Using a 2.9 inch E-Paper Display with ARDUINO

Marc DANIEL

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• Feb 6, 2024

• #1

Hello all. I would like to use the new electronic labels currently found in stores to display prices.
This material has an advantage over LCD screens, which is that the display is almost permanent even without power. The disadvantage is to generate an image to modify the current display, this is less easy than with a classic LCD screen.
The model I chose is a 2.9 inch E-paper label capable of generating 3 colors:
white, black and red.

​

I wanted to know if the existing library for ARDUINO can be converted and used for B4R?

ARDUINO sketch and library - English and French instructions



There is an online tool to convert images and fit the E-Paper screen
​

 

Last edited: Feb 6, 2024

Cableguy

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• Feb 6, 2024

• #2

Even if no library is yet available for b4r, if you find some code that works in arduino ide, then you can create some C calls, kinda of what I did with smartLEDs, a few years ago

 

Marc DANIEL

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• Feb 6, 2024

• #3

Cableguy said:

Même si aucune bibliothèque n’est encore disponible pour b4r, si vous trouvez du code qui fonctionne dans arduino ide, alors vous pouvez créer des appels C, un peu comme je l’ai fait avec smartLEDs, il y a quelques années

Click to expand...

Merci, c’est ce que j’essaie. La partie la plus difficile est de créer des images adaptées au croquis arduino

 

Marc DANIEL

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• Feb 6, 2024

• #4

The previous ARDUINO sketch led to bugs, I got the sketch printed on the English documentation and bingo, I managed to write something!

 

Attachments

• SketchArduinoWithSuccess.zip

  714 bytes · Views: 68

Cableguy

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• Feb 6, 2024

• #5

Soon enough you'll have it all sorted out!!

 

Marc DANIEL

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• Feb 6, 2024

• #6

I still have progress to make because I haven't yet managed to create an image acceptable to the system with the red color in particular...

On the other hand, when the ARDUINO card is unplugged, the display remains constant on the screen.

See the video below with the display change

Running the ARDUINO sketch​

 

Marc DANIEL

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• Feb 6, 2024

• #7

By changing line 22, I get the text to display in red:

Ligne 22 >>> display.setTextColor(GxEPD_RED);

 

Cableguy

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• Feb 6, 2024

• #8

I knew you could do it!!!
Next step, draw a graphic in 2 colors!

 

Marc DANIEL

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• Feb 6, 2024

• #9

I have mastered the use of 3 colors for text. I still have to work on generating compatible images.

 

Marc DANIEL

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• Feb 8, 2024

• #10

Learn more about this electronic label

Using the ARDUINO sketches offered here, I manage to install images already created on the electronic label

​

Otherwise, for the moment, I can have fun with the text but I can't create my own images.
To be continued

 

Cableguy

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• Feb 8, 2024

• #11

From what i understood, the images are created using the old pixel method... where 1 is drawn and 0 is not...
I bet you can easily create a b4j app to create the inages byte array!

 

klaus

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• Feb 8, 2024

• #12

How do you set the text.
Are there specific instructions to do it.
I had a look at a video about e-Paper and saw that in their Android code there are drawing methods.
It is probably a library which should be adapted to B4R:

 

Marc DANIEL

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• Feb 8, 2024

• #13

Thanks for the video Klaus, I watched it carefully. It pretty much matches everything I've seen on the subject, only the dimensions of the label are different but the methods are the same. I hope that we will perhaps soon have a library adapted for B4X systems.
I don't know if your question was for CableGuy or for me but actually at the moment I'm using two different arduino sketches, one for the text (2_9E_Paper) and another for the rasterized image (epd2in9b_V3 in the list of Arduino sketches)

Arduino sketches​

 

Attachments

• 2_9E_Paper.zip

  693 bytes · Views: 57

Last edited: Feb 8, 2024

Cableguy

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• Feb 8, 2024

• #14

Found this interesting site:

Preparing Graphics for E-Ink Displays

A few methods are presented for readying photos and artwork for E-Ink displays that work with CircuitPython and Arduino.

learn.adafruit.com

 

klaus

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• Feb 8, 2024

• #15

The question was for you Marc.
Do you program it with B4R ?
If yes, could you post the code ?

 

klaus

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• Feb 8, 2024

• #16

Maybe THIS could be interesting.

 

Marc DANIEL

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• Feb 8, 2024

• #17

klaus said:

The question was for you Marc.
Do you program it with B4R ?
If yes, could you post the code ?

Click to expand...

Alas no, not yet, Klaus, I tried with #If C and #EndIf but it doesn't work, I get Arduino error messages
If I get a positive result, I'll come back here, of course

 

Cableguy

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• Feb 8, 2024

• #18

It's too bad I dont own a e-ink display.... I'm getting tickled by this thread

 

Marc DANIEL

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• Feb 8, 2024

• #19

klaus said:

Maybe THIS could be interesting.

Click to expand...

I read that: "
The RAM of Arduino UNO is too small to realize drawing function of e-Paper. In this case, for most of the e-Paper, we only make the image display function and save the image to flash..."
This would explain why I only managed to transfer a simple image with Arduino UNO???
So, I'm going to try with a MEGA

I need to order a new Mega 2560 card, I will continue my experiments upon receipt

 

Last edited: Feb 8, 2024

Cableguy

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• Feb 8, 2024

• #20

why not try with an esp, if you have one... then you'll have about 2MB of flash!