PanelDue future hardware direction

A Former User

I just purchased this $36 5" 800*480 screen for Pi3b/4 (<- AliExpress ).

Claims to power the screen though the Pi DSI flat flex for a super clean install.

Curious to see how DWC or DueUI plays with that size when it arrives in 4-12 weeks, but with that size screen cheaper than the PanelDue + the somewhat static nature of PanelDue I'd think it's a better option for tinkerers

BoA

@bearer I guess DWC is not designed for small displays. It will be hard to navigate IMO. PanelDue has basically interface that is suitable for small display and You still do not have to use tip of the pen to press the right button.

With DWC this might be a different story.

A Former User

@Veti

Thanks for sharing! Yes, for e-ink, partial refresh requires special coding, the displays I posted in the beginning are capable of that and when used have a refreshrate <1s which is not enough for movies with 24/30fps but fast enough for a printer interface. Also I like that they have no refresh at all if nothing changes. Consumes no power then.

For sure they are too expensive for now, but if the next few years a 6"/7" e-ink gets cheap enough I like the fact that it does NOT need a screensaver so you can always see what is going on with the printer, also I like the greyscale simple interface

Anyway this post was more about a discussion for very far-fetched future things maybe 2-5 years ahead from now. For now they seem to be too expensive even if they got responsive enough.

Will watch your posted video now on sunday afternoon

Edit: Cheaper(?)/older(?) e-inks definetly suffer from weird refreshs beeing so slow that you think the screen is broke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3bMtoIFwb8 especially getting worse the more colors it has(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psHYQogWnpM), but the newer ones seem to get below 1s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BIitW7uR_M), if I can afford (maybe in a year or so) will try maybe this one here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb68B-MjmGs do not think I will have the money for something like this here http://dasungtech.com/english/detail/id/223

A Former User

@Phaedrux

They slowly seem to go the road down, those first 2 posted above from that company called "waveshare" which seems to be big time player for raspi-displays (that´s how I found them in the web) seem to have recently come out with displays with <1s. I check on some of them and the "older" displays they distribute have way longer refresh rates. Seems like e-ink is becoming better finaly - guess also on an e-reader you do not want to wait more than half a second or so... (The full-color posted with the alibaba-link for sure is slower...)

But for a PanelDue (even maybe with rotary encoder instead of touch) I like the idea of having a machine-display that is always on and consumes almost no power. But for now they are for sure too expensive for the purpose they would serve.

BoA

@LB said in PanelDue future hardware direction:

I like the idea of having a machine-display that is always on and consumes almost no power.

I am just wondering what is the point having energy saving display, when just next to it You have a 50W heater in printing head, and 200W+ heatbed. Not to mention the motors and stuff like LED lighting and chamber heater (200W+). RPi can consume more power itself than a PanelDue. It is like saving 2W power in 1kW device. IMO just pointless.

A Former User

@BoA said in PanelDue future hardware direction:

@LB said in PanelDue future hardware direction:

I like the idea of having a machine-display that is always on and consumes almost no power.

I am just wondering what is the point having energy saving display, when just next to it You have a 50W heater in printing head, and 200W+ heatbed. Not to mention the motors and stuff like LED lighting and chamber heater (200W+). RPi can consume more power itself than a PanelDue. It is like saving 2W power in 1kW device. IMO just pointless.

(200W heatbed + 200W chamber-heater -> seems to be a big printer and or have little insulation - but I know a lot of folks where it is the same for the private printer )

THANK YOU for pointing your scenario out, but for the beginning

I think you mixed up PanelDue with DWC

(maybe because of my posts where I wrote something about trying something out on a raspi):

Maybe my english is too bad: The original post/question was what kind of minimal interface to use for 24/7 printing machine printing 7 days a week the whole year for at least 2-3 years and not for one but lets say 5-10 of those machines... that FOR SURE DOES NOT use a raspi and full-color screen, do NOT have an always-on lightning, do NOT have all of these optional things...

a minimal interface for an production printer running always connecting directly to duet (NOT to raspi)

But when you have 5-10 printers printing 24/7 for the company things might look diffrent. Paying 10bucks more for a display might be O.K. if it lasts long and electricity bill (especially with the new "green deal" in the european union this might become more of an issue in the future) is low... also always-on/no-screensaver is good so I do not have to click on each of those let´s say 6 printers only to check the status, can just walk by and have a look

Also if you build more than 1, let´s say those 6 pieces of printers, space is something to think about, and small PanelDue-displays in e.g. 7" take up less space then a big 13,3"(via raspi then running DWC but then it is no longer a PanelDue...)

On a private/personal printer electricity-cost and space (for a big screen) is not really important, because how often does the machine really run? Maybe I also lead you to assume what you wrote down, because of course if I as an individual want to try a e-ink display out let´s say now - I am not able to code something to connect it directly to duet why I opened this post, I as an individual would have to start with raspi/arduino because that is what I am able to do for now... do not get confused by it for my final application thought...

Sorry if you misunderstood me, I my opinion a raspi is only usefull for DWC (not PanelDue - but/and this post IS about PanelDue - NOT DWC) and if you use DWC you want a big boasting full color screen connected e.g. to your raspi (and then electricity bill and lifetime is also irrelevant). Please just don´t mix it up with PanelDue, and this post is about PanelDue which connects directly to duet (and not via raspi)

But I agree,
-> on the scenario you described it would be totally pointless or ridicule...
-> but that is what this whole discussion is about -> on private (no 24/7) printers, PanelDue certainly will die out because of what you described in your scenario.

So where is the future application of PanelDue compared to DWC in a few years from now: One scenario is a non-private environment where you do not want a small computer like pi and machine will there be heavily used

zapta

I am happy with a tethered display such as the existing paneldue which connects directly to the printer's controller without the complexity of adding a full fledge computer (the Pi). As for the power consumption, I think it's insignificant, adding probably less than 0.1% of the cost of the print which is inexpensive anyway.

Improvements I would appreciate:

Updates via the duet. That is, updating the duet's firmware also updates the paneldue.
Additional functionality such as a thumbnail with the object's view.
A more modern UI look and feel.

I am using a 5i that is connected with a 6' serial cable and is not mounted physically to the printer such that I can hold and move it around.

A Former User

rPi+DWC with 12864 lcd directly connected might be the best of both - if that is a supported combination?

A Former User

@zapta said in PanelDue future hardware direction:

I am happy with a tethered display such as the existing paneldue which connects directly to the printer's controller without the complexity of adding a full fledge computer (the Pi). As for the power consumption, I think it's insignificant, adding probably less than 0.1% of the cost of the print which is inexpensive anyway.
Improvements I would appreciate:

Updates via the duet. That is, updating the duet's firmware also updates the paneldue.

Additional functionality such as a thumbnail with the object's view.

A more modern UI look and feel.

I am using a 5i that is connected with a 6' serial cable and is not mounted physically to the printer such that I can hold and move it around.

Updating PanelDue via Duet-Mainboard would totally fit that "non-private" use-scenario because the admin can easier update it without having to plug e.g. a laptop e.g. with usb-cable to the PanelDue. For me would be equally cool to maybe have an update button (doesn´t need to be physical) in PanelDue that reads the necessary data from the sd-card sitting in the slot on the paneldue or something like it

Maybe this thread was too far-fetched

@ any admin: You might just close it...

Phaedrux

@zapta said in PanelDue future hardware direction:

Updates via the duet. That is, updating the duet's firmware also updates the paneldue.

That one has been on the list for a while and I think is getting closer to fruition.

A Former User

@Phaedrux

Sounds great!

-> Can you close this thread please... was a bit too far-fetched I guess...

oliof

@bearer did you see that someone used the paneldue serial interface to connect an arduino with an 12864 display? Ideally, someone with more spare time at their disposal than me could think of a smart way of replicating the 12864 menu system from rrf given an arduino or other microcontroller with enough memory for that ...

A Former User

@oliof yeah, i saw that, it was pretty basic. afaik there is a sketch that is just the menu from marlin but combining the two could be interesting but I'm not exactly drowning in spare time myself atm.

arhi

tbh a good app for droid/ios would be awesome ... so many crappy old phones/tablets available lying around ... check this out for e.g. https://printoid.net/ .. I use it on some old phones to have a panel for printers with octoprint

rpi screens are expensive, unreliable, die quite often (I have 20+ dead rpi screens of different sizes, from spi, parallel, flat special connector to hdmi, with resistive and capacitive touch sensing that are dead .. I think I have total 2 or 3 rpi screens still working) and are not very versatile as you need to get to them power cable, usb cable and video cable .. those are sometimes super short (like spi or that flat cable) or hard to bend (hdmi) .. on the other hand, old phone will allow you to mount it anywhere on the printer with a power cable nearby (or wireless charging if phone support it) and you can easily pick it up with you if you need to ...

now only to make android/ios app that talks to rrf

A Former User

(or wireless charging if phone support it)

external qi receivers are quite inexpensive and slim if thats your cup of tea

now only to make android/ios app that talks to rrf

DueUI might fit the bill if a browser isn't an issue?

arhi

@bearer said in PanelDue future hardware direction:

(or wireless charging if phone support it)

external qi receivers are quite inexpensive and slim if thats your cup of tea

I use them but are not ideal for all situation, they are ugly patch you glue on back of your phone - I do use them on all my printoid phones as none of them support external charging but I kinda hope I'll soon upgrade them to once that support it natively

now only to make android/ios app that talks to rrf

DueUI might fit the bill if a browser isn't an issue?

tried it, but I still believe more could be achieved with the app .. I actually checked dueui for the reason of figuring easy way to make app myself but time constraint is impossible these days so..