Troubleshooting installation

[Depechie]

I want to give this project a try but it seems I'm stuck and do not know how to continue...
I own a Waveshare 7.5inch monochrome screen and had it connected through the Waveshare driver hat with the 9pin connector to an ESP8266 with ESPHome. This works great and I have the display functional.

Now I disconnected the 9pin and put the waveshare driver hat on my raspberry pi 3b with the 40 pins connection.
Installed InkyPi and when I run /dev/spi* I get dev0.0 and dev0.1, but I never get anything shown on the screen...
No initial InkyPi screen or any of the plugins.

I installed using the epd7in5_V2 driver ( since that is the same type I have in my ESPHome code ).
Also tried with the epd7in5.

Reverting to the ESP connection also works.

What is the best way to actually find out the raspberry pi can communicate with the screen?

[phattmatt]

Hi @Depechie,

I recommend trying the Waveshare demos, and troubleshooting process, to verify the screen is working on the Raspberry Pi before installing InkyPi.

You will need to identify your specific model from this list:

https://www.waveshare.com/wiki/Main_Page#Display-e-Paper

From what you've said so far it maybe this one (as you've suggested), but you should doublecheck:

https://www.waveshare.com/wiki/7.5inch_e-Paper_HAT_Manual

There is a note about different versions and resolutions (V1, V2 and V2_old).

I suggest the Python section is the most relevent (and therefore useful) in the context of InkyPi:

https://www.waveshare.com/wiki/7.5inch_e-Paper_HAT_Manual#Python

They don't seem to have updated the instructions to take into account Python Virtual Environments (venvs), so you may need to modify their instructions to make it work with Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm and Trixie.

Once you've got the screen working with their demo, you can try installing InkyPi using the known good Waveshare driver as a parameter.

Good Luck!

[Depechie]

Somehow the SPI connection setting on my raspberry pi was set to disable!
Enabling this fixed everything... epd7in5_V2 was the correct device id. Thx for info.