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I bought a flip dot display on eBay and now I am stuck with the old thing and my lack of knowledge to make it work. Here's a great resource about technical deta

by ofrzeta 6mo ago

I bought a flip dot display on eBay and now I am stuck with the old thing and my lack of knowledge to make it work. Here's a great resource about technical details (only German though) https://radow.org/flip-dot.php https://radow.org/flip-dot.php EDIT: "They have high readability, a long lifespan, and achieves anywhere between 25-60fps" - I think you can't achieve 60fps with a flip dot display.

londons_explore 6mo ago
Depends how much power and noise you're willing for it to make!! Remember that texas instruments DLP technology which is in use in pretty much every office/home cinema projector is effectively micro flip-dots micromachined in silicon, and that can operate at ~10,000 FPS.
- ofrzeta 6mo ago
  With my rudimentary physics knowledge I'd think that smaller structures can be moved faster than bigger structures. EDIT: also when you google a bit you can find a guy who maxed out flip dot displays at 30fps (which honestly I thought would not be possible either)
- IshKebab 6mo ago
  Uhm yeah they are a lot smaller. That makes a difference obviously.
alnwlsn 6mo ago
They can't if they are wired like they usually are from the factory, because they are wired in a matrix where you can only update one row at a time. They did this to save on IO lines/output transistors, I guess. So you have to wait for the whole screen to finish drawing before beginning the next frame. But you can flip them fast/in parallel if you have a driver for each disc: https://pierremuth.wordpress.com/2021/02/17/flipping-dots-fast/ https://pierremuth.wordpress.com/2021/02/17/flipping-dots-fa... I've been working on one and I have and I am trying to use an H-bridge per disc. It's possible to find very cheap ICs; for my 308 discs, it only cost $10 for these (not counting the additional time/costs that comes with coming up with 616 IO lines, getting a PCB made, dealing with power issues, etc): https://www.lcsc.com/product-detail/C5795599.html https://www.lcsc.com/product-detail/C5795599.html

by ofrzeta 6mo ago

londons_explore 6mo ago

Depends how much power and noise you're willing for it to make!! Remember that texas instruments DLP technology which is in use in pretty much every office/home cinema projector is effectively micro flip-dots micromachined in silicon, and that can operate at ~10,000 FPS.

ofrzeta 6mo ago
With my rudimentary physics knowledge I'd think that smaller structures can be moved faster than bigger structures. EDIT: also when you google a bit you can find a guy who maxed out flip dot displays at 30fps (which honestly I thought would not be possible either)
IshKebab 6mo ago
Uhm yeah they are a lot smaller. That makes a difference obviously.

alnwlsn 6mo ago

They can't if they are wired like they usually are from the factory, because they are wired in a matrix where you can only update one row at a time. They did this to save on IO lines/output transistors, I guess. So you have to wait for the whole screen to finish drawing before beginning the next frame. But you can flip them fast/in parallel if you have a driver for each disc: https://pierremuth.wordpress.com/2021/02/17/flipping-dots-fast/ https://pierremuth.wordpress.com/2021/02/17/flipping-dots-fa... I've been working on one and I have and I am trying to use an H-bridge per disc. It's possible to find very cheap ICs; for my 308 discs, it only cost $10 for these (not counting the additional time/costs that comes with coming up with 616 IO lines, getting a PCB made, dealing with power issues, etc): https://www.lcsc.com/product-detail/C5795599.html https://www.lcsc.com/product-detail/C5795599.html