Elekstube IPS displays - does anybody know them?

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello Martin,

(01-19-2021 01:08 PM)Martin Hepperle Wrote:  to me this looks just like one of the usual displays like this one
https://www.ebay.de/itm/1-14-Inch-TFT-Di...Sw7qRdzYP~
Costs about $10 per display.

It looks as these are the displays used by the clock. Just the PCBs are different. With that input I found them on Alixepress as well, at 2,07 Euros a piece (https://de.aliexpress.com/item/400014396...web201603_).
There is also a square (240 by 240 pixel) version for 2,19 Euros (https://de.aliexpress.com/item/329959532...web201603_).
The latter ones look even better for a DIY calculator because they provide enough extra space for signs and decimal points.

The controller used by these displays (ST7789) seems to be quite capable and can do a lot on it's own. It is controlled by an SPI interface which requires just three wires for all digits and a chip select line for each single one. Even a multi-digit display can easily be handled by an Arduino unless one wants to upload complete bitmaps to the displays: One single bitmap would be 120kB large - three times the memory space of an Arduino Uno or Nano.

(01-19-2021 01:08 PM)Martin Hepperle Wrote:  I think the "trick" lies in creating the photorealistic images for e.g. LED or Nixie digits. The result is really nice, I agree.

The easiest way would probably to take (macro) photographs of real displays and use these. An ESP8266 / NodeMCU type microcontroller board should easily be able to handle the amount of Bytes required.

I will wait for my clock to arrive and if it looks good order some of these 2-Euro-Displays and see what can be done...

Regards
Max