What is it?

This is a solar powered version of my E-Paper Remote Display Unit Kit. It does everything that unit does, but is powered by an 18650 size lithium ion cell (NOT supplied) which is recharged by a small solar panel with a BQ24210 charging IC.

Need a portable, low-energy, wireless display for the data you are collecting?

This display unit has an ESP32 Wi-Fi enabled micro-controller and a 2.13” e‑ink display, along with a 18650 li-po cell holder, solar panel with charger IC and nice wooden enclosure. It displays the information even when the unit has gone to sleep, so is great for showing data or information that does not change too quickly.

This kit is a simple kit to get you up and running quickly. It does need a couple of connectors soldered on to the PCB.

You can set the unit to wake up on a touch, or to use the timer to wake it up at set intervals.

The kit includes a relatively simple wooden enclosure to hold everything and keep it at a nice display angle. We wanted something that would look nice on a mantle-piece!

Why did you make it?

When we saw this E-Paper development board, we loved it and started to make it display the data we wanted. We wanted it to look a bit more beautiful, though, so we designed a nice enclosure for it. We have also:

• Added a touch sensor wire with soldered terminal pad.
• Removed the power LED, as this ran the battery down too quickly!

It is designed for people who have some programming knowledge, as you will need to re-program the unit and make it do what you want. But we have tried to include some example code to get you up and running!

Examples we have built for this display included:

• Weather display for your location. From Open Weather Map.
• Display data from Adafruit IO. In our case we display the radiation level in the workshop. Always useful!
• Quotation machine – need a boost? Touch the unit for an inspiring quote.
• The limit is your imagination!

It uses an 18650 lithium-ion cell, which is recharged via the micro USB connection. We have found a full battery to last for several hundred updates, but this does depend on your code. This version has the solar panel which helps to keep the battery charged. Actual power use depends upon the code and application.

Please note: The 18650 cell is not included, as we cannot easily ship them.

The gihub repository for the code, enclosure design files and instructions is here:

https://github.com/re-innovation/TTGO EPaper

Note: This kit is based on the TTGO T5 V2.3 2.13 Inch E-Paper Screen. This is available here:

https://www.lilygo.cc/

And a github repository for their info and notes is here:

https://github.com/Xinyuan-LilyGO/T5-Ink-Screen-Series