MQTT enabled led sign

KmanOz · December 9, 2016, 11:35pm

Nice. I like the LED display casing etc. Did you design it or is it some sort of kit?

koen01 · December 10, 2016, 12:00am

the casing is my own design and lasercut by http://www.snijlab.nl
it’s a simple box design made with http://www.makercase.com

KmanOz · December 10, 2016, 12:01am

Again Nice… Simple is the best

koen01 · December 10, 2016, 9:42pm

FIY:
i’m feeding the display with following automation. This way the display is fed with changes rather then pulling them in.

alias: 'mqtt test'
trigger:
  platform: state
  entity_id: climate.thermostaat,sensor.netatmo_binnen2_co2, sensor.netatmo_binnen_co2, sensor.netatmo_binnen2_temperature, sensor.netatmo_binnen_temperature, sensor.slaapkamer_eva_temperature, sensor.netatmo_buiten_temperature
action:
  service: mqtt.publish
  data_template:
    topic: "devices/5ccf7fc3b1c6/text/on/set"
    payload: "{{ trigger.to_state.name }} is {{ trigger.to_state.state }} "

KmanOz · December 10, 2016, 10:10pm

Will you be sharing code for this at some stage? I like it.

koen01 · December 10, 2016, 10:27pm

i’m using this:
3x FC16 display (search aliexpress for ‘4 in one dot matrix max7219’)
Wemos D1 Mini
MD_Parola arduino lib (https://github.com/MajicDesigns/MD_Parola)
MAX7219 arduino lib (https://github.com/MajicDesigns/MD_MAX72XX)
esp8266 ntpclient (https://github.com/gmag11/NtpClient)
homie-esp8266 (https://github.com/marvinroger/homie-esp8266)
homie-eps8266 is excellent because you can setup the esp8266 via a web configpage, no more wifi credentials in your source code!

i’m using this sketch at the moment. Can use some serious help with this as the esp watchdog is giving me headaches when scrolling long lines of text. I tried to resolve this by adding a lot of ‘ESP.wdtFeed();’ all over the place…had to disable serial to make it usable…

#include <Homie.h>
#include <SPI.h>
#include <MD_Parola.h>
#include <MD_MAX72xx.h>
#include <TimeLib.h>
#include <NtpClientLib.h>

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//PAROLA
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
#define  MAX_DEVICES 12
#define CLK_PIN   14
#define DATA_PIN  13
#define CS_PIN    15
MD_Parola P = MD_Parola(DATA_PIN, CLK_PIN, CS_PIN, MAX_DEVICES);
//MD_Parola P = MD_Parola(CS_PIN, MAX_DEVICES);

HomieNode textNode("text", "sign");

bool textOnHandler(const HomieRange& range, const String& value) {
  String text = "   +++++ " + value + " +++++   ";
  int value_len = text.length() + 1 ;
  char txtbuffer[value_len] ;
  text.toCharArray(txtbuffer, value_len );
  ESP.wdtFeed();
  textNode.setProperty("on").send(value);
  P.displayText(txtbuffer , PA_CENTER, 20, 0, PA_SCROLL_LEFT, PA_SCROLL_LEFT );
  ESP.wdtFeed();
  while (!P.displayAnimate()) {
    delay(500);
    ESP.wdtFeed();
  }
  ESP.wdtFeed();
  Homie.getLogger() << "text is " << value << endl;
  ESP.wdtFeed();
  return true;
}

void setup() {
  ESP.wdtDisable();
  ESP.wdtEnable(WDTO_8S);
  P.begin();
  //Serial.begin(115200);
  Serial << endl << endl;
  Homie_setFirmware("awesome-sign", "1.0.0");
  textNode.advertise("on").settable(textOnHandler);
  Homie.setup();
  P.displayText("Initialising ...", PA_CENTER, 1, 2000, PA_PRINT, PA_PRINT );
  while (!P.displayAnimate());
  NTP.onNTPSyncEvent([](NTPSyncEvent_t error) {
    if (error) {
      Serial.print("Time Sync error: ");
      if (error == noResponse)
        Serial.println("NTP server not reachable");
      else if (error == invalidAddress)
        Serial.println("Invalid NTP server address");
    }
    else {
      Serial.print("Got NTP time: ");
      Serial.println(NTP.getTimeDateString(NTP.getLastNTPSync()));
    }
  });
  NTP.begin("pool.ntp.org", 1, true);
  NTP.setInterval(1800);
}

void loop() {
  Homie.loop();
  char charBuf[100];
  sprintf(charBuf, "%02u : %02u", hour(), minute());
  P.displayText(charBuf, PA_CENTER, 0, 0, PA_PRINT, PA_NO_EFFECT );
  while (!P.displayAnimate())
  ESP.wdtFeed();
  }

KmanOz · December 10, 2016, 10:38pm

This sounds like fun. OK well I’m going to order some modules and add this on the “Must Play With” list

I’ll be back at you at some stage.

Kman

KmanOz · December 11, 2016, 11:48pm

OK ordered Not bad, $13USD delivered for 3 modules.

Marianne-v · April 15, 2017, 5:15pm

you can save memory by putting literal strings in memspace like:
Serial.print(F(“Hello World”))
your problem looks like a short of RAM .

KmanOz · May 29, 2017, 12:35am

@koen01 Have you got any further with this. Am about to start looking at it and get it going.

koen01 · May 29, 2017, 9:28pm

No sorry. My wife decided it was to big and ugly to have in the living room so it ended up disused in the junk closet…the code I posted worked reasonably well by the way

KmanOz · May 30, 2017, 7:39am

What a shame. Stick it in your office at least or the man cave if you have one. OK well I will play with this next. Thanks and I may have a few questions down the line.

zajnic · October 5, 2017, 10:17pm

This is a very interesting one, you can use this as HASS notification and display on the LED.
Do you have a detailed instruction how can it be done? Thanks!

thundergreen · January 3, 2018, 7:04am

Would you mind posting an install routine …just bought 3 units to play with

koen01 · January 10, 2018, 7:45am

What exactly do you mean with install routine?

thundergreen · January 10, 2018, 8:07am

I mean step by step tutorial

wizworks · March 26, 2018, 8:40pm

A step by step tutorial would be awesome! I built this LED scrolling sign, but I want to redo the code to make an MQTT connected version for displaying text messages sent to an MQTT broker. Here’s my project: https://www.hackster.io/wizworks/wifi-marquee-scroller-e68977

Nuno_Cesar_Roncon_Co · October 31, 2018, 3:47pm

Hi!!

Need help please… What is the problem???

msg_led:15: error: invalid conversion from 'int' to 'MD_MAX72XX::moduleType_t' [-fpermissive]

 MD_Parola P = MD_Parola(DATA_PIN, CLK_PIN, CS_PIN, MAX_DEVICES);

                                                               ^

In file included from C:\Users\ncouto\Documents\Arduino\msg_led\msg_led.ino:3:0:

C:\Users\ncouto\Documents\Arduino\libraries\MD_Parola\src/MD_Parola.h:1081:3: error:   initializing argument 1 of 'MD_Parola::MD_Parola(MD_MAX72XX::moduleType_t, uint8_t, uint8_t, uint8_t, uint8_t)' [-fpermissive]

   MD_Parola(MD_MAX72XX::moduleType_t mod, uint8_t dataPin, uint8_t clkPin, uint8_t csPin, uint8_t numDevices = 1);

   ^

Multiple libraries were found for "ArduinoJson.h"
 Used: C:\Users\ncouto\Documents\Arduino\libraries\ArduinoJson
 Not used: C:\Users\ncouto\Documents\Arduino\libraries\arduino_736263
exit status 1
invalid conversion from 'int' to 'MD_MAX72XX::moduleType_t' [-fpermissive]

keithh666 · October 31, 2018, 4:05pm

If using the newer libs you need to specify the hardware…

// Define the number of devices we have in the chain and the hardware interface
// NOTE: These pin numbers will probably not work with your hardware and may/will 
// need to be adapted
#define HARDWARE_TYPE MD_MAX72XX::FC16_HW

#define  MAX_DEVICES 12

#define CLK_PIN   D7  // or SCK
#define DATA_PIN  D6  // or MOSI
#define CS_PIN    D5  // or SS
  
// HARDWARE SPI
//MD_Parola P = MD_Parola(CS_PIN, MAX_DEVICES);
// SOFTWARE SPI
MD_Parola P = MD_Parola(HARDWARE_TYPE, DATA_PIN, CLK_PIN, CS_PIN, MAX_DEVICES);

Nuno_Cesar_Roncon_Co · October 31, 2018, 4:23pm

Can you post your code please??