MicroBook, a solar powered e-book reader

[Artlav]

Hi all!

I've been watching Dave's blog for a while now, and he mentions open-source hardware and his forum quite often, so i figured this might be a right place to ask.

There is a thing i made that i hope can be of interest to more than just me, and i wanted to release it as open-source hardware.
Problem is, i have no idea how to make a project known or show it off politely.
So, this post is both a question - what to do with it - and an attempt to show it off.



It's a pocket-sized device made for a single purpose - to read books.
No music player, no 100500 formats support, no internet browsing/3G/Wifi, no bells, no whistles - only book reading.
The books are stored on an microsd card in txt format, power comes from the sun.
Even a small battery appears to last for weeks with backlight on, and months with it off.

I've made a few of them, with a nice-ish 3D printed case, and gave away to several relatives and friends. They all liked it a lot (hence the hope it might be interesting to more than just me).




Full description and sources are there: http://orbides.1gb.ru/book.php?lng=eng

It's been sitting there and on a livejournal post for over a year now.
I've occasionally mentioned it here and there (that link is my portfolio site).
But i got a grand total of zero feedback of any sort so far.

It's not the first such attempt either, i've also made a multiband/thermal imaging camera ( http://orbides.1gb.ru/photobot.php?lng=eng ), and a few software projects with a similar complete lack of notice or feedback.

So, obviously i'm doing something wrong.
Any advice?

[uwezi]

FEEDBACK! 

Nice project! I forwarded your page to my students as an idea for a student project in a microcontroller course...

[valentinc]

     Hi Artlav,

        It's a very interesting project, but in my opinion, it has 2 major problems, maybe 3 (but the third is not so important):

        1. the size of the device is very large for a pocket device (compared to the very small functionality it offers)... I think you should somehow make a single board design (maybe use a microcontroller that has the display driver integrated)... You could also use an on-board NAND flash, and eliminate the microSD slot, and communicate through a microUSB with a PC... This would also save a little space...
        2. The case must be more presentable, more refined... People are used to very small devices that look very good and have a lot of functionality these days...
        3. The LCD screen: I would go for a bigger screen (with better resolution), maybe a color screen... I don't know exactly what the power consumption difference is, but I think it's worth it... I personally would prefer to charge the battery every week but have a large color display with crisp letters and maybe some background picture... Or to be able to change the background color for example...

         There are a lot of TI microcontrollers that have integrated display drivers and USB on-the-go...

         Anyway, thanks for sharing the project, and keep up the good work !

[uwezi]

        1. the size of the device is very large for a pocket device (compared to the very small functionality it offers)... I think you should somehow make a single board design (maybe use a microcontroller that has the display driver integrated)...

Actually, this particular display is a COG display with the controller integrated. You could more or less easily get rid of the breakout board and just put it onto the main circuit board.

[jaromir]

Time ago I tried to make something similar - http://jaromir.xf.cz/projs2/microreader/microreader.html however it ended up like PCB with no enclosure. Thumbs up for finishing your project. I like it, but it looks quite bulky, but fragile for daily use.
It would be better to write more about it, though I understand it is not that simple, if English is not your first language. Short video would be fine, worth of thousand words.


By the way, you could get more feedback after inserting popular wankwords like "arduino", "eco-whatever", "social", "art", "green-whatever", "community", "motivation", "cloud" and so on. You can also pretend your device to solve world hunger, create colored infographics, take a few "instagrams", claim connectivity with Apple devices... you got the idea.
Unfortunately, this is the way it goes in modern marketing.

[Artlav]

1. the size of the device is very large for a pocket device (compared to the very small functionality it offers)... I think you should somehow make a single board design

In case the appearance is deceiving, it's 6x6x2 cm in size, and appear really small to me,as shown below.
Which size is too large?
Thickness?
Or overall size?

Basically, it is limited by the sizes and clearances that i can etch at home and hand-solder.
The X-Y size is defined by the 6x6 cm size of the solar panel i use, and these aren't common enough to have much choice.

I don't see much options to thin it down - the space between the screen and the board is occupied by the battery, which would have to go somewhere else in a single board design, adding exactly the same additional thickness.
May be possible to get it at most 30% thinner with better case design and a flatter battery, but nothing like jaromir's one.

You could also use an on-board NAND flash, and eliminate the microSD slot, and communicate through a microUSB with a PC...

Ignoring for a moment how evil this option is, i don't think it's going to save any space anyway, since the size of a NAND chip and a microusb port is larger than the size of an microsd card slot.

2. The case must be more presentable, more refined.

Totally agree, case design is not on my list of skills, so i just did a bounding box with holes in it.
Well, it keeps the debris and weather out.

3. The LCD screen: I would go for a bigger screen (with better resolution), maybe a color screen...

That screen is cheap and abundant, and quite low power as well.
I'd love to get some Sharp memory or e-ink screens ( http://www.adafruit.com/category/63_150 ), but i'm on the wrong side of the planet for them.

Time ago I tried to make something similar

Nice one!
Isn't it too small for practical use?

It would be better to write more about it, though I understand it is not that simple, if English is not your first language. Short video would be fine, worth of thousand words.

Interesting idea.
So, just make a video of how it operates?
Easy to do, needs no language...

By the way, you could get more feedback after inserting popular wankwords like "arduino", "eco-whatever", "social", "art", "green-whatever", "community", "motivation", "cloud" and so on.

Read your books off the grid with this eco-friendly device using only the green solar power (red and blue gets reflected), motivating you to enlarge your imagination, reach for the clouds, and make good art?
...I'm not too good at marketeese, am i?

[Stonent]

I was thinking instead of using a Nokia screen, how about a small e-ink or one of those sharp memory displays?

[Artlav]

One practical question is - which book formats are commonly used?
I always used only plain text, and so designed with that in mind.

I was thinking instead of using a Nokia screen, how about a small e-ink or one of those sharp memory displays?

Finally found some of these at ebay - http://www.adafruit.com/products/1346
About the right size.

The drawback is that such a screen have no backlight, so there is a tradeoff here.
On the other hand, with external light required, the battery life will go up significantly.

[Poe]

Hi all!

There is a thing i made that i hope can be of interest to more than just me, and i wanted to release it as open-source hardware.
Problem is, i have no idea how to make a project known or show it off politely.
So, this post is both a question - what to do with it - and an attempt to show it off.
...
It's been sitting there and on a livejournal post for over a year now.
I've occasionally mentioned it here and there (that link is my portfolio site).
But i got a grand total of zero feedback of any sort so far.
...
So, obviously i'm doing something wrong.
Any advice?

HELLO!

First, your projects are great and I found them very interesting.

I don't think they need anything done with them if all you're looking for is feedback.

To get more feedback, I think it's important to concisely explain what you're doing immediately.  Then explain how you are doing it, then more details later on.

Additionally, if you want feedback, be certain that you make that known.

Often people post projects, not looking for feedback, but simply to show-off.  That's fine.  There's no etiquette with OSHW.  Just put it out there.  If you want more people to see it, post it as many places as you can.... notify the blogs like Hackaday, etc.

If it's 'open source' just be certain that you make that known as well.  Just say something to the effect that it's open source hardware. Simple as that.  No need to pick an OSHW license or post it on a specific website or format your documentation a specific way. 

 https://www.eevblog.com/forum/oshw/reality-of-oshw/msg481306/#msg481306  

If you have software and wish to share it, then you might want to select an open source software license.

If you want to make it easy for people to collaborate with you on your project, there are websites and software that make this easier like Github.

That DIY digital camera is great btw.  I had plans to try the same thing, but with a hacked laser light show rig.  The laser would be replaced with a sensor and the mirrors would scan an area.  The issues you ran into will save me massive amounts of time.... if I ever get around to mine. 

Nice images too.

[Artlav]

Often people post projects, not looking for feedback, but simply to show-off.  That's fine.  There's no etiquette with OSHW.  Just put it out there.  If you want more people to see it, post it as many places as you can.... notify the blogs like Hackaday, etc.

I want that too, to a degree.
Never had anyone to show off to anything i made.

And any time i post something on any of my sites, LJ or youtube channel i get a feeling that i'm talking to an empty room.
I tried posting in various places, but the most common reaction is silence.
Second most common is something warming but useless, like "nice project!" or "wtf?".

So, over the years it went along through enthusiasm, hope, denial, confusion, resignation.

That DIY digital camera is great btw.  I had plans to try the same thing, but with a hacked laser light show rig.  The laser would be replaced with a sensor and the mirrors would scan an area.  The issues you ran into will save me massive amounts of time.... if I ever get around to mine. 

Nice images too.

What issues did you ran into that mine helped with?

I thought of making some sort of mirror-based scanning rig many times, but the main purpose was to make an IR camera, and i wasn't sure or aware if a mirror would work with MWIR/LWIR.

In any case, that project ground into a halt.
I did succeed at making some MWIR images at high resolution, but initially i wasn't able to gain enough sensitivity for the main goal.
By now i have obtained a sensor good enough for it, but it still sits in a (regular) box a year later...

And all that was done essentially to make a single picture.
A picture i could have drawn, faked or photoshopped easily, but i wanted a true image.

[Artlav]

For a while, i wanted to try ordering real PCBs.
Naturally, i considered PCBCart that is mentioned here quite often.

Well, they delivered.


Quite a bit of a difference from what i can do at home.
Most apparent is lack of all the vias to solder wires through - without it soldering the board is really almost a pleasure.
Screwed up the silkscreen a bit - the values for the components should have been there, but ended up on the wrong layer and failed to export.


The boards work, and i tried another run on the case design, now that the inner dimensions are precise.


The size is really solar panel-driven.




So, i now have 20 boards, and enough components to fill 10 of them.
Would anyone want to get one? 

I'll likely send one to Dave, with a nice soviet calculator along as "payment" for a review/advertisement.

If anyone is interested to try out how it works, here is the firmware with an emulator:
http://orbides.1gb.ru/etc/microbook-emu-141005.zip (1.1Mb)
Start with run.bat, keys 1, 2, 3, 4 on the keyboard act as the buttons on the device.
The books go into card.img file.
I wonder if the software makes sense.