#Raspberry pi luminator sign Pc
The original supply is wildly overspec'd for this application, I suspect this is for extra output capacitance: the extra storage will keep the sign lit if the bus voltage drops when starting the engine.Īn old PC power supply will typically source more than 10 amps, and should work here as a replacement.Ī small terminal block glued to the case keeps everything tidy. The current for a typical message was measured at 700mA, and I estimate that the maximum current will be around 2A with every LED lit.
This gives the sign a power switch, an IEC cord, and the ability to take power from a wall socket instead of a bench supply. The original supply has a standard form factor, so any supply in industrial form factor will fit in the original mounting straps. So the first step in converting a sign is to replace the 12V input power supply with a 120V input one. Vehicle electrics are a nominally 12 volts(*), and the original sign has a 12V to 5V power supply rated to 20 amps (in hand, in the image above). I do have the master controller and the Luminator control panel, so a path for custom messaging using these elements would be acceptable in the short term.(NB: These instructions were created after the fact, so no ongoing construction details or images.) A middle ground would probably be to remove the 8051, figure out the schematic, and drive the relevant lines with a microcontroller of my own.īefore I give up and go the hard or middle route, does anyone have knowledge of the protocol that is used for these displays?
#Raspberry pi luminator sign series
This particular design is early 90's, with 8051 processors, EEPROMs, and lots of off the shelf logic chips and ULN2xxx series drivers. The display I have already includes a power supply and control board, and it communicates with the master controller via RS-485.
There are numerous resources on the internet for controlling the flipdot display panels with new circuitry, ignoring the existing circuitry, but I would like to get it working with custom messaging in less time than it would take to design, or even build, a custom hardware solution. I have an old Luminator flipdot 16x112 pixel bus destination sign I'd like to hack.
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