[HN Gopher] Show HN: Paperd.ink - Open-source e-paper developmen...
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Show HN: Paperd.ink - Open-source e-paper development board
Author : robertlangdon
Score : 201 points
Date : 2021-05-30 07:22 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (paperd.ink)
(TXT) w3m dump (paperd.ink)
| demarq wrote:
| It would be nice to also have a premium version in the future,
| where we could pay more towards having more premium external
| case.
| robertlangdon wrote:
| So many things we want to do, just need some money haha
| hybridtupel wrote:
| Product is looking very promising. Unfortunately using Indigogo.
| This is literally the worst crowd funding platform I know. Lots
| of scam going on and Indigogo doesn't care a bit about the
| backers because they get their share. Therefore this place is
| dead to me.
| robertlangdon wrote:
| Unfortunately none of the major crowdfunding platforms support
| our country to collect funds. It's sad that you have a product
| but would not be able to launch it because of these issues. We
| somehow managed to go on IGG so that's the best bet we have
| right now.
| Jiejeing wrote:
| Looks very promising, but I am curious regarding the fixed goal
| of EUR25000: according to a quick napkin calculation, summing up
| all the units up for sale with their respective price, that still
| is only EUR20500, how does it work? Will you add more units to
| the page down the line?
| robertlangdon wrote:
| The answer is in our FAQ. There were secret perks (accessible
| through the link) to our early backers which were sold, that's
| why even the number of backers won't match on the public page.
| captn3m0 wrote:
| Really cool to see eInk projects from India. Is shipping cheaper
| here by any chance, and are there plans for a 6" version?
|
| I've been thinking of buying Inkplate[0], but international
| shipping of electronics in India is a gamble, so paperd looks
| neat
|
| [0]: https://inkplate.io/
| robertlangdon wrote:
| Sorry this is the best pricing we have right now. And no plans
| yet for the 6" version, depends on how we do on this one.
| E-paper is quite hard to source and is expensive.
| avinassh wrote:
| Is this being manufactured in India as well? Can you share
| more details
| politelemon wrote:
| I've been following a similar DIY - it uses Waveshare 7.5"
|
| https://github.com/mendhak/waveshare-epaper-display
| notum wrote:
| According to their GitHub they seem to be using a standard $3
| ESP8266
|
| With a few modifications I bet you can very easily port their
| source to a much larger and sensible display, should you be so
| inclined.
| sdfhbdf wrote:
| Congrats on launching. Looks really promising and I'm excited
| what can be done with it. Any thoughts on final pricing? I
| understand the biggest cost are those overpriced e-ink panels,
| will the post-indiegogo price also be around 60 EUR?
| robertlangdon wrote:
| Thanks! That's correct, e-paper displays and the silicon chip
| prices are high right now (the last we checked before our
| campaign launch in April) plus the inflation and uncertainty
| around shipping. The answer to your question is difficult to
| give right now, it depends on how many orders we get and what
| price we're able to negotiate. We put all our savings into the
| prototype and have been bootstrapped, thus the crowdfunding.
| Hopefully we'll be in a strong position with enough orders to
| get good prices after the campaign. Hope that helps!
| roboben wrote:
| The website is not stating one of the most important fact: what
| is the size of the display? Also on indiegogo you need to scroll
| and read a lot until you find what size. It is 4.2".
| [deleted]
| robertlangdon wrote:
| Oh, thanks. Will update.
| roboben wrote:
| Still don't see it. Just kidding. Good job doing that! I'd
| buy if it would be larger.
| robertlangdon wrote:
| haha no worries!
| ecf wrote:
| > Back us on Indiegogo
|
| Unfortunately Indiegogo/Kickstarter type funding makes this a
| non-starter for me.
|
| On a larger note, I wish products would explicitly state it's in
| a crowdfunding stage instead of misleading people and them only
| finding out when they scroll to the very bottom of the page.
| roboben wrote:
| Does anyone know where I can get a large but affordable e-paper
| display. Can be raw without anything around? From 10" and up.
| Thanks
| davisr wrote:
| Buy a reMarkable 1 tablet (~$230) and put a VNC client on it,
| or run an alternative OS like Parabola-rM
| (http://www.davisr.me/projects/parabola-rm/). They have high-
| quality (flexible backplane) panels that are now sold cheaply.
| salamandersauce wrote:
| What's affordable? Waveshare.com has raw eInk displays. 10
| inches depending on features start around $130USD.
| kekub wrote:
| If you just need the display: AliExpress. If you want to drive
| it, I would recommend EPDIY (https://github.com/vroland/epdiy).
| roboben wrote:
| I checked Ali but couldn't find anything in a good size. Do
| you have a link or keyword? Thanks
| ape4 wrote:
| Sounded like an AI voice in the video
| purplecats wrote:
| looks awesome. what's the realistic battery span if it is set to
| refresh a webpage/large image every hour?
| robertlangdon wrote:
| Would be 3-4 days on 2000mAH battery
| robertlangdon wrote:
| Update: Please check my next comment in the thread. It should
| be around 1-1.5 months for the 2000mAh battery.
| chrismorgan wrote:
| I'm utterly inexpert in this area, but that doesn't sound
| right at all; I think it should be more like 2-3 months, and
| probably even more.
|
| 3-4 days on a 2000mAH battery means over 20mAH per hour. You
| say deep sleep uses <20mA, which would be under 0.1% of the
| total here, so we can call that rounding error and just focus
| on the time when it's actively doing something. Assume it
| wakes up every hour, takes 12 seconds to connect, fetch and
| render, before returning to deep sleep. 20mAH in 12 seconds
| is 6 amps. I'm not familiar with the actual power consumption
| figures, but https://lastminuteengineers.com/esp32-sleep-
| modes-power-cons... suggests an ESP32 chip with everything on
| is using up to about 260mA, and I seem to recall hearing that
| e-ink displays used a few milliwatts, but it's hard to find
| details. All up, my _extremely_ rough estimates are coming to
| active consumption more like 300mA, not 6A--so more like
| three _months_ than three days.
|
| (I haven't been careful with the voltages in these
| calculations, but my impression is that you're looking at
| about 3.3-3.6V on the battery and ESP32 chip. I think the
| 300mA is probably fairly significantly on the high side,
| since most of the system won't be in use for all of that
| nominal 12 seconds. But I caution you again that I'm not
| competent in this field; I'm just a layman that thinks the
| numbers didn't add up.
|
| While I'm talking: why _do_ most of these things, especially
| the batteries, cite current figures rather than power
| figures? Is there a genuine reason, or is it some kind of
| historical mistake, or something else?)
| robertlangdon wrote:
| You're right, we made a mistake. I checked with my partner.
| Thanks for pointing out, it would be at least 1-1.5 months
| for 2000mAh. Talk about short selling yourself!
|
| E-papers have a slow refresh rate, it takes about 5 seconds
| to display a completely new image. And considering it takes
| about 15 seconds to connect and download an image (based on
| network speed), we get current spikes upto 300-400mA during
| WiFi transfer. We can expect conservatively a 1-1.5 months
| life from a 2000mAh battery.
|
| The mAh unit enables us to compare batteries easier I
| believe. Standard LiPo are 3.7V so given a mAh rating its
| easier to know which will last longer. While for a Wh unit
| you would have to calculate it.
| OJFord wrote:
| > why do most of these things, especially the batteries,
| cite current figures rather than power figures? Is there a
| genuine reason, or is it some kind of historical mistake,
| or something else?
|
| I agree it's not so helpful in practice; I think though
| it's because they're a store of charge, N electrons =
| capacity in Coulombs, and 1C = 1As (by definition) or more
| familiarly 1/3600 Ah.
|
| This is true load or no load, so from C (As) and V (= J/C)
| you know the charge stored and the rate of depletion.
|
| Maybe the real error is not Ah instead of Wh, but V instead
| of J, since the former will drop off non-linearly (in
| practice) under load and while draining, or with
| temperature; whereas I think J & C independently 'when new'
| would give a better picture, or at least one that will more
| obviously change over the life of the battery?
| offtop5 wrote:
| What's the unique value proposition here ?
|
| You can get an e paper hat for a raspberry pi zero and accomplish
| the same thing.
| robertlangdon wrote:
| Sure you can. We wanted something like this for ourselves and
| thought of sharing it with the world. Thankfully some of them
| liked it too
| joelthelion wrote:
| You won't get a month on a single charge with an RPi, if I'm
| not mistaken.
| salmo wrote:
| I'm confused.
|
| It looks like none of the buying options include the display,
| just the board or board and enclosure. Is the display on the back
| side? Just not pictured or listed?
|
| If it has to be purchased separately, it's not called out either
| and there's no reference to which display to buy on the indigogo
| page.
| robertlangdon wrote:
| Display is included in every perk. Sorry for the confusion,
| will put better pics!
| salmo wrote:
| Thanks! Hopefully it saves someone else from being confused
| and gets you more sales.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Inkplate is another good option. They have bigger options with
| touchscreens.
| gab007 wrote:
| If I may, one suggestion regarding the plastic frame - maybe work
| a bit on the quality and feel of the frame (unless pictures are
| of a prototype). I know it may not sound like a big deal, but I
| think that a good product presentation goes a long way.
|
| Looks very promising, congrats on launching.
| thinkmassive wrote:
| "You can download the STEP files from our Github repository to
| 3D print your own if you decide to go with the latter. Or even
| design your own!"
|
| It would be really cool to mill the same design out of wood. An
| alternative design could be stackable layers of wood & plastic,
| similar to the RPi "zebra" cases.
| robertlangdon wrote:
| Absolutely, love the idea! We figured it would be very costly
| if we did it ourselves because the number would be small.
| robertlangdon wrote:
| Thanks and appreciate the feedback
| crypt0x wrote:
| Not an export on this but I heard what blocked a lot of projects
| based on kindles was the proprietary waveform driver stuff to
| draw on the displays. Meaning that basic linux had supper
| inefficient redraw behavior compared to what the eBooks are
| doing.
|
| What's the situation here?
| robertlangdon wrote:
| No idea. We're not using the Kindle displays so we aren't
| affected by any proprietary waveforms.
| felipemesquita wrote:
| Similar product: M5Stack Paper [0], has a 4.7 e-paper display and
| is based on the ESP-32. M5Stack also sells on AliExpress and ship
| surprisingly fast there.
|
| https://shop.m5stack.com/collections/m5-core/products/m5pape...
| tecleandor wrote:
| Since February, every time I go to their shop (both on their
| site or AliExpress)it's always out of stock. I don't know if
| they sell batches very quickly or have been out of stock for
| months.
|
| I've seen another supplier selling them, but like 30 or 40%
| more expensive, for more than 100$.
| SahAssar wrote:
| It's not listed on aliexpress anymore, it's out of stock on
| their own site and on banggood where it was listed as in stock
| my order just sat as processing for 2 months and then they
| cancelled it with the reason "Some of the items in your order
| are out of stock". When they cancelled my order the product was
| still listed as "in stock" on their site.
|
| I think it's not possible to buy it anymore.
| robertlangdon wrote:
| Yep, saw this one. Although I'm not a big fan of touchscreen,
| the response rate is not as smooth because epaper. It does look
| pretty though!
| notum wrote:
| I realize why they avoid showing comparisons to reference points
| for size. 4.2" is absolutely tiny and useless unless you're
| holding it right in front of you.
|
| WaveShare sells up to 13'' color e-paper displays. Go big or go
| home. The rest can be supplied by an ESP32 or a RPI, there's no
| need to invent (expensive) hot water here.
| robertlangdon wrote:
| Thanks but we'll stay.
| taylorconor wrote:
| I built a similar project
| (https://github.com/taylorconor/inkymon) using an Inky wHAT e-ink
| dev board [1] connected to a Raspberry Pi Zero, which seems to be
| the same display as used here.
|
| It's really not fit for this calendar / todo list use-case. It's
| not possible to get much information density on a 400x300 two-
| tone display. No anti-aliasing or hinting on the fonts, for
| example. So you either need great eyesight or very few todos :)
|
| [1]: https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/inky-what.
| RBerenguel wrote:
| I used the Inky Impression with some bash scripts, also
| connected to a Zero. It has 7 colours, which gives some neat
| expression. Here's a Twitter thread with pictures:
| https://twitter.com/berenguel/status/1344016064196304899
|
| The rotating images keep me entertained during the workday.
| robertlangdon wrote:
| paperd.ink is a 4.2" e-paper display coupled with an ESP32
| microcontroller. It's open-source, fully hackable and all the PCB
| and 3D printing files are available on our Github repo. It's low
| power so you can run it for a month on a single charge. Update
| wirelessly using WiFi, Bluetooth. Display your calendar, to-do
| list, weather, custom images, whatever you want. Code using
| micropython, Arduino, or ESP-IDF.
|
| It was too hard to launch a hardware product on a shoestring
| budget dealing with way too many issues amidst the pandemic. But
| thanks to the HN community, we got a great response last year on
| our prototype which gave us confidence to move forward!
| tucosan wrote:
| Why is there an image of a satellite dish, when the device
| provides WiFi/Bluetooth connectivity?
| robertlangdon wrote:
| Welp, just an illustration. Sorry for the confusion
| rahimiali wrote:
| This is a big deal because it's a tablet with a GUI without
| Linux. This allows it to run on a microcontroller-class
| processor, with absolutely zero software bloat. Even if you
| wanted to slow it down with bash scripts and python, you
| couldn't.
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