OLED Building Signs

[kvp]

Thanks for the info! The interface seems to be exactly the same that was used for the LCD screens in old Nokia and Siemens mobile phones. With SPI support, the driver circuit could be very small. By making a serial to SPI or USB to SPI interface it would be easy to connect a display to a PC. Or maybe by adding an SD card interface to the driver chip it would be possible to store raw rgb16 images as a 96*64*2/512 = 24 sectors per image video stream (make it 25 and store the control info in the 1st sector). This way a specially crafted SD card image could be written on a PC with a video stream in it, then the driver would just copy it out to the display. This would allow a frame rate of around 8 fps in 16 bit hi color. Another option is adding external inputs to preselect between multiple image sequences, so push buttons could be used to select what to display. This would allow prewritten station signs to be changed without using a pc, including driving multiple displays with the same output.

 

Of course, the ideas above would require lots of work to design the circuits and write software to control them, but could be used as a basis for a nice product line of different display boards preassembled into kits and ready to install on layouts.

[cteno4]

One issue with this sort of device on a layout is that it needs to be something that does not have buttons you need to push to operate it. It should just start playing when powered on. Also best if data and any sequence selection, effect choices, etc are stoed on a micro sim so you can more easily program it than tearing the whole board out to program or having to build Ina micro usb plug into the building.

 

This was the killer things when I was using the off the shelf PVRs and image displays.

 

Would be great if the oled itself could be separate from the ps board and have an inch or two of either ribbon cable or flex pc board so the rest of the circuitry could go into the building.

 

Again fantastic work mrp!

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[mrp]

Hello all,

 

Thanks for the comments and ideas.

 

I guess my plan initially is to use the OLEDs for advertising signs on buildings - the types of signs that basically just run through a set of animations for one particular company logo without any user intervention.

 

I want to make a copy of the Haier sign in Ginza:

 

 

And the Promise (プロミス) and Lake (レイク) signs you see on many buildings:

 

 

And I like the Hisamitsu sign:

 

 

I’d be really interested in knowing which other memorable signs spring to mind when you think of Japan, so please post a photo or link!

 

I’ve ordered a couple more different types of OLED modules from AliBaba to try and make smaller driver boards.  One positive thing is that all of the pre-mounted OLED modules (including the one I’ve been playing with) have quite a bit of circuitry for a step-up voltage converter to produce the 12 volts needed for the display, which I can leave out completely since we already power everything from 12V.

 

[gavino200]

Any updates on this project?

[kvp]

Yes, i plan to install the first black and white board on an already completed building during the Christmas break. What keeping me doing it is that the building has to be painted and the interior detailed or at least the windows masked first and that is still in my backlog. The image display software works though, the station signboard system still needs a readable japanese font, but i have a few ideas on post-its. Actually more ideas than time...

[gavino200]

On 11/24/2017 at 3:59 AM, kvp said:

Yes, i plan to install the first black and white board on an already completed building during the Christmas break. What keeping me doing it is that the building has to be painted and the interior detailed or at least the windows masked first and that is still in my backlog. The image display software works though, the station signboard system still needs a readable japanese font, but i have a few ideas on post-its. Actually more ideas than time...

 

Any luck with this kv?

[kvp]

I've completly forgot to post updates about this and the module is even set up on the table right now. I'll make a video or something.

[kvp]

As apparently i can't upload videos anymore (not even ones below 4 MB), i had to convert the bad quality phone video to a size optimized gif (and cut 2/3 of the animation) to be able to post it here inline. An external video site would have been better, but i don't know any that allows posting for embedded content only.

The display still lacks the nice signboard frame i designed for it as i have to cut and paint that by hand in the future. Otherwise the format is 128x64x1bpp@10fps and the flash storage of the arduino mega is the current size limit. This implementation just loops the video. Many nice features have been planned for these oleds but then i got sidetracked and built a 3 track terminus station instead...

[gavino200]

6 minutes ago, kvp said:

As apparently i can't upload videos anymore (not even ones below 4 MB), i had to convert the bad quality phone video to a size optimized gif (and cut 2/3 of the animation) to be able to post it here inline. An external video site would have been better, but i don't know any that allows posting for embedded content only.

 

The display still lacks the nice signboard frame i designed for it as i have to cut and paint that by hand in the future. Otherwise the format is 128x64x1bpp@10fps and the flash storage of the arduino mega is the current size limit. This implementation just loops the video. Many nice features have been planned for these oleds but then i got sidetracked and built a 3 track terminus station instead...

 

That looks awesome kv! Nicely done. Maybe sometime if you get a chance, could you do a little write-up on the process?

[gavino200]

Adding this link here for future reference

 

https://shin-yukari.weebly.com/blog/uniqlo-store-display

[mr_bananies]

Found this video of using OLED for trains aswell

 

 

[cteno4]

Some talk on that over here

 

jeff