Inkster - E-paper development board

Name: Inkster - E-paper development board
SKU: 25904
Price: 69.00 USD
Availability: Discontinued
Rating: 4.88 (2 reviews)

(2 Reviews)

Inkster is an ESP32 development board for e-ink displays

Designed by NiceThings in Czechia

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Inkster is an ESP32 development board for e-ink displays

Last two boards for sale. These boards don't have the AXT334124 connector (for ED060SC7 and similar displays), so if you're unsure if your display will work, feel free to PM me or check https://githu…

Why did I make it?

I wanted to make gift photo frames for Christmas for my family members. The photo frames were supposed to download random image from remotely hosted photo library every day. I designed my own board and was able to do just that and the reactions from my family were overwhelming 😊 But of course that’s one use case…

What makes this unique?

It is super compact and even though this board is universal, it's tailored for some displays in a way that they wrap around the board and make very compact projects possible (design files for the 3D printed cover available here). Apart from this, you can solder 3 buttons on the board and use them as wakeup or whatever you please. There's also a WS2812 led for status indication, voltage divider for battery sensing and thermistor for temperature tracking.

Features:

16 gray levels support
ESP32-WROVER-B on board
WS2812 led for status indication
3 buttons (optional)
MicroUSB for charging and communication
CH340 for flashing / debugging
TP4056 (with led indication) for charging
Solder pads + Footprints for JST connectors for lipo battery
14uA deep sleep current
3 different connectors on-board to support many display models
NTC thermistor on-board
Battery voltage measuring
3D printed case available on thingiverse

What’s included:

Inkster development board
4x tactile button (1 extra just in case)
If you specify this in order note, I can also add 8x M2 bolt and 8x M2 insert for 3d printed case

Important notes:

Please make sure your particular display is compatible before you buy.
Note that Inkster doesn’t have the 40pin and 39pin connectors that EPDiy board has (so it’s NOT compatible with 4.7” and 13.3” displays)
This product is not a stand-alone unit and may require professional installation.
Soldering any type of lithium battery to the board is at your own risk and can cause fire if mishandled!

Review Breakdown

Average Ratings

Product: (5.00)

Documentation: (4.50)

Shipping: (5.00)

Communication: (5.00)

Răzvan-Teodor | Feb. 11, 2023

Awesome

I wanted something similar for my old Amazon 9” eInk screen, but the only option online was a project that didn't sell readyly-built boards. I am glad I found Inkster. Bought one right away. Works as expected and the delivery was fast.

Christian | March 15, 2022

Excellent Product

First of all: you won't regret buying this product :-). It is well made and comes really well packed and supported by a community of enthusiasts for e-paper displays.

Why would you want this board anyway? Well, you could go for waveshare and gooddisplay boards and displays. You would then find out that the displays are very expensive and you will find e-ink displays much cheaper ($ 10 for 6inch and $25 for 9.7 inch). However, the e-ink displays (as used in amazon kindle or tolino etc.) cannot be driven by waveshare driver boards. Inkplate boards seem like a nice option but honestly, they are pricey as well.

This is the point where epdiy presents as a nice solution. The problem: you cannot buy these boards anywhere. In order to get one, you will have to let them be made - sounds easy, right? At least I thought so. But actually, it isn't (I needed like a week to realise so). Even though pcb assembly itself is quite cheap, many of the components are not available for the epdiy v5 boards and the v6 needs a texas instruments chip that is unavailable for countless weeks. Yes, jlcpcb offers custom stock of components but for that you would have to buy 1500 of them even though you might only need 10. So that's not a solution as well.

So with all that said there is only one way left - buy this board from Martin or solder it yourself (as he way so nice to release the gerber files to get the pcb manufactured and use the bill of material to collect the components). Both options have their pros and cons. For both ways, it should be appreciated that Martin not only 'tuned' the board with a nice rgb led and switches but also found and used components that seem slightly cheaper and better available than the v5 epdiy boards.

If you decide to solder it yourself you might get it to work but a) many components have minimum order quantities so you will end up with a lot of unused (still having to be paid for) components or you will have to make like 10 in a row which is only useful if you can use them all and b) you will probably have learning costs and components that you will destroy trying (at least if you're not an expert on smd soldering). And of course you have to calculate the time to make it, at least if you don't consider the soldering personal leisure time.

If you buy one of the boards here, you will have a really very well made board and much less worries. The github repository contains a nice example for platformio which will help you get started really quick if you have some experience. And most importantly, you will support the inventor of this board (at least the flavor of it) and appreciate all the time he spent on it.

And I almost forgot, the stl files for the case are very useful and well designed as well.

When you take your time to read more about how this hardware and software works, you will on top find a very intelligent group of people who share the same enthusiasm for the e-ink displays.

So as i said in the beginning: if you buy this board, you won't regret it!