Pocket e-reader (e-ink pages)
Three pages of Alice in Wonderland on the 1.54″ e-paper panel, driven over the ESP32-C6’s hardware SPI. Click the button to turn the page; each turn streams 5000 bytes into the SSD1681 RAM and fires a full refresh, flash and all. The current page survives a power cut, exactly like the paperback it is.
How it works
Three pages of Alice in Wonderland rendered on a 1.54" e-paper panel driven by an ESP32-C6 over hardware SPI (`machine.SPI(1)` on the stock pins). A pushbutton turns the page: each press streams ~5000 bytes into the SSD1681’s RAM and fires a full refresh — the characteristic e-ink flash and all. The panel holds its image with no power, exactly like real e-paper, so the current page survives a Restart.
What's on the bench
- Battery
- Button
- E-Ink 1.54″ 200×200
- ESP32-C6
- Resistor
How it's wired
- Battery · pos→ESP32-C6 · vin
- Battery · neg→ESP32-C6 · gnd
- ESP32-C6 · 3v3→E-Ink 1.54″ 200×200 · vcc
- ESP32-C6 · gnd2→E-Ink 1.54″ 200×200 · gnd
- ESP32-C6 · g7→E-Ink 1.54″ 200×200 · din
- ESP32-C6 · g6→E-Ink 1.54″ 200×200 · clk
- ESP32-C6 · g5→E-Ink 1.54″ 200×200 · cs
- ESP32-C6 · g1→E-Ink 1.54″ 200×200 · dc
- ESP32-C6 · g3→E-Ink 1.54″ 200×200 · rst
- ESP32-C6 · g0→E-Ink 1.54″ 200×200 · busy
- ESP32-C6 · 3v3b→Button · a
- Button · b→ESP32-C6 · g8
- Resistor · a→Button · b
- Resistor · b→ESP32-C6 · gnd
The code
This MicroPython script runs on the emulated board every boot; edit it in the Code tab.
from machine import Pin, SPI import framebuf, time # Hardware SPI (GPSPI2) on the C6 fixed pins: sck=6, mosi=7. spi = SPI(1, baudrate=20000000) cs, dc, rst = Pin(5, Pin.OUT, value=1), Pin(1, Pin.OUT), Pin(3, Pin.OUT, value=1) busy = Pin(0, Pin.IN) btn = Pin(8, Pin.IN) def cmd(c, data=b""): cs(0); dc(0); spi.write(bytes([c])) if data: dc(1); spi.write(data) cs(1) def wait(): while busy.value(): time.sleep_ms(20) rst(0); time.sleep_ms(10); rst(1); time.sleep_ms(10) cmd(0x12); wait() W = H = 200 buf = bytearray(W * H // 8) fb = framebuf.FrameBuffer(buf, W, H, framebuf.MONO_HLSB) PAGES = [ ("ALICE IN WONDERLAND", [ "Alice was beginning", "to get very tired of", "sitting by her", "sister on the bank,", "and of having", "nothing to do: once", "or twice she had", "peeped into the book", "her sister was", "reading, but it had", "no pictures in it,", ]), ("CHAPTER I (cont.)", [ "'and what is the use", "of a book,' thought", "Alice, 'without", "pictures or", "conversations?'", "", "So she was", "considering in her", "own mind...", ]), ("ABOUT THIS READER", [ "Each page you see", "travelled over SPI:", "5000 bytes into the", "SSD1681 RAM, then", "one Master", "Activation refresh.", "", "E-paper keeps its", "page with the power", "cut - try it.", ]), ] def show(n): title, lines = PAGES[n] fb.fill(1) fb.fill_rect(0, 0, 200, 18, 0) fb.text(title, 8, 6, 1) y = 30 for ln in lines: fb.text(ln, 8, y, 0) y += 14 fb.text("page %d/%d - button turns" % (n + 1, len(PAGES)), 4, 188, 0) cmd(0x11, b'\x03') cmd(0x44, bytes([0, W // 8 - 1])) cmd(0x45, b'\x00\x00' + bytes([(H - 1) & 0xFF, (H - 1) >> 8])) cmd(0x4E, b'\x00'); cmd(0x4F, b'\x00\x00') cmd(0x24, buf); cmd(0x22, b'\xF7'); cmd(0x20); wait() print("page", n + 1, "shown") page = 0 show(page) while True: if btn.value(): page = (page + 1) % len(PAGES) show(page) while btn.value(): time.sleep_ms(20) time.sleep_ms(30)
Try this
- Press the button to turn the page — watch the full e-ink refresh flash.
- Press Restart and see the last page persist (e-ink holds its image with no power).
- Open the Code tab to read the SSD1681 hardware-SPI driver and the page-turn refresh.
- Follow each page-turn and byte stream in the serial tab.
