Tinker Niche

PxMatrix on ESP8266 connected to an 32x16 RGB DOT MATRIX 1/8 SCAN Panel It was always wonderful to see the numerous colour displays that display messages and animations on Dot Matrix Displays (DMD) in the commercial places. One useful thing would be to take an Off-the-Shelf Display and run fully controllable custom software rather than rely on some external products to do. Luckily found a display vendor who offered to give me some DMD as samples for experimentation. I was given a P10 32x16 pixel color DMD panel. I have experimented with Monochrome DMDs (maybe blog about this later) but the RGB display is another world all together. The Monochrome world does not have lot of open source software, the RGB world has PxMatrix, RGBMatrix and SmartMatrix. As I wanted the controlling entity to be super cheap which meant use of an 8266 I had to start with PxMatrix. Though there are better options than PxMatrix, the others use a more expensive controller. Its better to start with the lowest cost...

Dot Matrix Clock IOT Dot Matrix Clock / Dot Matrix Display  (DMC) (DMD) An accurate clock for displaying time (Hours/second) and date would be a nice creation. Added advantage would be to have it connected on the internet and splashes messages to it. A WIFI based solution would be much better for easy access to the home/network ecosystem Using an accurate RTC like DS3231 and Wifi chip ESP8266, a PCB was fabricated. Also there was a need to make a good case to host the electronics. Acrylic case making is cheaper as compared to 3d printing. Found an enterprising acrylic fabricator who made an amazing case.  The power supply was embedded in the back of the case so it could be directly plugged into the wall socket or the ESP8266's USB power connector provided for at the side of the casing. Uses the MajicDesigns MD_MAX72XX library from here  MajicDesigns MAX72XX library The fabricated DMC looks as follows: Mains Enabled Clock The DMC can be run off either AC mains or an extern...