Solar Powered CNC Display connected to a Teensy 4.1

[dev255]

Hello all, this is my first post here and I must say all the topics here help with the programming of the Gameduino.


Hope you are all having a good weekend.



I thought I’d give an update and share my CNC mill development that I'm working on at home, basically, I’m going to upgrade my Arduino Mega 2560 and 2 LCD displays with a Teensy 4.1 and use a Gameduino 3x Dazzler to display on a Portrait oriented HDMI display for CNC information.













As you can see in the pictures, I am currently upgrading the CNC controller and display for seeing all the information easily and with a resolution of 720 x 1280.



This will have so many positives when it comes to machining out parts, not only speed, but also showing all aspects of the machine while it works.



The main idea behind getting this setup is so I can fit a display like this in an MGF Electric Vehicle Project that I am also currently working on. I will then be able to monitor everything about the MGF Electric Power Unit on this type of display, what do you think? Could look a little Tesla’ish.



What’s the cost though? Well, here is the list: -



£26.48 - Teensy 4.1 microprocessor



£40 - Second hand monitor (still in the post)



£43.99 - Gameduino 3x Dazzler with HDMI out



Some time programming, drawing the screen, generating menus and integrating it all in the machine.



So all this full control and modern looking display system for £110.47 plus a little programming time, where basic controllers can set you back £2500 plus on a home CNC, so a huge saving. Also, this will double as the display in the MGF :-D.



What’s the difference then between what I have at the moment? Well, the current microprocessor is an Arduino Mega 2560 and these are the differences: -



Arduino has 256KB of flash (program storage) where the Teensy has 8MB



Arduino has 4 serial ports where the Teensy has 8 (better for connecting to all the MGF devices)



Arduinos benchmark speed is 7 where the Teensy is 2381



Arduino runs at 16MHz where the Teensy runs at 600MHz (and is overclockable to love 1MHz with cooling)



Teensy has a Micro SD card slot



Teensy has a Real Time Clock built in (good for the MGF project also)



Teensy is, well, Tiny



I think the display difference is fairly self explanatory, where every time I need to make changes to a milled part I have to go through the extensive menu system with only 8 lines of text. The Gameduino allows me to create pop up windows to easily select programs and features.



This is a little extra work than I was planning at the beginning of my projects, although will make all the projects even more fun and easy to use. I only received the Teensy and Gameduino on Wednesday (11th Aug 21) and have already got it to start looking like a CNC display.



Now my Garage is sorted, the MGF has been over here and the mill is progressing nicely, I should be able to move things along so much more with this Gameduino 3x Dazzler.



Has anyone else tried this type of configuration? I think it makes the machine look ultra modern.


Thank you for creating such an amazing product.


Kind regards,



Neil.

I also have a YouTube channel, although nothing yet on the Dazzler as I have only just started with it.

[dev255]

Hi all,

Loving the Gameduino 3x Dazzler, although I have hit a stumbling block that I can't seem to resolve and wonder if someone could help at all?

I was getting an issue with broken strips going down the screen through buttons, rectangles and text (in portrait mode, so across if in landscape mode) when there are around 30 rectangles, 3 sets of numbers, 3 dials and a rotating bitmap (loaded using header 0,1 etc, not gd3asset.exe) on the screen. Sorry can't show this as the display has stopped working almost fully now. I had tried 2 monitors and it's the same on both.

So from this issue, I tried to resolve it by removing the rotating bitmap (not loading into GPU memory), still doing the same thing, then using gd3asset.exe to create the header file dev255.h, although should have called it dev255_asset.h attaching the file in the IDE and including it into the script.

When uploading the version with the dev255.h to the Teensy 4.1 there was an error on the IDE during compiling saying it was not supported on the Teensy 4.1. So from this I don't understand why this could have affected anything.

After trying this the Gameduino boot screen loads ok but the original unchanged script does not display at all and the monitor goes to sleep. This is the same for cube and cobra that used to work and are now blank, although chess, frogger and hello world examples all work fine.

Do you think I have overwritten something or just have a different problem that coincidentally happened at the same time.

Sorry for all the info, I just wanted to tell the whole story in case I've done something obvious.

Thank you in advance for any assistance.

Kind regards,

Neil.

[dev255]

I now understand all my issues, basically the blank screen was the Teensy playing up and the tearing of the display was (I believe) the memory getting full.

Once I refine the program and squeeze more out of the memory I will share the project.

It's looking good so far.

[dev255]

Hi,

Just a quick update.

Here is a short video of my progress on the CNC Display, where the GCode listed on the main display is read from a text file on the Teensy 4.1's SD Card slot and displayed over 44 lines.

I can get just over 470 characters displayed using TXT8X8 format by reducing the overheads across the whole sketch.

The sketch is just over 600 lines so far and growing fast.

The GCode listed will directly control the milling machine through serial ASCII protocol commands to 2 ODrive motor controllers (4 Motors); this is currently being run by and Arduino Mega 2560, so the Teensy will be a huge performance increase.

The Dazzler will make a huge difference and will be shown on my YouTube channel when up an running.

I hope you like it.

Also, I am happy to share all the code here or via my GitHub page.

Have fun,

Neil.

[dev255]

Hi,

Just another update... Picture and Video below...

I'm enjoying the Dazzler and all it can offer, especially with the Teensy4.1.

I think this will be a great addition to my CNC mill, where I just keep adding features to the display as I think of them.

Feel free to ask questions on this and the related CNC project.

And yes I did make a temporary monitor stand from some leftover decking ;-).

Kind regards,

Neil.

[dev255]

Hi,

I'm not sure who may be on here as its very quiet for a forum, especially with the awesomeness of the Dazzler 3x Gameduino. Hopefully this forum will grow with the product.

Anyway, just in case anyone is there, I was at the Makers Central event as an Exhibitor over the bank holiday weekend (30th Apr, 1st May 2022) and was demonstrating my CNC machine with the Dazzler displaying on the monitor. There was over 7500 people per day and everyone I spoke to was asking about the dazzler. I also got to spend some time in the evenings with James Bruton, Matt Denton, Colin Furze, Ivan Miranda, Joel Gomes (Integza) all from YouTube and had a great time and was well looked after. That's James Bruton's stand next to mine with his robot dogs.

Just before the event I did have my Gameduino stop working and pulling double the current it is rated for, with the main chip getting hot very quickly. I put this down to a potential power supply surge/in-rush current/inductive back EMF though, I'm not quite sure which and didn't want to replicate it to find out. Don't worry I didn't mention it at the event as this was most likely my fault. So I purchased 3 more just to be on the safe side.

Also I am looking to put the Dazzle to good use in a number of projects such as the MG Electric Vehicle as a centre portrait display showing all the power unit details in graphical form.

Here are some pictures of the event: -





See if you can spot where the Gameduino is hiding, it can be seen from the front of the cabinet.

All the CAD and code to this can be found on my website www.dev255.uk or on GitHub by searching dev255, I will hopefully be uploading the latest code from the event soon.

Have fun,

Kind regards,

Neil.

[thebarryfish]

Aug 14, 2021 4:59:21 GMT -8 dev255 said:

Hello all, this is my first post here and I must say all the topics here help with the programming of the Gameduino.


Hope you are all having a good weekend.



I thought I’d give an update and share my CNC mill development that I'm working on at home, basically, I’m going to upgrade my Arduino Mega 2560 and 2 LCD displays with a Teensy 4.1 and use a Gameduino 3x Dazzler to display on a Portrait oriented HDMI display for CNC information.













As you can see in the pictures, I am currently upgrading the CNC controller and display for seeing all the information easily and with a resolution of 720 x 1280.



This will have so many positives when it comes to machining out parts, not only speed, but also showing all aspects of the machine while it works.



The main idea behind getting this setup is so I can fit a display like this in an MGF Electric Vehicle Project that I am also currently working on. I will then be able to monitor everything about the MGF Electric Power Unit on this type of display, what do you think? Could look a little Tesla’ish.



What’s the cost though? Well, here is the list: -



£26.48 - Teensy 4.1 microprocessor



£40 - Second hand monitor (still in the post)



£43.99 - Gameduino 3x Dazzler with HDMI out



Some time programming, drawing the screen, generating menus and integrating it all in the machine.



So all this full control and modern looking display system for £110.47 plus a little programming time, where basic controllers can set you back £2500 plus on a home CNC, so a huge saving. Also, this will double as the display in the MGF :-D.



What’s the difference then between what I have at the moment? Well, the current microprocessor is an Arduino Mega 2560 and these are the differences: -



Arduino has 256KB of flash (program storage) where the Teensy has 8MB



Arduino has 4 serial ports where the Teensy has 8 (better for connecting to all the MGF devices)



Arduinos benchmark speed is 7 where the Teensy is 2381



Arduino runs at 16MHz where the Teensy runs at 600MHz (and is overclockable to love 1MHz with cooling)



Teensy has a Micro SD card slot



Teensy has a Real Time Clock built in (good for the MGF project also)



Teensy is, well, Tiny



I think the display difference is fairly self explanatory, where every time I need to make changes to a milled part I have to go through the extensive menu system with only 8 lines of text. The Gameduino allows me to create pop up windows to easily select programs and features.



This is a little extra work than I was planning at the beginning of my projects, although will make all the projects even more fun and easy to use. I only received the Teensy and Gameduino on Wednesday (11th Aug 21) and have already got it to start looking like a CNC display.



Now my Garage is sorted, the MGF has been over here and the mill is progressing nicely, I should be able to move things along so much more with this Gameduino 3x Dazzler.



Has anyone else tried this type of configuration? I think it makes the machine look ultra modern.


Thank you for creating such an amazing product.


Kind regards,



Neil.

I also have a YouTube channel, although nothing yet on the Dazzler as I have only just started with it.

[tftlcdcyg]

Congratulations for your great project, you have invested a lot of time and dedication in it. Thanks for sharing.

There is little information on the Gameduino 3x Dazzler and it seems to me that you have studied them thoroughly, from what I see the FPGA converts the signals from the BT815 chip to the HDMI output, is this correct?

[dev255]

Feb 28, 2023 10:59:32 GMT -8 tftlcdcyg said:

Congratulations for your great project, you have invested a lot of time and dedication in it. Thanks for sharing.

There is little information on the Gameduino 3x Dazzler and it seems to me that you have studied them thoroughly, from what I see the FPGA converts the signals from the BT815 chip to the HDMI output, is this correct?

Hi, Thank you, I think it was back in March last year that I was putting all this together. It is still in and working well on a daily basis. That does sound correct from what I can remember, I will have to do some more research on it myself, although I believe that is correct, I remember reading up on the FPGA but don't know the programming of it to know for sure. It does make sense though. I'll be at the Makers Central event in the NEC Birmingham again this year with this setup.

[dev255]

Hi, I will be at the Makers Central event again this year (Birmingham NEC, 13th to 14th May 2023) Here is a link: www.makerscentral.co.uk/YOUTUBE-MAKERS (I am on the website list too). Or visit my site at www.dev255.uk.

I would love to take a GAMEDUINO sticker or 2 to the event and stick it on my CNC Mill, although does anybody know if this product is being discontinued? That's what it says on the Cool Components website.

Thank you.

Neil.

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