The other day I found an old control panel with old analogue displays when mucking out the cellar. It came to me the idea that somehow it must be possible to display data of my SmartHome on it.
Just to have the current climate data such as temperature, humidity, etc. displayed, these displays should be pretty good.
How to do it and what you have to consider is described in the following article.
Hints for our lovely english readers: Basically, many of the articles on Nerdiy.de are translations from the original german articles. Therefore, it may happen here and there that some illustrations are not available in english and that some translations are weird/strange/full of mistakes or generally totaly wrong. So if you find some obvious (or also not obvious) mistakes don't hesitate to leave us a hint about that in the comment section.
Also please don't get confused, that instead of a "dot" often a "comma" is used as decimal separator. 🙂
Inhalte
- 1 Safety instructions
- 2 Affiliate links / advertising links
- 3 Requirements
- 4 Collect required parts
- 5 Print the required 3D parts
- 6 Attach the alternate display scale label
- 7 Attach backlight
- 8 Prepare connecting cables
- 9 Connect the ESP8266 adapter board
- 10 Other variants
- 11 More than two displays in one housing
- 12 Flashing firmware
- 13 Have fun with the project
Safety instructions
I know the following hints are always a bit annoying and seem unnecessary. But unfortunately, many people who knew it "better" from carelessness lost their eyes, fingers or other things or hurt themselves. In comparison, a loss of data is almost not worth mentioning, but even these can be really annoying. Therefore, please take five minutes to read the safety instructions. Even the coolest project is worth no injury or other annoyance. https://www.nerdiy.de/en/sicherheitshinweise/
Affiliate links / advertising links
The links to online shops listed here are so-called affiliate links. If you click on such an affiliate link and shop via this link, Nerdiy.de receives a commission from the online shop or provider concerned. The price doesn't change for you. If you do your purchases via these links, you will support Nerdiy.de in being able to offer further useful projects in the future. 🙂
Requirements
Helpful Articles:
Before you start with this article you should have dealt with the basics of soldering. Information on this can be found in the following article.
Electronics – My friend the soldering iron
Required material:
In the following list you will find all the parts you need to implement this article.
Required tools:
In the following list you will find all the tools you need to implement this article.
Collect required parts
In the following picture you can see the parts you need to build your own Retro-SmartHome-Display.
Print the required 3D parts
Download all required STL files: Build your own retro-smarthome display via analogue displays
You can also find modular housing templates in the More than Two Displays section of an enclosure.
Housing for a display:
Ihr könnt die 3D-Ansicht der STL-Datei mit gedrückter Maustaste rotieren. Rein- und Raus-Zoomen könnt Ihr mit dem Mausrad.
Housing for two displays:
Ihr könnt die 3D-Ansicht der STL-Datei mit gedrückter Maustaste rotieren. Rein- und Raus-Zoomen könnt Ihr mit dem Mausrad.
Attach the alternate display scale label
In this step, the alternative labels of the display scales are glued to the display. Because you don’t want to display voltages with the analog displays but other values such as temperatures, humidity, etc. For this, the scales have to be adjusted slightly.
In the following pdf file you will find templates for temperature (inside and outside), humidity (inside and outside), air pressure, hour and minute in German and English. Simply print them out and stick them on the scales of the analogue displays as described below. This is best suited for printable label paper, since this is already provided on one side with an adhesive layer. If you would like to have them in other languages too, just ask for it in the comment section. 🙂
Download: scale-lettering.pdf





Attach backlight
So that you can illuminate the displays later in the dark, an LED backlight is installed.














Prepare connecting cables
Of course, in order to be able to control the pointer angle of the analogue displays later, they must of course be connected to a voltage source. For this purpose, the connecting cables are prepared in this step.

























Connect the ESP8266 adapter board
The now prepared lines must of course still be connected to the “heart” – the ESP8266 adapter board.



















Other variants
The great thing about the PCA9685 breakout board is that it offers up to 16 outputs. That means you can connect up to 16 displays.
To produce a housing for one or two analogue displays, a 3D printer is enough. Unfortunately, most 3D printers are too small for more than two displays. One way you can still combine multiple ads is described in the section More than two displays in one enclosure below.


More than two displays in one housing
… are difficult to implement in the way described above. At the very least, a case with room for more than two displays is very difficult to print using a 3D printer. Most 3D printers simply do not have enough space on their print bed.
At least if you want to print the case in one part, this will not work. In case you have no problem with screwing the case out of several parts, here is a suggestion how to do it all the same. Unfortunately, there are currently no pictures with a step-by-step guide. I will insert these as soon as possible.
However, the assembly can be very well guessed on the basis of the 3D templates. For those who still want to try it out:
A few pictures explaining the assembly, you will find the view of the required 3D files.
Download the required STL files: Retro-SmartHome display modular housing
Middle part of the modular housing:
Ihr könnt die 3D-Ansicht der STL-Datei mit gedrückter Maustaste rotieren. Rein- und Raus-Zoomen könnt Ihr mit dem Mausrad.
End part of the modular housing:
Ihr könnt die 3D-Ansicht der STL-Datei mit gedrückter Maustaste rotieren. Rein- und Raus-Zoomen könnt Ihr mit dem Mausrad.









Flashing firmware
Now it is time to transfer the firmware to the display.
Program the ESPEasy firmware including the “Nerdiys PanelMeter” plugin to the ESP9266 adapter board. How to do this is explained in the following article: ESPEasy – Install and configure the NerdiysPanelMeter plugin
Have fun with the project
I hope everything worked as described. If not or you have any other questions or suggestions, please let me know in the comments. Also, ideas for new projects are always welcome. 🙂
P.S. Many of these projects - especially the hardware projects - cost a lot of time and money. Of course I do this because I enjoy it, but if you appreciate it that I share these information with you, I would be happy about a small donation to the coffee box. 🙂