Model Railway Departure Board - Raspberry Pi OLED display and FreeCAD 3D model
This project creates a station departure board using a miniature OLED display. This is controlled using a Raspberry Pi which allows the current time to be used to make the display appear more realistic. This can be used in conjunction with the Raspberry Pi Model Railway Automation project http://www.penguintutor.com/projects/...
For more details about this project, including downloads for the source code and links to thingiverse see: http://www.penguintutor.com/projects/...
#OLED display
The OLED display is created from organic LEDs arranged in a grid. The video includes the view under a microscope where you can see the individual LEDs. These do have a limited lifetime and may start to deteriorate after 1000 hours use. However see this video showing real world use of the OLED displays (in Russian with English subtitles): • Ресурсный тест OLED-дисплеев
#Circuit Python code
The circuit python code needs to be installed along with the appropriate libraries. full details are provided at: http://www.penguintutor.com/projects/...
#3D printable FreeCAD design
The 3D design is created in FreeCAD. For my guide to getting started in FreeCAD see: • Beginners FreeCAD - Design and 3D print El...
The design is created as 4 parts. The display is the main part that holds the SSD1306 I2C OLED display, a piece of transparent acetate should be glued across the front for waterproofing. The back fits into the back of the display. It is not waterproof so it should be held in place using hot melt glue or similar.
The stand is the post that holds up the display and can be used to run wires through. Finally there is an optional base. The base is not intended for use on the railway (which will be incorporated into the platform), but provides a way that I could stand it up for the demonstration.
#Chapters:
00:00 Model railway departure board (G-scale)
01:18 OLED display (SSD1306)
03:34 Wiring up the OLED display with I2C
05:10 Setting up the Raspberry Pi
15:19 Test program source code (Circuit Python)
21:43 Coding the train departure display board
28:22 Designing the stand in FreeCAD
34:59 De-soldering and re-soldering the SSD1306 OLED display
36:04 Future ideas for model railway integration
36:46 Demonstration of finished display board with Raspberry Pi