A home hardware lab in Malmö, learning electronics from breadboard to custom PCB.
Small devices, built one prototype at a time and written up like datasheets. The first project, E-Display, is a 4.26″ e-paper frame that now runs generative art: ink landscapes, birds, fish and poems, drawn fresh by code. The Weather Frame datasheet is its first written spec. Circuit boards, Raspberry Pi, audio and a home photo server come later.
Board, screen and battery run together since 2026-10-02. The case is designed, not printed.
- Prototypes
- 1
- Art styles
- 7
- Full refresh
- 2.4–2.8 s
- Partial refresh
- 0.42 s
- Decisions logged
- 20
01 Prototypes
| Part | Prototype | Status |
|---|---|---|
| WF-01 | Weather FrameCurrent weather and a three-day forecast on a 4.26″ e-paper panel. About four months per charge at 30-minute updates, typ. (calculated).rev 0.3 | rev 0.3 |
| IMG-01 | Picture frame: send a photo from the MacU2 · USB | next |
| SGN-01 | Meeting sign by the doorU3 · USB | idea |
| ART-01 | Art frame: a new artwork every day or few daysU4 · battery | idea |
| NOW-01 | Now playing: album art, track, artistU5 · USB | idea |
| CAL-01 | To-do and calendarU6 · battery | idea |
| QR-01 | Guest Wi-Fi QRU8 · battery | idea |
| ENV-01 | Room sensor: temperature, humidity, airU9 · battery | idea |
| ANI-01 | Flip-book: slow animation, a frame every few secondsU10 · USB | idea |
Solid = built or building · dashed = queued, not built
02 On the frame
E-Display runs generative art: every image is drawn fresh by code, nothing is stored. Landscapes scroll slowly across the panel; a new bird or fish appears every 30 s. The generators are open source; the lab’s part is the renderer that fits them to a 1-bit 800 × 480 panel, the firmware and the frame.
Shan Shui: an endless ink landscape
shan-shui-inf, Lingdong Huang
Landscape with a Song ci poem in woodblock type
shan-shui-inf, ci-ren, Qiji font, Lingdong Huang
Birds that never existed, one per screen
birddraw, niklasprobul
Imaginary fish as line drawings
fishdraw, Lingdong Huang
Flowers in ink
nonflowers, Lingdong Huang
Song ci poems, vertical, traditional characters
ci-ren, Qiji font, Lingdong Huang
Calligraphy as single strokes
chinese-hershey-font, ci-ren, Lingdong Huang
Screens as the panel shows them, 800 × 480, 1-bit · generators MIT, Qiji font OFL 1.1
03 Build logs
04 Tracks
- T1E-paper experiencesGenerative art first; weather, pictures, signs and calendars on low-power screensactive
- T2Frame StudioMac software that draws the art, previews it and sends it to every frameactive
- T3Custom PCBOwn boards instead of dev boards and wires, for a slim caselater
- T4Raspberry PiBigger compute for devices that need itlater
- T5AudioSpeakers and soundlater
- T6Home serverA self-hosted photo library at home; later the picture frames' sourcenext
05 How the lab works
- 01
Spec first
A written spec, then code, then the build guide. Every decision is dated with its reason.
- 02
Measured or marked
Sizes carry their source. A guess is marked ASSUMED and drawn dashed until it is measured.
- 03
Small firmware
The Mac does the heavy work, like drawing the art. The device fetches it and shows it, and the Mac tunes it live without a reflash.
- 04
Printed at home
Cases are designed in OpenSCAD and printed on a Bambu Lab A1 mini. A fit-test slice comes first.
- 05
Honest status
Every page says what is untested. The screen runs; the weather firmware and the case are still untested.
06 Bench
| Bambu Lab A1 miniCases, 180 mm cube | On bench |
|---|---|
| MacRendering, firmware, Frame Studio | On bench |
| Soldering station + solderHeaders, then everything | On bench |
| MultimeterVoltages, continuity, shorts | To buy |
| Breadboard + jumper wiresButtons and sensors | To buy |
07 Latest decisions
- 2026-10-02E-Display's main direction is generative art (Shan Shui, birds, fish, flowers, Song ci poems in woodblock type, calligraphy strokes); weather and other uses stay possible but are secondary
- 2026-10-01Project 1 is called E-Display: a general e-paper platform; the Weather Frame (WF-01) is its first experience
- 2026-09-29Each prototype gets a public datasheet, written for an outside reader in a definite voice, marked PRELIMINARY until measured; WF-01 rev 0.1 is the first