HDMI-less display using USB

[thawookies]

Keep in mind, what i intend to do does not promote high levels of usability, but that is not what I need for my project.

I have mounted my Pi Zero in a potted aluminium case with a camera, power supply and Li-po battery, but have only made holes for the micro-USB ports. Poor planning in retrospect, but my original plan was to simply SSH into the Pi for access. Now I am considering adding a display module, but I can only interface via the Raspberry Pi Zero's micro-USB ports.

I anticipate nay-sayers, so I will make my requirements known so nobody thinks I'm being unreasonable.

0.2 FPS output
Maximum 480p output
Display on small TFT screen with customizable Arduino driver
Can only use the micro-USB data interface

Proposed solution:
I intend to use a data pin from the micro-USB and the 5V-GND to connect to an Arduino, connected to a TFT screen.

This plan has some holes that I need to be patched by the community here.

Does the Pi Zero support using the micro-USB as GPIO?
If so, can I use the positive and negative data lines as two GPIO's?
If so, what sort of frequencies can I output at?

If none of that could work, our friends at Adafruit have made a FTDI USB to GPIO breakout board that I could use to drive a TFT. Are there any differences between a regular laptop's USB and the Pi Zero's micro-USB that would prevent it from interfacing to this GPIO breakout board?
https://www.adafruit.com/product/2264

Thanks!

[wayne.dolesman]

I suspect that the USB is tied to USB processing hardware. USB has some timing constraints which is why you dont see GPIO usb adapters.

DisplayLink is a way of adding a monitor over USB. You may want to look at that instead.

http://www.displaylink.com/products/usb-monitors

There are many monitors with DisplayLink technology built in. USB monitors are the easiest way to add an additional display to your PC or Mac. Simply install the DisplayLink software and plug the USB monitor into your USB port - That's it!

They do have ubuntu drivers but without looking I will guess that it is x86/64 only. They do have android drivers which might have some arm .so files that you can possibly use to write a RPi driver with. But again I didnt look. Not my circus not my monkeys.

Someone else may have already done the heavy lifting for you I dunno.