Easy Steps To Calibrate Your Elo Monitor Like A Pro

Calibrating your ELO monitor can be done in several ways, depending on the model of your monitor and the operating system of your computer. For example, if you are using a Windows XP computer with an ELO touchscreen monitor, you can calibrate it by going to the Control Panel, opening the Display icon, and clicking the Settings tab. On the other hand, if you are using a Raspberry Pi with an ELO touchscreen, you may need to install additional software and configure settings in the boot configuration file to calibrate the touchscreen. In some cases, you may also need to update your drivers or use specific tools provided by ELO to calibrate your monitor.

Using the Elo Touchscreen Control Panel application

To calibrate your Elo monitor using the Elo Touchscreen Control Panel application, follow these steps:

Firstly, you can open the application by either clicking on the "Elo Touchscreen Control Panel" icon in your Windows Control Panel, or by double-clicking the Elo icon in your system tray. Once the application is open, click on the "General" tab, where you will find the "Align" button. Alternatively, you can navigate to the "Properties" tab for your specific monitor and click the "Align"/"Re-Align" button.

After clicking "Align", the calibration program will launch, and you will be prompted to touch three targets on the screen. The first target will appear in the upper left-hand corner, the second in the bottom right-hand corner, and the third in the upper right-hand corner. Touch and release each target as they appear.

Once you have touched the third target, a test screen will appear. Tap various places on the screen or drag your finger around to ensure that the cursor follows your finger movements. If the cursor is functioning correctly, click the green check mark button to permanently store the calibration settings.

If you need to recalibrate your monitor in the future, simply repeat these steps.

Running EloVa.exe from the Windows command line

To run EloVa.exe from the Windows command line, follow these steps:

• Open the Command Prompt by searching for it in the Start menu or entering "cmd" in the Run window (accessible via the "Windows + R" shortcut).
• Copy the file path from the address bar. This can be done by clicking on the address bar in the file explorer and using the "Ctrl + C" shortcut or by right-clicking and selecting "Copy".
• Type 'cd' followed by the file path. This will navigate to the directory where the EloVa.exe file is located. For example, if the file path is "C:\Users\Name\Desktop\EloVa", you would type "cd C:\Users\Name\Desktop" in the Command Prompt.
• Run the EloVa.exe file using the "start" command. For example, type "start EloVa.exe" and press Enter. Alternatively, you can simply type "EloVa" (without the ".exe") and press Enter.

By running EloVa.exe from the Windows command line, you can calibrate your Elo monitor. This process ensures that the mouse cursor appears at the position of touch. The Elo calibration program uses a three-point calibration sequence that accepts touch screens with any orientation of the X or Y-axis, in either landscape or portrait mode.

Once you have run EloVa.exe, follow the on-screen instructions to complete the calibration. You will be asked to touch various points on the screen to verify that the cursor appears at the touched position. If the calibration is successful, click the green arrow to accept and exit the program. If not, click the blue curved arrow to run the calibration program again.

Using the xinput-calibrator tool

The xinput-calibrator tool is a generic touchscreen calibration program for X.Org. It works for any standard Xorg touchscreen driver and uses the XInput protocol. The tool can be installed from the standard repository of Ubuntu, Debian, Suse and RedHat flavours. For Debian-based systems, use the following command:

> sudo apt-get install xinput-calibrator

For other systems, the tool can be compiled from the sources. Here are the steps:

Clone the repository using the command:

> git clone https://github.com/tias/xinput_calibrator

As mentioned in the readme file (https://github.com/tias/xinput_calibrator/blob/master/README), configure the build for the GUI library used in the system using the command:

> ./autogen.sh –with-gui=x11

Run the make command. The program will be built in the src folder.

Calibrating with a single display:

• Run the command xinput_calibrator in the command prompt.
• Graphics with a crosshair will be shown.
• Touch the crosshair until it turns from red to white.
• Once the calibration has been completed for the 4 crosshairs, the tool will exit automatically and the calibration information will be shown in the terminal. Copy the section in the file specified.

Calibrating with multiple displays:

This process involves mapping the display and the touch controller. In addition to the steps above, follow these instructions:

• Run xinput in the terminal to get the ID of the input device.
• Run xrand in the terminal to get the ID of the display.
• Map the display to the input using the command:

> xinput map-to-output [input ID] [display ID]

Follow the steps in the "Calibrating with a single display" section to complete the calibration.

Using the evtest tool

The evtest tool is an input device event monitor and query tool. It can be used to calibrate your ELO monitor by following these steps:

Firstly, you need to make the screen display something that isn't out of range. This is done by configuring some stuff in the /boot/config.txt file. Here are the commands to add to the file:

• #Make the screen not go over the edges disable_overscan=1
• #Make it so you can hotplug the monitor hdmi_force_hotplug=1
• #Set the resolution to 800 x 600 at 75 HZ and allow audio hdmi_group=2 hdmi_mode=11 hdmi_drive=2
• #Adjust hdmi signal level (Can be tweaked if there's interference, default value was 2, default boost was 4, max value is 11) config_hdmi_boost=7

Now, you can use the evtest tool to calibrate the screen. The first step is to install the program by typing the following command:

Sudo apt-get install evtest

Next, list your devices and note the device IDs using the following command:

Evtest --list

Using each device ID, calibrate each device. For example, if your device IDs are 9 and 10, you would use the following commands:

• Evtest --device 9
• Evtest --device 10

Note the output after each calibration, as it gives you the snippet to add to a configuration file to make the calibration permanent. The path given is to a file that doesn't exist, so put the snippets in the /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-evdev.conf file.

For example, your calibration settings might look like this:

• Section "InputClass"
• Identifier "calibration"
• MatchProduct "EloTouchSystems,Inc Elo TouchSystems 2216 AccuTouch® USB Touchmonitor Interface"
• Option "Calibration" "483 3528 3532 584"
• Option "SwapAxes" "0"
• EndSection
• Section "InputClass"
• Identifier "calibration"
• MatchProduct "Elo Single Touch Device Input Module"
• Option "Calibration" "1 4086 56 4110"
• Option "SwapAxes" "0"
• EndSection

And that's it! You have now calibrated your ELO monitor using the evtest tool.

Adjusting the monitor's resolution

If you're using Windows, you can change your monitor's resolution by going into your Windows settings. Right-click on your desktop and select 'Display Settings'. From there, you should see a drop-down menu next to 'Display Resolution' or 'Resolution'. Pick a new resolution, and click 'Keep Changes' to apply it. If you don't like the new resolution, you can always click 'Revert' or wait for Windows to automatically revert to the previous setting.

When choosing a new resolution, it's best to go with the 'Recommended' setting, as this is the best resolution your monitor can display as detected by Windows. The higher the resolution number, the smaller the text and icons on your screen will appear. Conversely, lowering the resolution will make things appear larger, which can be helpful if you're having trouble seeing things on your monitor.

If you're having trouble seeing your display at all, you can use Windows' built-in recovery modes to get your system up and running in the default settings. To do this, press and hold the power button on your computer for 10 to 15 seconds to force it to shut down. Then, turn the computer back on while steadily tapping the F12 key to access the advanced boot menu. If your keyboard doesn't have an F12 key, press and hold Shift during startup. From the advanced boot options, select 'Enable low-resolution video' (press 3 or F3). Windows will then boot using a basic video driver, overriding your previous resolution settings.

Once you've accessed your Desktop, you can adjust your resolution settings by clicking on the top-right corner of the screen and typing 'Display'. Click 'Settings' and 'Display' to access your computer's display settings. From there, you can adjust your resolution settings and click 'OK' to accept the changes.

Frequently asked questions