BADGEr_v4 E-paper (Seeed ARD01800P)

WyoLum is so proud to team up with Seeed Studio and Repaper to present the Open Hardware Summit badges (codename: BADGEr) for 2013!  We’ve had our heads buried working through a myriad of issues and recovering from a few big setbacks, but the work has paid off.  The prototypes are back and they are amazing.  We friggin’ did it!  Thanks to the grit and endless hours contributed by Anool and Kevin of WyoLum; Nana and Albert of Seeed Studio; plus Sean and Charming of repaper.org for helping out with software issues.

Features:

• Repaper.org‘s amazing electronic paper display EPD.  A huge shout out to the generous support we have received from them.  We simply could not have offered this badge without them.
• Arduino derivitive.  This is the new phrase for “Arduino compatible”.  The badge has an ATMEGA328 on board and can be programmed using the Arduino IDE by selecting the “Arduino Pro Mini 3v3 8MHz” from the Tools–> Board menu.
• Arduino Shield.  Because the EPD takes up a lot of pins and a lot of memory, it makes sense to offload the business logic to another processor and let BADGEr handle the display functions.
• uSD slot.  You may have run up against the memory limitations of the ATMEGA328 already.  There is really no space left for a display buffer.  We use the SD card as both a display buffer to prepare new displays, as well as a disk drive to store images and fonts.
• Buttons.  These buttons can be programmed to be whatever you want, but they are labeled MODE (left), UP, DOWN, SEL (right).  UP and RIGHT are connected to INT0 and INT1 so these buttons can wake BADGEr from power saving sleep mode.  The default program uses these buttons to navigate though a simple directory structure.  Folders are labeled A, B, C, … and each file is called A.WIF, B.WIF, C.WIF…
• Power Options. 2450 coincell (~ 100 page turns), JST connector for lipo batteries, microUSB (5V), Barrel jack [not populated] (7-12V), Lanyard terminals (7-12V)
• Interfaces.  Arduino Shield, FTDI, ISP, I2C.  Don’t like the software, got some better ideas?  Do something about it.   Some things to remember:
  • 8MHz clock
  • 3v3, while the processor runs at 3v3, the FTDI interface is 5V. But most 5V FTDI cables will not work. This is because the logic must be a true 5V and not the typical 3v3 found on many standard 5V FTDI cables you should also be able to use Adafruit’s FTDI Friend to program it. I still use a ghetto hack of pulling out the 328 from an Arduino Duemilinove and using connecting to its FTDI chip via the shield headers.
  • call ereader.spi_detach() before disconnecting power
• LED. Duh, it’s red and it pulses the heart logo…
• Other Features. Real time clock slot [not populated], power switch for (coincell battery only),  temperature sensor [not populated]

Links:

• Schematic
• Board File
• Gerbers
• Code
• Kevin on Adafruit’s show and tell
• Jimmie’s first look
• EReader library explained
• WyoLum Image Format (WIF)
• WyoLum Font Format (WFF) (coming soon)
• Development Board available from Adafruit Industries