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Hacking Together an E-ink Dashboard

healeycodes.com

41–50 of 92 posts

Re: Hacking Together an E-ink Dashboard

#41
post #33

It’s possible to get one of these e-ink display boards with an ESP32 microprocessor for not much more than the display alone. It has onboard WiFi and makes for an even smaller unit since there is no need to attach it to a Pi. It also ditches the operating system so you get an instant boot. Programming is via PlatformIO, MicroPython or Rust (if you’re adventurous! - Rust is not quite ready for ESP32). Has reignited my…

Source?

Re: Hacking Together an E-ink Dashboard

#43
post #39

The article mentions turning off the display to avoid ghosting and links to an article about screen burn in; it was my understanding that e-ink displays do not suffer burn in? I was under the impression that e-ink ghosting is simply due to an incomplete refresh of the display (since this causes a flash and is time consuming)? EDIT: Interestingly the datasheet for the component used does indeed mention this; does anyo…

Due to the design of the screens (small capsules containing charged particles that move back and forth to create either black or white) the capsules can retain the charge that is passed through them if not cycled correctly.

This will cause the particles within to stay in whatever side of the capsule they were last in, essentially causing a dead “pixel”.

If this happens across as a whole image like a logo or text, it’ll permanently burn in.

This is solved by some flashing between colours, hence why the screens take so long to refresh.

Up for more detailed info myself though!

Re: Hacking Together an E-ink Dashboard

#44
post #33

It’s possible to get one of these e-ink display boards with an ESP32 microprocessor for not much more than the display alone. It has onboard WiFi and makes for an even smaller unit since there is no need to attach it to a Pi. It also ditches the operating system so you get an instant boot. Programming is via PlatformIO, MicroPython or Rust (if you’re adventurous! - Rust is not quite ready for ESP32). Has reignited my…

Would it be possible to link to an example of what you mean?

Re: Hacking Together an E-ink Dashboard

#45
post #31

An alternative might be to jailbreak a Kindle 2 or 3, looks like you just need a computer and a USB cable to do so. https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Python_on_Kindle https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindle_Hacks_Information The original OS runs, so what you can do is limited. There are examples of changing the “screensaver” from Python, but I couldn’t see how easy it is to get data into the Kindle (maybe needs USB, w…

A paperwhite is a good option since you can use the RTC to enter deep sleep and run one of these off battery. I did it with a kindle 4 personally(but couldn't use RTC) and the code is available: https://github.com/davidhampgonsalves/life-dashboard

Re: Hacking Together an E-ink Dashboard

#47
post #39

The article mentions turning off the display to avoid ghosting and links to an article about screen burn in; it was my understanding that e-ink displays do not suffer burn in? I was under the impression that e-ink ghosting is simply due to an incomplete refresh of the display (since this causes a flash and is time consuming)? EDIT: Interestingly the datasheet for the component used does indeed mention this; does anyo…

I believe this (along with the other warning to not leave the display on because the high voltage may cause degradation) is either a specific characteristic of colour e-ink or the effect of "cost down optimisations" that affect reliability; ghosting is just due to the fact that not all the particles move at exactly the same rate, but I've never heard of burn-in either. Then again, the last time I looked into detail on e-ink was around when someone figured out how to drive cheap Kindle displays without the proprietary controller (http://essentialscrap.com/eink/ ), and those could be refreshed as slowly as desired, even "human" speeds.

Re: Hacking Together an E-ink Dashboard

#48
post #31

An alternative might be to jailbreak a Kindle 2 or 3, looks like you just need a computer and a USB cable to do so. https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Python_on_Kindle https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindle_Hacks_Information The original OS runs, so what you can do is limited. There are examples of changing the “screensaver” from Python, but I couldn’t see how easy it is to get data into the Kindle (maybe needs USB, w…

Kindle displays are themselves also not hard to drive directly, and relatively cheap: http://essentialscrap.com/eink/

An interesting project someone did with one: https://hackaday.io/project/11537-nekocal-an-e-ink-calendar including pushing the display beyond its original (and currently commercial) limits of 16 levels of grayscale: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16140284

Re: Hacking Together an E-ink Dashboard

#49
post #44
post #33

It’s possible to get one of these e-ink display boards with an ESP32 microprocessor for not much more than the display alone. It has onboard WiFi and makes for an even smaller unit since there is no need to attach it to a Pi. It also ditches the operating system so you get an instant boot. Programming is via PlatformIO, MicroPython or Rust (if you’re adventurous! - Rust is not quite ready for ESP32). Has reignited my…

Would it be possible to link to an example of what you mean?

https://www.crowdsupply.com/e-radionica/inkplate-6

Re: Hacking Together an E-ink Dashboard

#50
post #31

An alternative might be to jailbreak a Kindle 2 or 3, looks like you just need a computer and a USB cable to do so. https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Python_on_Kindle https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindle_Hacks_Information The original OS runs, so what you can do is limited. There are examples of changing the “screensaver” from Python, but I couldn’t see how easy it is to get data into the Kindle (maybe needs USB, w…

Many Kindles have a web browser, using that wouldn't be too hard. Webkit if I remember correctly.

Though if you aren't a total stranger to C++, a 15x cheaper (4$) e-ink display that is just 50% the size, that can be controlled over SPI, would be nearly just as much effort but much less maintenance. IMHO at least.

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