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A Raspberry Pi-powered live train station sign
- seaghost 7y agoConsider me a cynical but this is the marketing click bait.
- 15207242055 7y agoeywydyrydvvddbcuddirciszomcudvxhfbchrbxhebxufgbcmmvjswurbfufcur dhd.dhd fhd.furfutieurjjvnchn6461ncbxbxfhdhrueuwuwuuufjfifogogkvjfjfjggjfjtjriiwjnxhcuvjvjfufjfj
- 15207242055 7y agowueudhhhdjcjjfjfityotlcjchshdgcbbdhdsjclckc jurdjejekifjgjgjtgjgkgkfkfuhfvcx.cnchdhhshdhdjdjfififjfheuhfbd
- krisalty 7y agothis is pretty awesome.
- duxup 7y agoThat is super cool. But admittedly when I saw the title i was hoping for a mini version of those massive flipboard signs. Those things are amazing.
- Cthulhu_ 7y agoWe've had a short project at some point recreating a station's big departure times flipboard in an ipad app; my colleagues went out there for a couple hours to just look at the thing, record background and noises, write down its behaviour and draw the small nuances and damages in the flippers and their contents. Over a weekend my colleague made a POC of the animation of a single unit, then in the next week the two of us copied that one over in a big grid to display departure times from the API. It was a really cool little project, and IIRC the managers of the organization we made it for would frequently just have it open on their desk or show it off to people.
- supernova87a 7y agoThat would be really amusing. Those are called Solari boards, by the way, after the manufacturer (Solari di Udine). Maybe someone enterprising might (or has?) created a character flipping routine that mimics the search through the tiles and set it to the authentic sounds? The attempt by that company to create their own digital version is really bad. (search youtube for it)
- dwyerm 7y agoJWZ created a splitflap hack for xscreensaver. It includes broken flaps and missing flaps, and you can pipe text into it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZOL2jyDey0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZOL2jyDey0
- guptaneil 7y agoLooks like https://www.vestaboard.com https://www.vestaboard.com is that enterprising company. https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/1/11/16876582/vestaboard-mechanical-split-flap-display-internet-train-sign-ces-2018 https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/1/11/16876582/v... I've never used it, but it does look interesting.
- taude 7y agoThey are coming summer 2020, for about $2200. (I think it's been delayed a few times). They look cool. But for my personal use, not $2200 cool.
- a_t48 7y agoI don't think vestaboard ever ended up shipping. I was somewhat interested in getting one, but now I'm really glad I didn't put down a deposit. Original estimates were Dec 2018 ship date, now they say Summer 2020.
- dwyerm 7y agoA Solari Split-Flap Display? I love that they're making new ones! Starbucks has been putting them in their Reserve Roasteries. I'm also sort of happy with the 'modern' ones that are actually LCD screens with speakers making the noises. It's cheating, but it's a nice tribute.
- joezydeco 7y agoA nice tribute, but also defeats one of the most important features of the split flap: the data remains visible even when the power is off
- fapjacks 7y agoThere is something to be said for these kinds of vestigial remnants of technologies past. I've always been fascinated by them, and in fact this kind of thing in computer folklore -- for example parts of the docs that explain something exists "for historical reasons" -- are one of the things that got me into programming. For example the "size_t" size has pretty funny origins which I'll leave as an exercise to the reader. But this kind of thing also has a linguistic component which is also equally fascinating to me. For example how we still "dial" a phone, which then "rings" for the person being "called".
- benj111 7y ago>"size_t" size has pretty funny origins "Yep. Its origins lie in the old <std.h> header we developed at Whitesmiths, Ltd. in the late 1970s. We used the typedef BYTES as the type of sizeof, to be sure we could count all the bytes in the largest declarable (or allocatable) object. X3J11 chose size_t to follow the *_t convention that had begun to creep up in Posix." https://bytes.com/topic/c/answers/221996-origin-size_t-curious https://bytes.com/topic/c/answers/221996-origin-size_t-curio... Do we have different senses of humour, or have you heard something different???
- dwyerm 7y agoIf you're ever in my part of the world, you should visit the Connections Museum[1]. It is truly humbling to see how far we've come. At this museum, you can dial a phone, hear the 'thinking' of all the electromechanical switching crossing the room, before the phone starts ringing. [1] https://www.telcomhistory.org/connections-museum-seattle/ https://www.telcomhistory.org/connections-museum-seattle/
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- asteli 7y agoThey're really cool! The original Solari board modules are mega expensive though. I looked at getting some to make a clock, and it probably would have cost me in the thousands. As an indirect result I now have a project in the works to make them. The concept is simple, but building them to be inexpensive is a challenge. Every extra bracket or fastener gets multiplied by _n_ modules.
- kickopotomus 7y agoI too have been wanting to make a split-flap display. I would be interested to hear more about your project if you have any posts or resources somewhere.
- asteli 7y agoI've been taking notes as I go, going to put together a slide preso at some point with stuff I learned in the process. I'm a lazy engineer, so I avoid doing tedious hand-crafted stuff. I'm using 30pt museum board for the flaps currently (I was going to use plastic, but found that matte paper types of material work really well). Thus most of the work has gone into designing something that's highly repeatable with minimal labor. All the cards are printed and then laser cut, the bracketry will be CNC waterjet and has a single bend, the center hub is 3D printed. I'm making it DIN rail mountable for easy installation and maintenance. Here's a sneak peek. https://imgur.com/a/2ROn6Nd https://imgur.com/a/2ROn6Nd
- harpastum 7y agoThere's a great Github project for building your own Splitflap/Solari displays from the ground up for $20 each https://github.com/scottbez1/splitflap https://github.com/scottbez1/splitflap Right now it's focusing on 40-character flaps (not super convent for clock-making), but it's open-source so I'm sure you could modify it for your purposes with some effort.
- asteli 7y agoThat's just for the enclosure. It looks like it comes out to 60-70$ depending on how you build it. I'm targeting sub $50, but it's tough. Good resource though, didn't know about those cheap geared stepper motors.
- chrisys 7y agoOne of those is definitely on the cards for me, I have been meaning to get to that for a long time.
- elliekelly 7y agoI have a small one in my office that tells the time & updates the S&P every 15 minutes. It's surprisingly loud. Especially at the top of every hour when all of the dials are flipping I've more or less gotten used to it but I have one colleague who refuses to have any meetings in my office because they find it so distracting.
- Eric_WVGG 7y agoThere are various projects for 3D-printing these… looks like a pretty feasible undertaking until you realize you need dozens to make a proper sign. https://www.instructables.com/id/Split-Flap-Display/ https://www.instructables.com/id/Split-Flap-Display/
- harpastum 7y agoThere's a great Github project for building your own Splitflap/Solari displays from the ground up for $20 each https://github.com/scottbez1/splitflap https://github.com/scottbez1/splitflap
- dmd 7y agoSomething like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN_AWLraqNw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN_AWLraqNw Software: https://github.com/dmd/clack https://github.com/dmd/clack
- duxup 7y agoSimilar to what I was thinking.
- jypepin 7y agowow, crazy how small Pi has become! I remember trying to do a similar project for the bus stop at the corner of my street to know when to leave to catch the bus. It was fun, but I never really finished when I realised how big just the Pi would be (still powered by usb-a, etc). Nice to see this one so well executed!
- piotrkubisa 7y agoIt's overwhelming how many projects with high rate of usefulness are based on boards from Pi Zero family, not the A or B.
- prashnts 7y agoI’m patiently waiting for a Pi Zero format for new Pi 4B (or something close...). Regarding the size of B series, unless I need the ports, I almost always snip out the ports — don’t bother desoldering it, the ground plane in Pi acts as a massive heat sink. Instead, I snip slowly and carefully the metal housing of ports, and then wiggle the plastic bits until the break away. Reduces the size, and leaves sufficient space to put small modules in place. I posted a few pictures in my previous comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20462711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20462711
- virtuallynathan 7y agoI'd totally buy one of these pre-made for $50. Love it!
- sschueller 7y agoVery cool but I find a pi is overkill for something like this. ESP8266 or ESP32 would work just as well.
- mugsie 7y agoThey would, but the Pi Zero is a much better UX for people who don't deal with microprocessors on a regular basis. It has SSH, I can get in and look at logs from my desktop, wifi is standard. It all adds up - and for something like this, the power draw is not an issue, and the cost is minimal.
- Avamander 7y agoThis is the hardware equivalent of bloated webpages HN tends to dislike :P
- gmanley 7y agoUsing the PI Zero over an ESP doesn't negatively impact the experience using it. Whereas a very bloated website is going to be slow to load and use. I think there is a significant difference.
- walrus01 7y agoIt costs six bucks and runs something very close to stock Debian, which greatly eases software development.
- Avamander 7y agoYes, and Electron allows people to use JavaScript and CSS which simplifies cross-platform software development.
- tombert 7y agoI hate Electron apps as much as the next person, but it's indisputable that to get a simple desktop app deployed, Electron is easier, and to me that signifies that it serves a purpose, at least in the prototyping space. I have like 10 ESP32's lying around my house, they're fun to tinker with, but my Raspberry Pis get a lot more attention from me because there is a substantially lower cognitive overhead with them than the ESPs. If I had a plan on selling my stuff, then yeah, the Raspberry Pi might be overkill and I'd consider going for an MCU module. However, for a fun little DIY project, I don't see how an RPi is a problem. EDIT: Realized I forgot to mention another point; not everyone really wants to muck with pointer arithmetic for simple things; this app was written in Python, and as far as I know, the ESP32 chips are mostly C/Arduino; I realize that there exists NodeMCU and such variants, but due to the Raspberry Pi being "Just a computer", you have access to virtually every language under the sun.
- mytailorisrich 7y agoI trust that the picture really shows live data because all trains are listed as running late.
- EamonnMR 7y agoOhh, I think I know the right APIs to make the Boston MBTA version of this. Will post it up if I do it.
- alexandros 7y agoHey folks, balena.io founder here, just chiming in to mention that Chris is one of our Hardware Hackers in Residence, and if you think that doing HW projects with all sorts of cool technologies and writing them up for the world is your dream job, we're hiring! https://balena.workable.com/j/27A101659C https://balena.workable.com/j/27A101659C Happy to answer any balena (or train station sign) related questions, of course :)
- roland35 7y agoCool project thank you for sharing it! I was checking out BalenaCloud and BelenaOS and noticed you support more advanced embedded devices (such as the pi) but are there any plans on supporting lower cost IoT devices? Similar to Azure IoT hub, Amazon FreeRTOS IoT, etc? In either case I can completely see the value in these IoT SaaS services. A lot of companies I see which want to get into IoT are experts in their own field - not networking. It is very easy to underestimate how much work it is getting everything up and running which is required for a product. You can always roll your own cloud solution later on once you gain the expertise and market fit.
- alexandros 7y agoWe're currently focused on devices that can run Linux. The smaller devices are a different kind of challenge, and while we do have some ideas about how to achieve the same level of developer experience for them, it's not out yet. :)
- shadowoflight 7y agoThat job looks amazing and makes me wish I wasn’t terrible at soldering. Thanks so much for Etcher, btw - it’s the only GUI software for flashing Pi images to SD that I’ve had good luck with on Mac.
- flipper65 7y agoNo question, just wanted to say thank you for Etcher.
- 7y ago
- VBprogrammer 7y agoThis is really cool! One thing that always annoys me with those signs is when they try to put too much information on them. You have all of the stops, fine. You then have all of the information about the train splitting which you might well need. But then they start adding information about short platforms etc. It takes several minutes for it all to scroll past. Which is super annoying if you're trying to work out if the train standing there stops at your station.
- jedimastert 7y agoI know it's a lot less complex, but on the MBTA all of the signs only show next two trains and how long they'll take to arrive. The extra information comes in where each of the displays are.
- londons_explore 7y agoOpen google maps. Drag up. Instant departures info.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- sparso 7y agohttps://ukdepartureboards.co.uk/store/ https://ukdepartureboards.co.uk/store/
- lol768 7y agoGiven these start at £150, I know which route I'd rather take.
- southpawgirl 7y agoA thing of beauty ️
- jonahhorowitz 7y agoI need one of these, but showing my upcoming meetings. Then I need it to start blinking when I'm supposed to be somewhere besides my desk.
- JustSomeNobody 7y agoI was thinking the same thing.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y agoDoesn't, like, all software that has anything to do with a calendar already do reminders? I know Outlook and Google Calendar do.
- leipert 7y agoWell, sometimes you are in Do not Disturb mode, so notifications don't come through. Also, this thing would always be on, and you simply need to glance over to see: Next meeting in X minutes. Also my calendar is kinda full, so seeing conflicts for the next meetings would be super-cool.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago...so let me get this straight. You've specifically told your computer not to remind you about meetings in the straight-forward built-in way it can, and want to build a separate overengineered reminder system out of an overpowered toy to do the same thing? Christ. No wonder everything in our industry sucks.
- wyldfire 7y agoThat's neat, seems like it would be a cool kit to distribute.
- inflatableDodo 7y agoI like the emergence of these cheap, fun, single function computing devices. Sure, it is useful to have a smartphone that does everything, but that doesn't help develop your internal map of reality in the same way as things like this do. Ubuiquity can only be stretched so far in a single tool before the benefit you derive from adding yet another feature is outweighed by it becoming very slightly worse at everything else it does. Smartphones are great, but as a backup computing device, in much the same way keyring multitools are. And the best of them are still measurably worse than the best non-smartphones at actually being mobile phones.
- GordonS 7y agoAs a total PI noob, it's great to see such clear and simple to follow instructions for something actually practical. Also liked the specific recommendations for the case and such - it would be really easy for someone to replicate. Been meaning to get a PI and do something with it for years!
- pndy 7y agoThis is great! And it made me wonder if bus transport data in my city is available for everyone - we got few displays around, two services/applications that show the current position for each line...
- Avamander 7y agoWell, technically it's available for everyone if the system has an app then the app can be reverse-engineered quite easily to get access to the API.
- kevan 7y agoPretty cool. When I took the train to work I made a simple stop-light with transit data. Trains ran every 10 minutes and it took me a few minutes to walk to the station. Green meant I could definitely catch the next train. Yellow meant I'd make it if I walked fast, and red meant I'd miss this train and need to wait for the next one.
- cameronh90 7y agoCuriously, I've made almost this exact same thing. In my case it needs to account that some platforms are a couple minutes extra walk. Given that we've both independently implemented basically exactly the same thing, I wonder how many other people would want something like this.
- Kipters 7y agoI made something similar when I was in uni and had to catch a bus to get back home, but with my Pebble and a C application: next bus was one button press away and another press was all was needed to start a carefully calibrated double alarm for "start packing" and "leave" times
- steeleduncan 7y agoIs there any option right now as hackable as the Pebble? I'm not sure how I would build something like this right now that the Pebble is gone.
- Kipters 7y agoNot that I know of, sadly. Pebble was a jewel :(
- benj111 7y agoRather than show red, why not show the next train you could actually catch? A bit more glass half full, and reduces the light count by 33%!
- 7y ago
- wheresvic1 7y agoI'd love to see a writeup of doing something like this but without any of the balena cloud stuff.
- htch 7y agoHey - I wrote the original code that was forked (exquisitely, I should add!) by Balena. The original code is just a Python script. I haven’t written it up into a blog yet, but everything to get you started is on my GitHub at https://github.com/chrishutchinson/train-departure-screen https://github.com/chrishutchinson/train-departure-screen. Very happy to help answer any questions too
- chrisys 7y agoThanks for the inspiration!
- mainlineman 7y agoI agree, what is the benefit of running balena here? You have Pi Zero, OLED screen (SPI library), and some code to access a 3rd party API.
- chrisys 7y agoFor me, repeatability and ease of management - I used to be really demotivated by having to start from scratch with a Raspbian install whenever I built a project but all the prebuilt base images for different languages/OS and configuration as code due to Docker make the Pi so much nicer to use for stuff like this.
- hemantv 7y agoWhy I can't use my old phones to do this is beyond me. I have one windows phone lying around and a few android phones. Everything is there in a neat package but the manufacturer make it so hard to tinker with them.
- imtringued 7y agoYou just write an app and then let it run? Where is the problem?
- sokoloff 7y agoWhat's preventing you from using an old phone for this? There's no specific hardware (other than driving the display, which your phone already has), right?
- ThrowawayR2 7y agoBlame the rise of the app store. The old Windows Mobile phones were fully open and work just fine for what you want; write your app, load it onto the phone, and just launch it.
- jboles 7y agoOnce did a project like this that grabbed Seattle's realtime data for some bus stops around my place. It was an old Windows CE PocketPC thingy, so the tools were primitive (.NET compact framework 1.0, basically). Maybe a bit too primitive. It worked pretty well for about a year, until I found that the CompactFlash WiFi adapter was only 802.11b and there was nothing newer available that was compatibility with the PocketPC. It ended up being a choice between keeping the gadget running, or being able to run my WiFi network at 802.11g speeds with modern (WPA) security, so the latter won out.
- zrobotics 7y agoFor a one off project, why wouldn't an old android phone work? It isn't that hard to sideload an app onto the device, and apps can be developed to comm with external devices through USB OTG adapters.
- jentulman 7y agoI'm working on a pi zero version of my own at the moment. The National Rail Enquires api's (Darwin) are free to use at personal (and surprisingly large) scale. They may be SOAP but still easy enough to talk to with some simple python. https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/46391.aspx https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/46391.aspx
- jsingleton 7y agoYeah, it is a nasty API for the live departures. There are much worse though! I wrote a proxy to make it easier to use (https://github.com/jpsingleton/Huxley https://github.com/jpsingleton/Huxley). Been meaning to port it to .NET Core when I find the time. There is also an old Python client here: https://github.com/HackPartners/darwinrest https://github.com/HackPartners/darwinrest You can find many more resources in the community (https://wiki.openraildata.com/ https://wiki.openraildata.com/ https://github.com/openraildata https://github.com/openraildata https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/openraildata-talk https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/openraildata-talk). We're pretty friendly, say hi.
- fortran77 7y agoI would love a flight information board.
- guylepage3 7y agoIt would be cool to use a Split-Flap Display. like this.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04el3LYiOaI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04el3LYiOaI
- dividuum 7y agoIf you can live with a pure software version for the Pi, have a look at https://info-beamer.com/pkg/8474 https://info-beamer.com/pkg/8474. If easy to install using the OS we build and you can update it remotely through an API or of course on-device.
- hestipod 7y agoRelated older pieces from a brilliant Finnish hacker. Her posts are always interesting: https://www.windytan.com/2014/06/headerless-train-announcements.html https://www.windytan.com/2014/06/headerless-train-announceme... https://www.windytan.com/2013/11/decoding-radio-controlled-bus-stop.html https://www.windytan.com/2013/11/decoding-radio-controlled-b...
- odiroot 7y agoI'm working on a few projects at home with ESP and RPi Zero. It's so much fun to do your own "IoT" devices. There's still a problem I don't know solve well, holistically. When you do something with UI there's inputs from humans (buttons, knobs, etc), the network and timers. I'm completely lost how to coordinate that, especially when I use an LED/OLED display. How to make sure a single screen is displayed long enough to be readable? But on the other hand how to react to all inputs? And how to deal with some inputs/triggers being more and less important (e.g. "modal" screens over static screens)? Also how to make sure not to get lost in the threading mess that I just created? The cherry on top is, some inputs require "short term memory" -- like patterns of button pressing (double/triple press/long hold) or rotary encoders. In the end I give up implementing a lot of features.
- ipoopatwork 7y agoYou might want to look into a RTOS. Each task has its own stack, and can communicate with other tasks with mailboxes or shared memory (with a lock). You'd have a task for each of the things you mention: debouncing a button, drive the display from a buffer, and application logic. The application logic then doesn't have to worry about bounces, how long it'll take to drive the display, etc. Modal screens over static screens is orthogonal to this though. You'd need to build a priority scheme, and only pass down events to the current on-screen view.
- odiroot 7y agoThanks, ipoopatwork. I'm using MicroPython and this is what I want to stick with. But I'll research how RTOS is doing things and make an equivalent.
- McDev 7y agoI love it! Now you just need to make a platform announcement addon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qa7KL1VScw&t=70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qa7KL1VScw&t=70
- jboles 7y agoI have done exactly that! (but not for London): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fte7w0r8d_k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fte7w0r8d_k (Not my video; someone made it using the program I made)