CalEPD news
CalEPD is the component that is provided as a lightweight epaper library after experimenting with each epaper model in Cale-idf
- Restructuring this component, adding new GOODISPLAY epapers that you can see in this WiKi
- New models will have 4 gray mode when it's supported by the hardware
- This time we are collaborating with GOOD DISPLAY directly and also asking questions to their team with the goal to make this component the most advanced to drive epaper displays with ESP32
- All in develop branch. To be merged in master beginning of December 2022
- New JPG download example here in branch develop It needs external RAM since the jpeg image needs to bo decompressed. But works fast and we are quite proud of it. So far supports only monochrome or 16 grays parallel eink classes but it could be easily extended to support 3 color or full color epapers. More information and statistics in the link above.
- We've been working on adding WiFi provisioning to our demo Firmware. This was not easy task and for big buffer displays (>400x300 pixels) a PSRAM ESP32 is needed otherwise there is no RAM for BLE. Also it's a challenge to make the program small enough so there is enough IRAM to fit everything. But it's done and working with the 7 color demo that has a 130Kb buffer (4-bit per pixel)- Branch: feature/42-wifi-provisioning we are not sure if this will be ever merged since it adds a lot of components and extra files that are only needed if you want to use RainMaker for WiFi provisioning.
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Experimenting with LVGL to design User interfaces on fast epapers If this sparks your interest you can read more in my blog. Basically the idea is to use fast parallel epapers work always with partial refresh along with touch to make UX in epapers possible.
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Researching in order to add Espressif Rainmaker as an alternative way to do WiFi provisioning (Issue #42).
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Using RainMaker introduces a new problem: It uses BLE libraries that use quite a lot of RAM. Then when we use an epaper>=5.3 inches (600 * 448 pixels) RainMaker won't find enough memory to finish the BLE WiFi provisioning. One alternative to that is to use Vectors instead of static buffers.
- L58 touch controller of Lilygo EPD47 device added to our supported touch components
- We started to use EPDiy library to control parallel epapers after Valentin sent me one EPDiy v5 model that my father uses. It worked great with his ebook epaper of 6 inches. Then Lilygo contacted me to test one of their new EPD47 ESP32 4.7 epapers and I bought the touch overlay in Aliexpress. That was a great timing for me to try this since I was looking to make new stuff. Drivers for this display are already added and need Epdiy as a component. Later in the beginning of 2021 I got involved with EPDiy to add software rotation to the component: https://github.com/martinberlin/epdiy-rotation This fork in master branch is also usable to have a clean EPDiy that you can use as an ESP-IDF component. It would be much better to use the original library but I still don't know how to tell IDF to use a certain directory when you add EPDiy as a git submodule. If someone knows please send me a message (Email is on my github profile or check my contact details in my blog fasani.de)
- Touch integration with FT6X36 component In this month we focused our development efforts in adding touch to 2.7 epaper from Good Display. This has enabled for the first time, to have an epaper IDF component, that support touch and enables making an UX on epaper for ESP32. A short video showing touch integrated with the gdew027w3T class.
- Gdew0583z21 Good Display 5.83 b/w/r 3 color eink added. Refresh takes like 10 seconds but the red looks amazing. No grays or partial update is supported in color models. 7.5 inch color model from Goodisplay is also added.
- Gdew0583t7 Good Display 5.83 b/w model added after testing. In the next weeks I will focus on getting grayscales and additional colors to work.
Multi SPI epaper 12.48 class Wave12I48 is working. This epaper has Waveshare added electronics and ESP32 support. It has a 160 Kb buffer, so it leaves no DRAM for your program. Check my PSIRAM hack to replace the DevKitC with a ESP32 WROVER-B board if you want to have a working sketch with additional libraries (WiFi, download image from www, etc) Without PSIRAM only a very basic sketch can be made.
Revision v.1.3 | Firmware for ESP-IDF >= v. 4.3
Documentation written by Fasani Corp.
We are also launching a new company called Marespa.es that will help EU citizens find an affordable apartment in Spain. With the price of Rent going through the roof in 2024, this might be the moment to make an investment, if you plan to work from the spanish coast. With this project we are also supporting our open source projects.