First and foremost, when it came to animations on a LCD (or OLED) screen, it is something of a stumbling block for me. Heck, I cannot even make the screen work. The same goes for sound. This one is slightly different as I have yet to figure out how to control a sound chip through a microcontroller and not using switch inputs. And then there is that looping sound which is another problem. It would be great if there is a single IC solution which can do all these with just a simple program option via the USB port.
My graphics solution is a system where it can store multiple animations and can be recalled via a series of switch inputs or even, multiple presses of the same switch. Off-the-shelf solutions have their own issues since their push-buttons only allows you Play, Pause, Skip Forward or Skip Backward.
The Lopaka App
I stumbled upon this when I was pointed by Hackaday. This web-based editor does look promising as the online App will create the necessary source code (to be inserted into your Project) based on the sized of your LCD or OLED screen. I do not have the opportunity to test this as yet since I need to find all my components. It would also be interesting if it can help with animation but I’d worry about the refresh rate which is processor dependent. Anyway, do give this a try and if it is really useful to you, you might want to know more how you can support the Author.
What about 4DSystems?
Before Lopaka, I was already diving into a proven platform from 4DSystems which was based in Australia. They do have their own proprietary solutions which on paper, sounded very good. However, try as I might, I could not unwrap and get them out of their own boxes. Yeah, in those times, I got hit with several milestones (or rather, mileboulders) which was quite impossible to get what I wanted, done. Now, I can’t even find the parts.
There are also other solutions such as Wokwi which create animations for Arduinos and also, while we’re at it, oledanimatonmaker. All these are workable and is a good start. But unless I can get the microcontroller to talk to these guys using Serial or I2C, I am stuck.
