picopanel

MQTT fed RGB LED Panel via Raspberry Pico W

This repo contains...

• CircuitPython PicoPanel code (easily customisable)
• Some very efficient fonts
• Sample Node-RED flows for sending information to PicoPanel
• Design and 3D files for a rear stand-off (P3 panel size)

flowchart LR
    I[Internet] --- | | R[Node-Red]
    L[LAN] --- R
    Z[Zigbee2MQTT] --- M
    R ---| |M((MQTT Broker))
    M ---| |P[PicoPanel]

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Usage Notes

Layout Definition

The config.py file defines the information that is displayed on your panel.

For each live field you want displayed you should define a <name>_TOPIC variable and add a corresponding line to the info dict.

The format of the info elements is...

<topic_name> : ["<prefix>", <x>, <y>, 0x<rrggbb>, "<font_alias>", <scale_factor>]

• <topic_name> is a variable you previously set to the MQTT topic (see above)
• is an optional string displayed before the MQTT payload
• is the x ordinate of the start of the displayed item
• is the y ordinate of the middle of the displayed item
• 0x is the colour of the item in hex format
• <font_alias> is one of the known fonts, currently: builtin, 3x5, and 4x6
• <scale_factor> is a positive integer specifying how much the font is enlarged

MQTT

MQTT messages on your BASE_TOPIC (set in config.py) wil be available to all picopanels that subscribe to them.

Set a unique DISPLAY_ID (a string) for each picopanel on your network. This is used as the suffix of the CONTROL_TOPIC (control) to permit actions like turning a specific display on or off.

Eg. To turn off a display using the sample config send an Off payload to the rgbmatrix/control1 topic.

The URGENT_TOPIC (urgent) displays a flashing message until an empty payload is delivered.

Eg. To alert viewer to a doorbell you could send Door! to the rgbmatrix/urgent topic - don't forget to send an empty message after some time has elapsed.

Reconfigure-via-MQTT

You can reconfigure PicoPanel wirelessly via MQTT.

There are two control messages to facilitate this:

A payload of GetConfig will cause PicoPanel to send the contents of the current config.py file on the status1 topic. It is handily prefixed and suffixed with the header and trailer needed for actual reconfiguration.

To perform the reconfiguration send the new contents of config.py to the panel's control topic with the following format...

RECONFIGURE
<file-contents>
EOF

Note that the header and trailer lines must end with a newline character.

If the message is received intact, picopanel will replace the old config.py with the contents of the payload and restart. The old version will be saved as config.py.old.