What is PaPiRus?
PaPiRus is a versatile ePaper display HAT for the Raspberry Pi with screens ranging from 1.44″ to 2.7″ in size.
We are very excited to offer this very interesting HAT compatible display breakout for hackers who want to start playing with small ePaper / eInk displays in their Raspberry Pi projects.
What are ePaper Screens?
ePaper is a display technology that mimics the appearance of ink on paper. Unlike conventional displays, ePaper reflects light – just like ordinary paper – and is capable of holding text and images indefinitely, even without electricity.
Because of this, ePaper displays and Raspberry Pi’s are a match made in heaven as together they use a very small amount of power whilst still bringing a display to your project.
The display does not require any power to keep the image and will stay ‘on’ without any power connection for many days before slowly fading.
Of course, it’s also daylight readable and is very high contrast.
ePaper Features:
• Ultra-low-power – Battery Drive/Energy Harvest
• Easy to Read – Sunlight readable
• High Resolution – Display small details
• Thin & Light – Easy to Integrate
• Green – Paper Replacement
• Wide Viewing Angle – 180 degrees – like paper
• Breakage Detection – Detect TFT glass breakage before update
• Open Waveform – Open driving source and sample project code
PaPiRus Details
For the last eight months, we’ve worked hard to get the PaPiRus details nailed down, so you don’t have to worry about them. We are now on our 5th generation design (v1.5) which has been refined based on testing and feedback. The full set of features are shown below.
Features
• Raspberry Pi HAT compliant design
• Interchangeable screen sizes (1.44″, 2.0″ or 2.7″)
• 32MBit Flash Memory
• Battery Backed Real Time Clock (CR2032 battery included)
• Easy plug and play operation with onboard EEPROM
• Digital temperature sensor and thermal watchdog
• GPIO breakout connector and solder pads
• Optional reset pin header (for wake on alarm with RTC)
• 4 x optional slimline switches on top
• Suitable for 3V3 or 5V power and logic – use with RasPi, Arduino, BeagleBone and many more.
Software
The software is all open source and available from the RePaper GitHub page.
The good news is that rePaper/PDI have provided a suite of example code for the Raspberry Pi along with datasheets. Tons more information including wiring diagrams, datasheets & and links to example code at rePaper!
