Build Log
Notes from the bench.
Short notes from building Newsboard, solo: the tuning, the dead ends, and the rough early versions behind a panel that just shows the news.
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5 June 2026
Thirty milliamps
Letting the radio and CPU doze through the long idle wait cut the panel's standby draw by about 81%, with no change to how fast Refresh now feels.
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3 June 2026
The panel, in your pocket
The companion app that pairs with the panel and quietly runs it: online status, a week of refresh stats, firmware updates, and Wi-Fi changes.
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24 May 2026
The Pi was overkill
The first brain was a Raspberry Pi. It worked, but it was a whole Linux computer for a job that's mostly 'fetch one picture every ten minutes.' So I moved to an ESP32-S3.
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12 May 2026
Machined, not moulded
Why production Newsboard panels are headed for CNC-cut 6061 aluminium, with an honest note about the black prototype in the photos.
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5 May 2026
Into the foam
Before there was any aluminium, there was a block of packing foam, a hot-glue gun, and eight wires soldered straight onto the board's bare pads.
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24 April 2026
Eight wires and a ribbon
Getting the panel, the driver board and the microcontroller talking. One flat ribbon, and eight SPI wires I had to learn the hard way.
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21 April 2026
First light
I wired a Raspberry Pi to a bare 7.8-inch e-ink panel, pushed a front page at it, and braced for nothing. The ink moved.
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21 April 2026
One pass, half a second
The first refresh was slow and I wasn't sure why. Dropping it from eight bands to one took the paint from about 4.4 seconds to half a second.
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