A WiFi-connected LED bar display for the hackerspace.
Type a message in the web interface, and it shows up on the physical 5×7 pixel LED display.
The bar was salvaged from outside a train station — one of those old departure/arrival displays. It found a new home at the hackerspace.
A static web interface that sends curl commands to the ESP32-C3 webserver. Features a pixel-perfect canvas preview using the same 5×7 font as the hardware. Only works on the hackerspace LAN.
Open Web InterfaceIf you're on the LAN, try it yourself:
curl -X POST http://ledbart.local/text -H "Content-Type: text/plain" -d "YOUR TEXT"
The LED bar runs on 5V logic, but the ESP32-C3 only outputs 3.3V. Rather than using level shifters, the work is split across two chips — the ESP32-C3 handles WiFi and serves the API, while the Arduino Uno drives the display at the correct voltage. They communicate over UART at 9600 baud:
Runs on the ESP32-C3, accessible at ledbart.local on the hackerspace LAN. When text is received, it forwards it to the Arduino via UART TX. Also exposes a WebSocket on port 81 for streaming raw pixel data in real time.