nano-gui - Trying Adafruit 2.9" E-Ink Tri-Color display with Esp32

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webtran
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nano-gui - Trying Adafruit 2.9" E-Ink Tri-Color display with Esp32

Post by webtran » Tue Aug 02, 2022 12:59 am

Hi,
I succeeded in configuring the library nano-gui (color_setup.py) for an Esp32-pro connected to an Adafruit 1028 ePaper display, but I only see flashing snow on the screen when I tried to run the tbox.py demo script.
I started then to run some basic structions:

Code: Select all

>>> from color_setup import ssd
Init Done.
>>>
>>> from gui.core.writer import Writer
>>> import gui.fonts.arial35 as font_large
>>> Writer.set_textpos(ssd, 0, 0)
(0, 0)
>>> wri = Writer(ssd, font_large, verbose=True)
Orientation: Horizontal. Reversal: False. Width: 296. Height: 128.
Start row = 0 col = 0

>>>  from gui.core.colors import *
>>>  from gui.widgets.label import Label
labargs = (1, 1, 80)
tbargs = {'fgcolor' : BLACK, 'bdcolor' : BLACK, 'bgcolor' : WHITE}  
lab = Label(wri, *labargs , **tbargs)

lab.value(text = 'Hello World')
'Hello World'
lab.show()
But I didn't see any activity on the screen.
Any pointer at this point will be appreciated, thank you.

Ps. Actually a got:
File "drivers/epaper/epd29.py", line 179, in show
RuntimeError: Cannot refresh: display is busy.
But I disabled the check hoping I could see something.
BUSY is connected to the pin 32 on the Esp32-pro
https://www.wemos.cc/en/latest/d32/d32_pro.html#pin
Last edited by webtran on Mon Aug 08, 2022 4:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

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pythoncoder
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Re: nano-gui - Trying Adafruit 2.9" E-Ink Tri-Color display with Esp32

Post by pythoncoder » Tue Aug 02, 2022 8:19 am

Please see list of supported displays. Unfortunately your display is not on that list and no driver has been written for it.
Peter Hinch
Index to my micropython libraries.

webtran
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Joined: Mon Jul 19, 2021 3:37 am

Re: nano-gui - Trying Adafruit 2.9" E-Ink Tri-Color display with Esp32

Post by webtran » Tue Aug 02, 2022 10:11 am

Hi Peter,
It is very similar to the Adafruit 4777, and from the same FeatherWing E-Ink family with the same resolution.
I was hoping it would use the same driver and could be tweaked a bit to make it work.

webtran
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Re: nano-gui - Trying Adafruit 2.9" E-Ink Tri-Color display with Esp32

Post by webtran » Mon Aug 08, 2022 3:52 am

It's also shares the initialization codes of the Adafruit_CircuitPython_IL0373
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-ein ... hon-code-2
https://docs.circuitpython.org/projects ... index.html

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Re: nano-gui - Trying Adafruit 2.9" E-Ink Tri-Color display with Esp32

Post by pythoncoder » Mon Aug 08, 2022 8:04 am

You may well be right. However I can't develop a driver for hardware which I don't possess. The ball is in your court, I'm afraid. If you can produce a driver I'll happily accept a PR.
Peter Hinch
Index to my micropython libraries.

webtran
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Re: nano-gui - Trying Adafruit 2.9" E-Ink Tri-Color display with Esp32

Post by webtran » Tue Aug 09, 2022 3:16 am

Indeed it would be difficult to develop if you don't have access to a screen.
Unfortunately I don't have the expertise to deal with devices at that level. Presently I can't even generate any type of error message, there is no activity on the screen. I can't even clear the screen, it looks like the frambuffer is not sent to the device... and yes I have verified the wiring many times. I guess I'll leave it like that until I have more time.

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Re: nano-gui - Trying Adafruit 2.9" E-Ink Tri-Color display with Esp32

Post by pythoncoder » Tue Aug 09, 2022 11:10 am

webtran wrote:
Tue Aug 09, 2022 3:16 am
...I have verified the wiring many times...
I'm sure you have but I'm afraid I wouldn't expect it to work. From a brief look at drivers written by others for multi-color ePaper displays I think you need a frame buffer for each color. It really is a new driver design. These displays can also be very slow to update, like 10-15s.
Peter Hinch
Index to my micropython libraries.

webtran
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Re: nano-gui - Trying Adafruit 2.9" E-Ink Tri-Color display with Esp32

Post by webtran » Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:54 am

Thanks for the info, that explains the behavior... I would never have guessed!
Like you, I think it's not worth spending too much time on this product.

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