5. Inkplate Hardware Reference¶

Inkplate family of e-paper displays is fully open-source and its full hardware design can be found in corresponding GitHub repositories:: Inkplate 6 hardware

Inkplate 10 hardware

Inkplate 6PLUS hardware
Additionally, all active Inkplate boards are OSHWA certified:: Inkplate 6 OSHWA

Inkplate 10 OSHWA

5.1. Short overview¶

The schematics speak for themselves, but here is the short introduction to Inkplate hardware. Most boards share the same basic components:: ESP32 - microcontroller as the brains of the whole board. WiFi with PCB antenna, BLE, 4MB Flash, 8MB PSRAM, 240MHz. Driving the e-paper parallel lines directly.

*MCP23017 - I2C IO expander. Driving the misc (slower) e-paper lines and providing some extra GPIO pins.

*PCAL6416A - I2C IO expander. Replacement for MCP in newer Inkplates in time of chip shortage.

e-paper panel - depending on the specific Inkplate, the contents are shown on EPD. There’s a special connector for each of them. Some have a backlight and touchscreen and thus the additional circuitry for those.

CH340C - USB-UART adapter, paired with USB-C for programming and power.

*microSD card slot.

**TPS65186 - special EPD power management IC, providing specific voltages needed to drive EPD properly.

MCP73831 - lithium-ion battery charger. Linear and not so efficient one, but simple to use. Auto-select voltage source is on board as well.

22uA low-power thanks to low Iq voltage regulator from TI TPS7A2633.

*3 pieces touch pads based on TTP223.

Reset supervisor TPS3840PL27D takes care of proper reset at upload and manual reset.

*Pushbutton style power button thanks to MC14093BD logic gate and a single MOSFET.

Note * - Not available on every Inkplate, check Features page.

Note ** - Colored screens (Inkplate 2 and 6COLOR) have integrated EPD power management.