Flip-The-Dot

Software and hardware electronic project around controlling a flipdot matrix display.

Goal

The goal of this project is to provide the necessary informations for controlling a flipdot matrix display. This includes the wiring to interface the display with a microcontroller and the required code to let the dots flip. The end result is hopefully a custom made PCB to bring everything together.

Hardware

A old display from a city bus is used for this project. The stickers on it date back to 1995 and identifies the manufacturer as "Lawo-Luminator-Europa Mark IV Industires GmbH". Based on its size with only 28x13 dots, it was probably used to show the route number on the side or rear end of the bus.

Front view of the Lawo 28x13

Other displays with more dots and different interfaces are also available from various manufactures. They will maybe used and documented later, but for the moment the project sticks to the mentioned Lawo 28x13 display.

Motivation

A lot of people upload informations about their flipdot display to video or discussion platforms. But these informations are often incomplete or focus only on one part of the build. Videos of running displays are nice to watch but dont provide informations about how to rebuild the same thing. Users which ask for more informations in the comments, dont get a reply. On the otherside, some users provide schematics and others only code. The aim of this project and repository is to bring everything together and hopefully help other users on their way to realize a similar project.

Warning

This is a hobby project and i'm relativly new to electronics and microcontroller programming. If you think something is wrong or should be optimzed, feel free to contact me and/or contribute to the project.