[Swansea Hackspace] Flip-Dot Display Group Project: Update

[Peter Barnes]

Justin/Gwion,

Have you documented which pins do what, the voltages and currents
> required, etc ?
>

Yes, Tom has put together a full schematic in KiCad for the display, which
along with exported logic analysis from a scope at uni has allowed us to
figure out which pins do what.

I looked at the project page you listed but it only points to other
> peoples similar projects.


I've just updated the Project Page
<https://swansea.hackspace.org.uk/Main/Projects> with all of this new
information, so that should make a lot more sense now.


Is there scope for a camera to be added and used render a live B&W feed to
> the frame as some sort of crude view finder?


Absolutely! We are planning to use a computer or raspberry pi to control
the billboard, so we could integrate a camera and do some processing on it,
or use something like openCV for facial tracking.

See this video from CES <https://youtu.be/SJU2-1X8kHQ?t=1m21s>, where they
used PrimeSense cameras to do facial tracking, and then displayed an avatar
on the flip dot billboard.

Other giant panel <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSdiop75jIg> / other
other giant panel <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxL4SK3B4lY>

Once we have developed a reliable control system for each panel, that will
act as a hardware abstraction layer, making the fronted programming much
easier.


Regards,

Peter Barnes
MØSWN <http://m0swn.uk>

On Tue, Jul 10, 2018 at 9:12 AM Justin Mitchell <
justin at swansea.hackspace.org.uk> wrote:

> On Tue, 2018-07-10 at 04:53 +0100, Peter Barnes wrote:
> > All,
> >
> > It's been quite a few months since the Hackspace embarked on a
> > project to bring some old bus displays back to life. I'm please to
> > report that we have made great progress, and plan on having a fully
> > functional display made up of six panels ready for EMF2018
> >
> > Last night, with the help of Tom, we managed to get pixel level
> > control over a panel, using a very high tech method of connecting tac
> > switches to address lines! Next job is to use a MCU to pulse those
> > lines with somewhat more precise timing, so we can get full control
> > over the panels.
>
> Great stuff.
>
> Have you documented which pins do what, the voltages and currents
> required, etc ?
>
> I looked at the project page you listed but it only points to other
> peoples similar projects.
>
> > Once we've sorted that out, we need to work on a few things:
> >
> > We need to design and build an enclosure / stand that will allow us
> > to show off the displays to the public at EMF. This will likely be
> > built out of bits of wood in order to raise the display to eye level
> > and tilt them up a little to make them easier to see. The enclosure
> > will include a large, plexiglass panel to protect the displays from
> > the elements.
>
> > We need to come up with an effective solution for controlling all six
> > panels in real time. Our current idea for this is to pair each panel
> > with an MCU that will update its pixels, and then network them
> > together using a SBC (perhaps a Raspberry Pi 3B+) acting a bit like a
> > hypervisor.
>
> Once we know how many control lines there are, how many pixels etc then
> people can suggest suitable control mechanisms. Also questions like, do
> you want the panels to be usable independently and interchangeably? is
> it better for the control interface to be wired, or wireless ? How
> quickly can pixels be updated, and thus what is the max frame rate
> likely to be ?
>
> > Once we can control each pixel in the entire display, we need to
> > write software to make it do something cool. Ideas for this have
> > ranged from games such as pacman, a twitter bot, scrolling text and
> > more. Perhaps we could even make a system that would allow EMF
> > attendees to program the panel with to do something else entirely!
> Might be worth taking a look at the Blinkenlights projects from, well
> over a decade ago now, they would install light sources in the windows
> of office blocks, wire them all up to a central control, and play
> animations and games on them.
>
> afair the software was all open source, and features stuff like
> multiple controllers, transfering patterns and synchronisation.
> istr there also being a plugin for some video playing sioftware that
> would output the blinkenlights protocol.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Hackspace mailing list
> Hackspace at swansea.hackspace.org.uk
> http://swansea.hackspace.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hackspace
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://swansea.hackspace.org.uk/pipermail/hackspace/attachments/20180710/7a6eb13c/attachment.html>