keychain LCD slide show players

[cteno4]

So i have been experimenting with various little LCD slide show players for use perhaps in stations as schedule boards that have changing schedules and ads on them. you can usually pick these up for $3-10 range. One example:

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-1-5-LCD-Digital-Photo-Frame-Album-Key-Chain-Silver-/290647051707?pt=UK_Photography_DigitalCamAccess_RL&hash=item43abea0dbb#ht_2177wt_1211

 

most are in the 1-1.5" screen size and almost a square format. they usually have a small amount of internal storage to hold 100-150 128x128 images that are loaded via usb. some require a provided software program to load the images while others you can just load on jpegs like a flash drive. the one above was a bit of a hybrid in that you could mount the player to even move stuff on and off, but they also had software (both mac and pc) on the unit you could download, very nice. they all have rechargeable batteries that recharge with connection to usb so you can keep them powered with 5vdc. most have brightness and contrast settings you can change along with the length of pause on each jpeg.

 

i have now tried 3 of these now. while these do provide nice and bright displays there are a few downsides to using them easily on a layout:

 

Setup

when these units are powered up they usually require a button be pushed to turn them on or put them into slide show mode. also they may require some settings at some point in which case you need to have access (or extend to somewhere) 3 switches (two for menu nav and one to select). this is not fun to deal with every time you could potentially turn on the device. each one of the three i have have different start up cycles, menus, and picture loading. it would be optimal to just have to at most hit one button to turn it on when powered up, but that may be a dream for something thats low priced! unfortunately there are few options for tiny screens you can throw jpegs up on easily for something like a train/advertising board.

 

Transitions

each one of the three i tried all have various transitions it cycles through to go between the images. these are odd ones like diagonal wipes, checkerboards, square zooms, etc which really would not be great for the train boards, but might be ok if most of the board is just a schedule as not many pixels are changing each time.

 

USB connection

might need to keep usb access to the unit in case you want to change the files or if the unit would blank it self (they come with internal flash memory that stays live even when the battery runs out).

 

so far im not thinking that these devices are so optimal to use like this, but i think i will go ahead with the best one i have and mock it up all the way to see how well it would look and work.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[cteno4]

ok one good thing i discovered with the unit linked below is that when you supply usb power after the battery has run out it will kick back into the slide show right away if that was what it was doing with the battery ran out. this means once its in this mode you just turn the usb power on, the unit will run in slide show, then when done turn the power off and the unit will run for a couple of hours till the battery runs out. still would need to have the buttons wired in case it ever needed to be reset and access to the usb in case the jpegs would ever need reloading or you wanted to change them.

 

now letting the unit run for a long time powered by the usb to see how well it holds up with time... ill be pulling it apart at some point to take a look at how its internally designed.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[quinntopia]

That's a really cool idea, I like your thinking Jeff!  Would love to see what one of these looks like installed.

[cteno4]

Quinntopia

 

I'm going to tear into this one soon as it powers on properly and experiment how the transitions look on scheduling board graphics. I'll keep you posted.

 

Jeff

[Mr Frosty]

Will it run on USB power without a battery installed?

This will allow ditrect switching operation using the USB supply.

[cteno4]

it runs fine on usb power and this is the trick i outlined below. if you power it on via just applying usb power (with the battery dead) it will go straight to the slide show mode. when you turn off the usb power it will happily go along on battery power until they poop out and it goes off. then you can repeat. the battery is soldered into the system so not sure what it will do if it does not see a battery, guess i could try removing it to see, but seems happy there working this way.

 

jeff

[Mr Frosty]

"Gotcha".

 

That seems almost ideal then.

[cteno4]

Well the stupid transitions are a pain and look to be unavoidable in these. But perhaps they won't be so noticeable with the schedule boards. It's on the list for more experimenting

 

Jeff