ledmatrixd

A python client that will control the LED matrix that's hanging in the Nerdberg hacker space.

https://twitter.com/NerdbergEV/status/1457238769220849666

The hardware is a LED sign from a subway train that was donated to the hacker space, and ints innards (control computer) were replaced by small PCB with a stm32 controller. This hardware is documented here:

https://github.com/vogelchr/subway_led_panel_stm32f103

This software is still in active development as of January 2022.

Prerequisites

Make the panel accessible by the user running this daemon, see for example the included file 99-ledpanel.rules.

Have xorg-fonts-misc and the terminus font installed (Archlinux: terminux-font, xorg-fonts-misc).

Quick start

This daemon can be run in two ways:

./run_ledmatrixd_sim.sh

Which creates a python virtualenv, installs (besides other things) pygame, and pops up a small window showing a simulated USB matrix. This is useful for development. The other alternative is

./run_ledmatrixd_usb.sh

...which tries to connect to the real device using USB, and runs it in a python virtualenv that has pyusb installed.

(this translates to the "-S" simulation argument of pymatrixd.)

MQTT

MQTT Messages received as json objects in the subscribed topic:

Turn the LED sign off (currently unimplemented)

{
    'command': 'off'
}

Turn the LED sign on (currently unimplemented)

{
    'command': 'on'
}

Replace the main (in canvas #0)

{
    'command': 'write',
    'text': 'string you want to replace'
    'direction': pixels per 60th second
}