E-ink Picture frame (ESP)
Description
About a year ago, I built a large E-Ink image display using a Raspberry Pi. While it worked well, the Raspberry Pi required relatively high power consumption, making battery operation impractical. When I discovered that a similar system could be built using an ESP microcontroller, I didn’t have to think twice. It was the perfect opportunity to revisit the project and create a much more power-efficient version.
Project summary
In this project, I converted my Raspberry Pi-based E-Ink picture frame to use an ESP microcontroller instead. The new version is battery-powered and operates completely offline, which were two important requirements for me.
My responsibilities
CAD design
3d printing and build up
Soldering
Programming and testing
Results
At the beginning the main challenge in this project was adding an SD card reader. I wanted the picture frame to operate completely offline, so local image storage was an important requirement. I soldered an SD card reader directly to the ESP board. At first, this sounded much easier than it actually turned out to be, but eventually I got it working.
I initially tested the device using a cloud connection, and the battery life was surprisingly good. However, after adding the SD card reader and implementing the required software, the power consumption increased considerably.
Getting the device into a proper low-power sleep mode required much more effort than expected. The SD card reader itself also contributed to the power consumption. To reduce it, I had to modify the reader hardware by resoldering some of its resistors and capacitors.
In the end, I am very happy with the picture frame itself. It looks great and is simple to use, while meeting my main requirements of battery-powered and fully offline operation. However, due to the hardware limitations of the current design, the battery drain is still higher than I would ideally like.
Used tools
SW: Arduino IDE, Fusion 360, Claude AI
HW: 3d printer, soldering, ESP32, E-ink display
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