flipdot

A Rust library for interacting with Luminator flip-dot and LED signs over RS-485.

Provides a way to connect to a sign, define messages spanning one or more pages, send those pages to the sign, then switch between them. No special graphics or text functionality is provided; you are responsible for setting the pixels on the pages yourself.

Tested with a MAX3000 90 × 7 side sign. Should work with any flip-dot or LED sign that uses the 7-pin circular connector, but no guarantees.

Intended only for hobbyist and educational purposes. Not affiliated with Luminator in any way.

Usage

Here's a full example of connecting to a sign over serial, sending pages, and showing them:

```rust use std::cell::RefCell; use std::rc::Rc; use flipdot::{Address, PageId, Sign, SignType, SerialSignBus};

// Set up bus. Because the bus can be shared among // multiple signs, it must be wrapped in an Rc. let port = serial::open("/dev/ttyUSB0")?; let bus = SerialSignBus::try_new(port)?; let bus = Rc::new(RefCell::new(bus));

// Create a sign with the appropriate address and type. let sign = Sign::new(bus.clone(), Address(3), SignType::Max3000Side90x7);

// First, the configuration data must be sent to the sign. sign.configure()?;

// Next, we can create some pages, turn on pixels, and send them to the sign. let mut page1 = sign.createpage(PageId(0)); page1.setpixel(0, 0, true); let mut page2 = sign.createpage(PageId(1)); page2.setpixel(1, 1, true); sign.send_pages(&[page1, page2])?;

// The first page is now loaded in the sign's memory and can be shown. sign.showloadedpage()?;

// Load the second page into memory, then show it. sign.loadnextpage()?; sign.showloadedpage()?; ```

Sub-crates

In addition to the high-level API of Sign, several lower-level components are provided that can be combined for more specialized use-cases.

• [flipdot-core] (re-exported as core) contains the basic types describing the protocol, and is useful if you want to implement a custom SignBus or otherwise operate at the level of the raw protocol.
• [flipdot-serial] (re-exported as serial) contains functions for configuring the serial port, as well as the implementation of SerialSignBus.
• [flipdot-testing] contains tools not directly related to communicating with signs, but useful for testing and debugging.

License

Distributed under the [MIT license].