Raspberry Pi Touch Screen

Pi Screen 2 - 10" Upgrade

This shows how to create a powerful touch screen, with incredibly fast NVMe SSD storage. This can be applied to other solutions as well. The 10" screen does need a Raspberry Pi 5 (or a Raspberry Pi Compute Module with suitable connector), but this will happily work on a version with less memory, or using an SD card instead of the NVMe storage.

I started with a fresh install of the Raspberry Pi OS. As I used an NVMe drive I used the network installer to install it direct on there.

Before connecting the new Raspberry Pi touch screen, make sure your operating system is up-to-date. This can be done with the following commands.

        sudo apt update

        sudo apt full-upgrade

        sudo rpi-eeprom-update -a

The final command is needed to update the onboard EEPROM.

Assembling the Pi and Screen combination

Next, I had to remove the Pi from its standard case. On my existing setup, the NVMe adapter board is mounted onto the Pi using female-to-female PCB standoffs, and the Pi itself is secured to the bottom case. We won’t be able to use those standoffs which I’ll explain later.

Once unscrewed, there is a very specific order you have to follow: you must connect your display and power wires first. If you mount the boards straight away, the display connector becomes inaccessible under the Pi. You also need to fully remove the NVMe HAT to get to the Pi display connector.

When connecting the 22-way connector to the screen then the metal contacts should face upwards away from the screen. You also need to connect the power connector as that will be underneath the Raspberry Pi when it's installed.

Mounting the Hardware

Now for mounting the Pi to the screen. The display comes with M2.5 screws, but if we use those directly, we lose the mounting points for the NVMe HAT. My solution was to use male-to-female PCB standoffs. It's well worth keeping a set of different sizes around for future use, as the Pi uses M2.5 whereas a lot of standard maker kits use M3. I didn’t have any that were the exact length I needed, so I stacked two standoffs on each of the four mounting points to get the clearance right.

GPIO Extenders & The Tricky Cable

Because of that extra height and to be able to connect the power connector, I needed to extend the GPIO pins. Fortunately, I had a spare GPIO extender lying around, which bridged the gap perfectly. With that in place, I lined up the NVMe HAT.

Here comes the tricky bit: the NVMe board has its own flat flex cable. It’s already a tight fit because of the Pi 5 cooling fan, and the additional GPIO extender makes it a tiny bit tighter. I found it easiest to connect the cable to the HAT first, then use a pair of pliers to carefully guide it straight into the Pi. It could really do with being a little bit longer, but with some gentle wiggling, it works!"

First Boot & Software Setup

With the wires it was time to boot it up. Out of the box, the screen defaults to portrait mode—which is great for digital signage, but you can easily adjust it to landscape in the control centre. After that I installed my Pi SignalBox software. I haven't fully configured the layout yet, but the capacitive touch should be a great fit when in use."

Final Thoughts & The Bulk Factor

So, what’s the verdict? It is a fantastic screen and a brilliant addition to the Pi 5. It’s a shame it doesn’t work with older models, but that’s a technical limitation rather than a design choice, the higher resolution requires the 4-lane connection that older Pi's just don't have.

One thing to note: with the Pi, the NVMe HAT, and the extra height for the GPIO extenders, this setup is really bulky. It's effectively 5 centimeters deep from the back of the screen. There aren't any commercial mounts yes and it’ doesn’t fit well directly on a bench. I temporarily used a cardboard box, but my plan is to design a laser-cut, sloping box to house it, similar to the physical switch console I built previously.

Other Project Ideas

Having this much power and screen space opens up some fantastic possibilities beyond just the model railway. It would make an incredible Aquarium-style information board, or a fast Home Automation dashboard for controlling smart plugs—perfect for powering my Christmas lights on and off. For developers, this 10-inch canvas is brilliant for testing custom PySide6 applications directly on the hardware, or using Pygame Zero to create novel, touch-driven interfaces.

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