{"id":225,"date":"2018-04-21T11:58:06","date_gmt":"2018-04-21T18:58:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/?p=225"},"modified":"2018-04-28T11:27:57","modified_gmt":"2018-04-28T18:27:57","slug":"new-project-interfacing-to-and-or-driving-a-flipdot-display","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/index.php\/225\/new-project-interfacing-to-and-or-driving-a-flipdot-display","title":{"rendered":"New Project: Interfacing to and\/or Driving a FlipDot Display"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For my next trick, I&#8217;ll be learning the intricacies of running a <a href=\"https:\/\/flipdots.com\/en\/electromagnetic-flip-disc-technology-how-it-works\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">FlipDot (aka flip-disc)<\/a> display made by ANNAX:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/FlipDot-display.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-226\" src=\"https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/FlipDot-display-1024x665.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"665\" data-wp-pid=\"226\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/FlipDot-display-1024x665.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/FlipDot-display-300x195.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/FlipDot-display-768x499.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/FlipDot-display-770x500.jpg 770w, https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/FlipDot-display-800x519.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/FlipDot-display-600x390.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/FlipDot-display-1200x779.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/FlipDot-display.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The image above is from the <a href=\"https:\/\/flipdot.wordpress.com\/author\/flipdotblog\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">FlipDotBlog site<\/a> that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ebay.com\/sch\/discountbuys_2012\/m.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the ebay seller<\/a> maintains&#8230; some of the panels have full electronics, and some are just the board and the dots.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve always been fascinated by FlipDots and the sounds they (and related technologies) make (the *<em>clack-clack-clack!*<\/em>\u00a0of train signs for example). <em>En masse<\/em>, FlipDots are sublime &#8211; and a bit loud:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7oSH-aZKyU8\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m hoping I can make it all work using the standard RS-485 comms the board with full electronics provides, but we shall see. Interestingly, it seems to have LEDs in addition to the dots, and apparently <em>they<\/em> are controlled independently. Bonus!<\/p>\n<p>First, though, it all has to arrive safely from halfway around the world. More updates when I&#8217;ve had some time to play around with it!<\/p>\n<p><em>PS: After I drafted this post I looked closely at an SF Muni bus on the way to work &#8211; <del>lo and behold it appears to use the exact same dots (should&#8217;ve snapped a photo.)<\/del><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Update: I finally got a close-up of said Muni signage &#8211; while it&#8217;s similar, it&#8217;s not the same:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/MVIMG_20180427_163003_mod.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-229\" src=\"https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/MVIMG_20180427_163003_mod.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"547\" height=\"567\" data-wp-pid=\"229\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/MVIMG_20180427_163003_mod.jpg 547w, https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/MVIMG_20180427_163003_mod-289x300.jpg 289w, https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/MVIMG_20180427_163003_mod-482x500.jpg 482w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 547px) 100vw, 547px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The ones I&#8217;m getting look more like this (but still not exactly because mine will have the auxiliary LEDs as well):<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EMcOhlJqI_s\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\u00ef\u00bb\u00bf<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<!-- wpsso rrssb get buttons: buttons on archive option not enabled -->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For my next trick, I&#8217;ll be learning the intricacies of running a FlipDot (aka flip-disc) display made by ANNAX: The image above is from the FlipDotBlog site that the ebay <a href=\"https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/index.php\/225\/new-project-interfacing-to-and-or-driving-a-flipdot-display\" class=\"more-link\">[&hellip;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"Layout":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[85,108,86],"tags":[157,158,156,106,159],"class_list":["entry","author-marty","post-225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-electronics","category-science","category-software-and-hardware-development","tag-display","tag-flip-disc","tag-flipdot","tag-leds","tag-rs485"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":228,"href":"https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions\/228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.falatic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}