Pervasive Displays e-Paper EPD Extension Kit

This display uses e-ink or e-paper technology with two main advantages:

Although in B&W, the screen provides an incredible quality with an outstanding density.
Once the text or the image has been sent to the display, the screen keeps it with no power required!

This is a perfect solution for ultra-low power designs and pervasive information solutions.

New release 231 no longer requires a PWM signal on pin 9. This makes the BoosterPack compatible with all the LaunchPads.

A new version of the BoosterPack is available: see Pervasive Displays e-Paper EPD Extension Kit Gen 2.

Out of the Box

The Pervasive Displays e-Paper EPD Extension Kit comes carefully packed.

The same extension kit can be used with 3 different screens: 1.44", 2.0" or 2.7".

The board includes the display with its circuitry and an EEPROM. Both are driven through SPI.

Contrary to other displays, the e-paper screen has no VRAM or SRAM memory.

The VRAM is thus provided by the MCU or by an external SRAM circuit.

The amount of SRAM depends on the size of the screen:

The 1.44" screen requires 1536 bytes,
The 2.0" screen requires 2400 bytes, and
The 2.7" screen requires 5808 bytes.

Connecting to Boards

The e-Paper EPD Extension Kit is designed to fit onto a LaunchPad MSP430.

It uses PWM in pin P2_1 on the LaunchPad MSP430, which is not provided by hardware on the corresponding pin PA_5 of the LaunchPad Stellaris.

With the LaunchPad MSP430, all except three pins are used. The following pins remain unused:

pin P1_0 or RED_LED,
pins P1_1 and P1_2 or RX / TX,
pin P1_3 or PUSH2.

This provides the opportunity of adding a SPI SRAM with pin P1_0 as Chip Select.

The e-Paper EPD Extension Kit also features a 2x10 pins connector, allowing easy connection to other boards, as the Stellaris LaunchPad, the Arduino Uno, Leonardo or Mega.

A detailed pin-out is provided here.

To avoid misplacement, do not consider the white dot as it goes out easily. Consider instead the triangle on the top of the header.

To avoid any misalignment, stick a white paper on top of the connector to ensure proper positioning into the header.

The right reference and possible error

A sticker to ensure correct alignment

Using the Display

Pervasive Display provides a driver to use with the Adafruit GFX library. This allows direct plug-and-play.

However, as already discussed, it requires enough RAM to prepare the image to be displayed.

A dedicated GitHub repository includes all the examples, with continuous update.

A new release of the screen I haven't tested yet no longer requires a PWM signal.

A new version of the EPD Extension Kit Gen 2 is available.

Pins Map

Pros

Ready to use kit
Screen available in 3 different sizes
Detailed explanation on how an e-paper screen works on HTML and ePub formats

Cons

For former release 110, some issues with some LaunchPads (PWM on pin 9)
The 2x10 connector could be tricky

Wrap-Up

Great introduction to e-paper screen technology
New version 231 addresses all previous issues