Elegant display solution for Windows 10 IoT Core on Raspberry Pi2

Hi Folks,

The Raspberry Pi2 is an affordable hardware that you might choose for your Windows 10 IoT Core testing or development, but when comes the time to show case your solution, a DIY hardware might afraid a lot of people. So it is time to find a nice solution to enclose the Raspberry with a display.

Raspberry Pi2

Choose the right display

Waveshare provides a set of display solutions for the Raspberry Pi2. Some that are using the LCD interface, other on the HDMI interface of the Pi. You have to know that only the HDMI interface is for now supported by Windows 10 IoT Core. I personally choose the 5 inch HDMI LCD with a screen resolution of 840x480.

This screen comes with a touch panel, that is unfortunately for now not supported, but tweaking solutions exist by soldering on the screen a 4-5 wires USB touch controller board (technical details)

Configure the display

Using the 5 inch HDMI LCD panel, Windows 10 IoT Core is not automatically detecting the screen resolution and therefore only exploit half of it. There is some additional configuration to be operated on the SD Card file system of the Pi2.
From the development machine, open the config.txt file with you favorite text file editor.
Localize the hdmi_group configuration and replace it with the following :

hdmi_cvt=800 480 60 6
hdmi_group=2                # Use VESA Display Mode Timing over CEA
hdmi_mode=87
hdmi_drive=2

And now you are ready to

Elegant boxing solution

Then if you are also looking for an elegant solution, you can choose the compatible BiColor case.

The complete Waveshare 5 inch HDMI LCD set with the LCD Screen (includes HDMI connector) and the Bicolor Casing are available for a price range of 50$ to 60$ on aliexpress.

Enjoy!
-Nicolas