micro-displays

Micro Displays for Raspberry Pi

Why?

I'm super bored in lockdown. Add a Raspberry Pi 400 and a few tiny displays...

The top half of the micro display shows the full screen and the bottom half is a zoom centered around the mouse cursor.

Example of code editing using this set up :-)

Version with zoom around the mouse area only:

IPS 240x240

Important Note: A question came up in HN about being able to control multiple tiny displays. I'm pasting my reply here as well as this may influence the type of display you want to buy for similar projects. You should be able to control multiple SPI devices at the same time but that requires the CSX/CS ("Chip Select") pin to be present. The 240x240 displays I bought don't seem to have this feature (though someone found a non-trivial hack to enable them: https://www.instructables.com/Adding-CS-Pin-to-13-LCD/)

Dependencies

Requires a couple of python libs (see also below section Additional Raspberry Pi Settings as SPI must be enabled):

$ pip3 install pyscreenshot
$ sudo apt install python3-xlib

Testing

Full screen + zoom:

[email protected]:~ $ git clone https://github.com/igbit/micro-displays.git
Cloning into 'micro-displays'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 37, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (37/37), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (37/37), done.
remote: Total 37 (delta 16), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
Unpacking objects: 100% (37/37), done.
[email protected]:~ $ cd micro-displays/
[email protected]:~/micro-displays $ python3 main240x240.py

Zoom around the mouse region only:

[email protected]:~ $ git clone https://github.com/igbit/micro-displays.git
Cloning into 'micro-displays'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 37, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (37/37), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (37/37), done.
remote: Total 37 (delta 16), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
Unpacking objects: 100% (37/37), done.
[email protected]:~ $ cd micro-displays/
[email protected]:~/micro-displays $ python3 main240x240mousezoom.py

Using without a monitor

When a monitor is not connected you must force the Raspberry Pi to output HDMI.

In /boot/config.txt make sure the following lines are uncommented (sudo vi /boot/config.txt and edit):

max_framebuffers=2
hdmi_force_hotplug:0=1
hdmi_group:0=1
hdmi_mode:0=16

Start up on reboot

To enable at session startup on reboot (you may need mkdir /home/pi/.config/lxsession and mkdir /home/pi/.config/lxsession/LXDE-pi before the below cp):

[email protected]:~ $ cp /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart /home/pi/.config/lxsession/LXDE-pi/

and add the following lines to /home/pi/.config/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart

@lxpanel --profile LXDE-pi
@pcmanfm --desktop --profile LXDE-pi
@xscreensaver -no-splash
@python3 /home/pi/micro-displays/main240x240.py 2>&1 >> /home/pi/micro-displays/stdout.log &

(you probably only need to add the last one)

Replace main240x240.py with main240x240mousezoom.py if you're only after a zoom around the mouse region.