Channel: DroneBot Workshop

Category: Howto & Style

Description: Let’s see how to use e-Paper displays with both Arduino and Raspberry Pi. I’ll also show you a “no-code” method of building an e-Paper information panel with PaperPi. Article with code: dronebotworkshop.com/epaper More articles and tutorials: dronebotworkshop.com Join the conversation on the forum: forum.dronebotworkshop.com Subscribe to the newsletter and stay in touch: dronebotworkshop.com/subscribe e-Paper displays are quite different from the types of displays we are used to working with. Unlike other displays, e-paper doesn’t emit light, it reflects it. It also has the unique property of retaining the last thing written to it, even when powered down. These ultra low-current devices are perfect for portable projects, or those that require a display that can be read in a brightly lit environment. We will be using a very common and inexpensive display from Waveshare that can operate as both an SPI device for microcontrollers and as a Raspberry Pi HAT. I’ll show you how to use it with both an Arduino and a Raspberry Pi. After running a couple of demos, we will see how to write Python code to customize our e-Paper display. And we will also look at a relatively new product called PaperPi. This application lets you create cool e-Paper display panels without writing any code, instead, it uses “plugins” to configure the display to your liking. You can build a clock, weather display or even a music player. Here is the Table of Contents for today's video.: 00:00 - Introduction 02:24 - How e-Paper Displays work 05:54 - Waveshare 2.7-inch e-Paper HAT 07:42 - e-Paper with Arduino demo 15:36 - e-paper with Raspberry Pi demo 19:14 - Coding e-Paper displays with Python 27:02 - PaperPi 36:16 - Conclusion Now, I’ll be the first to admit that e-paper is not perfect. The displays are somewhat expensive (although the one I used was pretty cheap) and they aren’t suitable for video or full-color. But for some applications, they are just perfect.