warranty from wherever you purchased.

Hi cstanton I was wondering, have you heard of such an issue, is this a known issue for some Pi's? Kenny isn't the first one who has experienced this, but I don't know if Raspberrypi.org or the factory have identified this as a known issue.

shabaz · Answer

Hi Kenny,

It's worth trying one add-on at a time, e.g. try to get just the display or the camera functioning first, and then attach the next add-on.

There are several hundred Q&A regarding the display, in the comments section here:

Raspberry Pi 7” Touchscreen Display

So, it's very likely that your issue has already been addressed in one of the comments. The most likely explanation is some incorrect physical connection, if the LCD screen is correctly functioning then you should not get any output via HDMI any more as I understand.

See the detailed connection photos here (also the text explains things to look out for while assembling it), from the section "Assembling the LCD Panel Interface Board and Pi" onward:

Raspberry Pi 7” Capacitive Touch Display: Assembly and Enclosure

If the flat flex connectors are not being used correctly, that may explain why both the camera and the display are not functioning, but it's worth connecting and troubleshooting one thing at a time.

If you can post photos of your connections then I can check, but really all you need to do is compare closely with the photos at that link, to see if the orientations of the connectors/flex are correct, and they are not inserted in skewed.

The power supply is critical by the way - there's a reasonably high chance of the display not working if you're not using the 'official' Pi power supply. Not all mobile phone chargers will work, they behave as a charger slightly different to the power supply (even though they have the same connector on the end), and the thin USB cables can cause issues too. But from your symptoms I currently suspect bad connections.

kcontreras41483 · Answer

Ok, took a few so here ya go.