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Socoder -> Off Topic -> SpinalWatch

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Wed, 02 Aug 2023, 01:46
Jayenkai
Most Excellent!
Wed, 02 Aug 2023, 03:58
spinal
Next step is to add a second screen buffer, so I can do nice animations, although as I type this, I think I maight not need that.... (ー_ーゞ

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Wed, 02 Aug 2023, 04:48
Kuron
I am looking forward to SPNLCAR!


Wed, 02 Aug 2023, 08:34
Jayenkai
> Reveal 🔎

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Fri, 04 Aug 2023, 17:15
spinal
I sat down with the intention of adding a nice word wrap to the print function, but I did this instead...



|edit| Please excuse the quality, I was trying to reduce the file size.

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Fri, 04 Aug 2023, 17:17
Jayenkai
Boing!!! .. needs a red and white ball!!
Fri, 04 Aug 2023, 23:18
Kuron
I am just glad that Spinal uses his powers for good.
Mon, 07 Aug 2023, 03:26
spinal
OK, added a second screen buffer, this is used to compare the previous frame. If any horizontal lines are different, then they are added to the update list.

Potential power / time saving doing the following...

1. Check for changes on each line.
2. Copy current buffer to 'backbuffer'
3. Send only changed lines to the screen.

Either way, its sending less data per frame usually.

On a positive, I seem to have got the power down to 2mA, so that might get close to 2 days battery..... maybe.

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Mon, 07 Aug 2023, 03:45
Kuron
Impressive! 2 days or even very close is extremely impressive, as is what I am terming "dirty lines".
Mon, 07 Aug 2023, 03:50
Jayenkai
Neat idea!

I'm not sure how doable it would be, but could you maybe make it gridded instead of lines?
A grid of 16x16 squares (or even 8x8, or maybe even just 4x4!?!) that it could compare, instead of lengthy lines. It's more likely that the right section of the watch (the minutes) would update than the left. If you're doing full horizontal lines, then the whole digital time row would be updated every minute. If you can chop it into blocks, then only the area where the minutes are would have to be changed.
.. Presuming it's even a digital display!!

But then I'm realising that that might take more time/power to compute the differences of the various grid areas, so in the end probably isn't worth the effort.

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Mon, 07 Aug 2023, 04:02
spinal
Can't, the screen only updates in full horizontal lines, there is no buffer memory on the screen at all. The data goes as follows...

1. send write command (1 byte)
2. send line number (1 byte)
3. send full line data (18 bytes)
4. send 'end' data (1 byte)
5. if more data goto 2
6. send 'finished' command (1 byte)

And thats literally the only data the screen accepts.

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Mon, 07 Aug 2023, 05:07
Jayenkai
Yeah, I thought that might be the case.
You're going to have to make watch faces that have the hour on top and minutes on the bottom

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Mon, 07 Aug 2023, 05:14
cyangames
I take it you have enough CPU to pre-buffer a screens worth of commands in RAM first?

I wish I had more time and inclination to do something like this

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Mon, 07 Aug 2023, 06:07
spinal
Oh yeah, plenty of ram for this. Currently I have 2x 18x168 bytes for the screen then I transfer 16 lines at a time because that's weirdly better for spi speed than sending the whole screen in one go, probably something to do with buffering the serial output.

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Mon, 07 Aug 2023, 09:55
spinal
1.8mA



Not sure how long that will run real world, as once the voltage drops below a certain number, then it will power down, but...

170mAh battery / 1.8mA = 94.4h

94.4h / 24h = 3.93 days

Now assuming that there wont be enough power to power the thing long before that, I'd still guess about 2 days. ...maybe?

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Mon, 07 Aug 2023, 10:06
Jayenkai
Cool!

Any ideas on how you're going to turn that all into a watch?

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Mon, 07 Aug 2023, 10:12
spinal
I was thinking of trying to make somesort of case out of layers of curcuit board similar to a pibow.

I don't have the 3D skills to design something, wouldn't even know where to start.

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Mon, 07 Aug 2023, 10:16
Kuron
2 days is better than the original Apple watch, isn't it?
Mon, 07 Aug 2023, 10:21
spinal
It's better than a lot of current watches. The new Google watch boasts an 'all day' battery!

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Mon, 07 Aug 2023, 10:39
Kuron
I have no idea of the cost of a Google watch, but my last two CASIO watches that were $15, the battery was supposed to last three years and the first one lasted over seven years and the last one lasted well over 12 years and was still going when I left it behind in TN. I do not expect a smart watch to ever beat that, but "all day battery" for a watch that is likely several hundred dollars, a week, or at least a working week (5 days) is not an unreasonable expectation.

We are literally back in previous centuries where you had to wind your watch every day, only now you have to charge it every day.

Not talking SPNLWTCH, as for a homebrew watch anything over a couple of hours is impressive as hell and being able to match and even beat one of the major competitors is mindblowing. Yes, the big boys do a lot more, but their circuitry and components are supposed to be extremely efficient and they can still barely pull off a day.

I do realize the limitation is current battery technology, which other than the formats has not changed a lot in my lifetime when it comes to lasting time, if anything it is worse.
Mon, 07 Aug 2023, 15:17
spinal
I was going to start attempting a circuit board, but after a while googling an not finding out what the connector i'd need is called, I found someone else who done a breakout board for the screen, I'll see if I can just copy+paste the componenets from there... https://github.com/crehmann/Sharp-Memory-LCD-Breakout/tree/main

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Tue, 08 Aug 2023, 03:21
spinal
The idea would be something like this...




Create a board with the resistors and stuff for the screen, have a cut out for the microcontroller board, pop some buttons on.
Then have some squares with the middle cut out, maybe 3 or 4 of them, tall enough for the battery, then a solid one for the bottom.

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Tue, 08 Aug 2023, 03:25
Jayenkai
Teeny tiny components!! Good luck trying to get everything soldered and whatnot. I don't envy you. My unsteady shaky hands would definitely not make a good job of that.

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Tue, 08 Aug 2023, 03:35
Kuron
What Jay said. They seem to do SMD differently today and actually hand solder the parts. In the old days, the parts were laid in place and "baked" which melted the solder and they were all affixed at once that way. Way back in the 80s I did my own boards and such and had a nice etching tank I had built. Can't imagine soldering the lil SMD buggers by hand, especially now with my eyesight and tremors in my hands.

Looks like a good plan, Spinal. I am enjoying watching your project progress.
Tue, 08 Aug 2023, 03:57
spinal
I'm hoping the board manufacturers have an option to add the smd components, if not, well, that'll be interesting.

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Tue, 08 Aug 2023, 04:05
Kuron
Always said to myself if I had to do SMD today, I would try using some liquid solder to adhere them in place, if the resistance introduced by liquid solder was not too bad. There are different types of liquid solder and back in the day there was some meant for conductive purposes.
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