nhjschulz / EInkPicFrame

Battery powered picture frame using color E-Ink display

EInkPicFrame

The project builds an electronic picture frame using a 7 color E-Ink display. It updates after an adjustable time period by reading images from an SD-Card. The frame is powered from a battery and mimics a real picture frame by requiring no power cable or a backlight. The software and hardware implements various power saving methods to run for a long time without recharging.

This is a hobbyist project. I have >20 years background in software development, but lack the electronic engineering background. I'm using this project to clear the fog in these mysterious regions below a HAL software layer. The project therefore includes a hardware design as well.

Requirements

A set of project requirements is collected here: Requirements

Concept

Block diagram of the system:

Used Tools

The project is build using open source tools only. All of them are available for free. The following table shows the tools and versions used during development:

Tool	Usage	Version	Link
Visual Studio Code	Editor and IDE	1.63.2	https://code.visualstudio.com/
PlatformIO	Software build tools	5.2.4	https://platformio.org/
Python	Script programming	3.10.1	https://www.python.org/
GIMP	Image Manipulation	2.10.30	https://www.gimp.org/
ImageMagick	Image Manipulation	7.1.0	https://imagemagick.org/
GIT	Version Control	2.19	https://git-scm.com/
KiCad EDA	Hardware Design	5.1.12	https://www.kicad.org//

Software Architecture

The implemented software architecture design is shown on the Software Architecture page.

Hardware

The system is assembled using the following parts: Partlist.

A description of the PCB developed for this project is described here: PCB.

Image Generation

The images to show on the frame must be in a special raw format. The process to generate this format is described on the ImageConverter page.

File System

The SD Card must be formated using a FAT file system. The software expects a folder with the name "epd" on it. This folder contains the following data:

  [epd]
   |---- [err]
   |---- [img]
   |---- epd.cfg

• The folder "err" holds error images that are displayed in case of a problem, like "low battery".
• The folder img holds your images in epd format.
• The file epd.cfg are the parameters for the display. See Parameter File for instructions to create it.

An example file system can be copied from the example File System folder.

Prototype Progress

• 2021-12-11: System functional on breadboard (V1 hardware)

• 2021-01-22: V1 PCBs arrived and work

• 2022-02-01: First frame starts long run test in the living room

  Back side: