Dangerous Prototypes Open Source Hardware

Custom character sets

March 11, 2010, 04:24:19 am

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone could get the custom character support to work. I've tried numerous things, but although the bytes I sent seem to be handled by the firmware, I don't actually successfully change the character generator.

I have some sample python code which tries. It also has the ability to write text to the twatch, and control it as a clock with weather report (via Google). I also built a nice wooden frame. If anyone's interested in the code I'll be happy to share it.

Best, Tom

Re: Custom character sets

Reply #1 – March 11, 2010, 08:27:11 am

Hey trobbinsmilne. I'm not sure about the character generator, can you give an example string you're using? I'll test it out under debug.

Please post your python code, I'll add it to the project script folder in the SVN.

Re: Custom character sets

Reply #2 – March 14, 2010, 05:53:19 pm

Thanks for all the help as well as the great project. I've had a lot of fun with this.

I've tried to send the command string:
0xFE 0x4E 0x01 0x00 0x01 0x02 0x03 0x04 0x05 0x06 0x07

Which should make a pattern whenever the ascii character 1 is written. The twatch accepts this command properly, and the C code seems to do the right thing, but all I can get is blank characters from this.

I'll post some photos of my twatch with the outputs. It makes a way cool clock, which alternately displays weather info.

Thanks again, please let me know what you think.

Best, Tom

Re: Custom character sets

Reply #3 – March 18, 2010, 06:18:42 am

Hi,

Here are a couple of photos of my twatch. It's showing the time for 15 seconds, then 5 seconds of either today's date + weather, or 5 seconds of the weather forecast for the next few days.

From the python script posted earlier.

Any questions or suggested improvements are welcome, thanks again for setting up this project. It's a lot of fun.

Re: Custom character sets

Reply #4 – March 30, 2010, 01:06:56 am

I have a similar problem.  I can reprogram character 4 always, others sometime, and others never.

My code is definitely correct since character 4 get programmed, but for any other, most of the time it doesn't work...

If anybody has a clue, it would be appreciated...

Yves

Re: Custom character sets

Reply #5 – March 06, 2015, 08:54:46 am

I'm not sure about the details, but the process will involve opening a TCPIP port on the router to the #twatch on port 1337, then sending matrix orbital formatted commands. You can check the LCDSmartie source for matrix orbital command code, or a number of #twatch scripts in the SVN if you can use Perl or Pyton on the router.