Setting overlay for an RPi 3 7" display

Product support
1

I’ve just added an RPi 3 with a 7" display to my cloud app, and remembered that the silly people who created the first official 7" displays made the case upside down. Can I set some parameters on just one of my devices to rotate the screen and touch? I’m planning on having an app run on that one which has an interface.

Thanks for any info.
Paul

3

Hi,
I have no 7" display here, but there is a blog post (Running a full desktop in a container) about running a desktop manager on balena. It has a section about rotating the screen as well. It depends on how your screen is connected:

HDMI: To configure the Raspberry Pi to use the HDMI connector, click on Device Configuration and at the bottom where it says CUSTOM CONFIGURATION VARIABLES, add new custom variables:

BALENA_HOST_CONFIG_hdmi_boost=9
BALENA_HOST_CONFIG_hdmi_force_hotplug=1
BALENA_HOST_CONFIG_hdmi_group=1

CD DSI Display Connector: In case your display is attached to the DSI connector, you can add the custom variable BALENA_HOST_CONFIG_lcd_rotate with a value from 0 to 3 which corresponds to 0, 90, 180 and 270 degrees.

I hope this is the answer you were looking for.

Cheers

4

Check out the official docs for video
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/config-txt/video.md

5

Is it possible to send those properties in the dtparams or dtoverlay from the cloud? I’ve tried but my screen is still upside down

6

To my knowledge everything from there can be prepended by RESIN_HOST_CONFIG_ and put in your balena settings

Note though that some values have ui elements above the “add custom variable” section and get sucked up there. You have to ‘activate’ or ‘enable’ them and dtparam is one of those so don’t miss it.

7

@webtop this is also covered in our Raspberry Pi touchscreen guide guide if you’re still having trouble.

8

Oh perfect. I’m not planning on installing a desktop environment, so won’t have the option of doing it that way.

Thanks Chris