3 ms·

They look cool! Thanks for sharing. Asking as a noob to programming electronics, do you have any guides on how I can display a few characters on one of these?

They look cool! Thanks for sharing. Asking as a noob to programming electronics, do you have any guides on how I can display a few characters on one of these? As in which controller to buy, how to interface the controller to the display, and how to set myself up to program such a controller... etc. I can try if there are enough resources, but honestly I'm easily intimidated if someone says "Just get a ESPXYX900 controller and hook it up to ABC IDE and flash this ROM and there you go." I can program in Python and I have heard of MicroPython. If only I can figure out how to get to a point where I can get my python program to execute on one of these tiny wonders.

ComputerGuru 9y ago
I’ll give you a more realistic answer: if you’ve never done microelectronics interfacing, you won’t have much luck until someone develops a driver (“software api”) for a particular eInk display for a platform you’d like to use. I’ve never used MicroPython, but the C APIs I’ve seen for LCDs for micro controllers are usually pretty straightforward. Depending on the level of abstraction, they might offer a basic “put this B&W/R&G&B pixel at location x,y” or a higher-level “print text xyz” type of interface, both of which are easily exposed to python’s ffi and consuming it from there should be no problem. But the trick is waiting for someone to get that driver made. I’ve been meaning to play around with mine, if there’s sufficient interest I could see how realistic writing up some Arduino-compatible code to interface with it and some instructions would be.
- reacharavindh 9y ago
  Thanks for the straight response. I was afraid this might be the case. I browsed around Waveshare.com and they seem to have posted "demo code" for the displays you linked before. I will try to muck around with them later, but it'd most likely be beyond my understanding of display drivers. It'd be incredibly cool to have a cookbook for "Arduino + Tri-color E-Ink display for displaying text" - for beginners. If you think you could muster time & motivation to develop such instructions, I can help with (1) personal donation of $20, and (2) Sponsoring a domain and a basic web page describing the project for others to follow with donation options directed to you.
halbritt 9y ago
If you check the micropython forum, you might get help developing a driver. That said, there's this: https://github.com/peterhinch/micropython-epaper https://github.com/peterhinch/micropython-epaper Which supports this 2.7" display: http://www.embeddedartists.com/products/displays/lcd_27_epaper.php http://www.embeddedartists.com/products/displays/lcd_27_epap... Which is a bit cheaper than the OP.

ComputerGuru 9y ago

I’ll give you a more realistic answer: if you’ve never done microelectronics interfacing, you won’t have much luck until someone develops a driver (“software api”) for a particular eInk display for a platform you’d like to use. I’ve never used MicroPython, but the C APIs I’ve seen for LCDs for micro controllers are usually pretty straightforward. Depending on the level of abstraction, they might offer a basic “put this B&W/R&G&B pixel at location x,y” or a higher-level “print text xyz” type of interface, both of which are easily exposed to python’s ffi and consuming it from there should be no problem. But the trick is waiting for someone to get that driver made. I’ve been meaning to play around with mine, if there’s sufficient interest I could see how realistic writing up some Arduino-compatible code to interface with it and some instructions would be.

reacharavindh 9y ago
Thanks for the straight response. I was afraid this might be the case. I browsed around Waveshare.com and they seem to have posted "demo code" for the displays you linked before. I will try to muck around with them later, but it'd most likely be beyond my understanding of display drivers. It'd be incredibly cool to have a cookbook for "Arduino + Tri-color E-Ink display for displaying text" - for beginners. If you think you could muster time & motivation to develop such instructions, I can help with (1) personal donation of $20, and (2) Sponsoring a domain and a basic web page describing the project for others to follow with donation options directed to you.

halbritt 9y ago

If you check the micropython forum, you might get help developing a driver. That said, there's this: https://github.com/peterhinch/micropython-epaper https://github.com/peterhinch/micropython-epaper Which supports this 2.7" display: http://www.embeddedartists.com/products/displays/lcd_27_epaper.php http://www.embeddedartists.com/products/displays/lcd_27_epap... Which is a bit cheaper than the OP.