Nextion Driver not Loading

All things relating to the Nextion Screen(s)
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K3TOM
Posts: 13
Joined: Fri May 31, 2019 2:08 am

Nextion Driver not Loading

Post by K3TOM »

I have a 2.4 " enhanced screen installed on a Zumspot on top of a Pi B+. I have installed the Nextion drivers by ON7LDS and I'm pretty sure they are installed properly. The main issue is they are not starting on start-up so they are not available as an option under the port settings in Pi-Star. How do I make sure they start on boot-up? Do I have to edit the MMDVM.ini file or something? How would I do that? Shouldn't the start-up script or whatever should have been configured during the driver installation?

Thanks for any advice.
wb6dtb
Posts: 15
Joined: Fri Apr 13, 2018 4:22 pm

Re: Nextion Driver not Loading

Post by wb6dtb »

Sometimes when installing the ON7LDS Nextion Driver, the driver file doesn't get installed into the "/dev" folder. Go back and follow the installation instructions again and download the driver file again into the "/tmp" folder and then run the 'check_installation' script and it will tell you if the Nextion driver is installed. If it is installed it will tell you the folder where the Nextion driver file is located (probably at "/usr/local/bin"). If so, goto that folder and copy and rename the Nextion driver file to the "/dev" folder, using this command when in the folder where the driver is located currently: "sudo cp NextionDriver /dev/ttyNextionDriver". Go back to the Pi-Star Configuration page and you should see the Nextion Driver now in the Port field drop down list as 'ttyNextionDriver'. Select the Nextion driver then apply changes, then reboot Pi-Star. Nextion screen should then work.
K3TOM
Posts: 13
Joined: Fri May 31, 2019 2:08 am

Re: Nextion Driver not Loading

Post by K3TOM »

I finally decided to try and re-image my Pi-star and used 4.0.0 rc3 and re-installed my Nextion driver. I also used the Nextion editor to change the baud rate on the screen tft file I was using from 115,200 to 9600. I don't know if that had any thing to do with it but the screen seems to work now. Only thing is, some of the fields don't update that require bi-directional communication from the screen. I'm not sure if that has anything to do with the baud rate or not. Just off hand, do you know how to change the baud rate of the Nextion port in Pi-star so I can use 115,200 to communicate with the screen? I guess I'll just have to keep playing with it to see if I can get the other fields to populate.

Thanks for the help. This is further than I have gotten in the past two weeks working on it.
K3TOM
Posts: 13
Joined: Fri May 31, 2019 2:08 am

Re: Nextion Driver not Loading

Post by K3TOM »

@KE7FNS, Thanks for the response, I really appreciate it. What I’m really trying to accomplish is using the model 8 screen designed by Mich, EA7KDO and the Nextion Driver by ON7LDS that sits between the MMDVMHost and the Nextion display and allows for that bi-directional communication that is needed. His screen design includes functions such as a Power button for shutting down or restarting the Hotspot but my understanding is that those particular functions would not be available unless the screen was connected via the USB port with a TTL to serial adapter, therefore I would still not be able to use these. There are also other functions such as being able to adjust the BER directly from the HotSpot screen with interactive buttons, but once again, I’m not sure if the screen will need to be on a USB port to use those functions. There are other fields that are not populating though on mine, such as CPU temperature that I believe should work that are used with his screens. I am still studying the layouts of the Nextion screens and how to design them in the editor so the more I learn the better I will obviously get at designing my own. I now know how to install and get the Nextion driver for the model 8 screens he uses to install and run at start-up thanks to the help from others, such as WB6DTB’s post above. Most of the fields for his screen will populate even without the Nextion driver loading, I just had to go into the editor and change the baud rate on one of the screens to 9600. The interesting thing is on one of his screens, he defines the baud rate at 115,200. He says he is able to do this because the program, or driver by ON7LDS, will read the MMDVM.ini and know the layout and set the baud rate accordingly. I have never been able to get the screen to work with the 115,200 baud rate defined in the tft file even with the Nextion driver loading successfully though. Maybe that’s why the field for CPU temperature on his screen design is not populating for me, I don't know, I can't get it to populate even with a baud rate of 9600. Here is a link to his web page http://mitch.hopto.org/index.html and another link to the ONL7S Nextion driver for the 2.4 inch enhanced screens. You may already be familiar with it though. https://github.com/PD0DIB/Nextion_HAM-r ... m3avnLVcLU
Many thanks.
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