This is a follow-up to my previous post about creating my own movie showtimes board with an inky frame.
The big question mark left after I beat the final boss of my inky frame project was how long the screen would continue to work without intervention. To date, here’s what’s happened so far.
I finished the project on 2/19. On 2/29, the screen got stuck with the “thinking” light left on. I turned it off and back on and then reset the screen by pushing A + E + reset, and then it started working again. I figured this was some network issue that caused it to freeze up.
I came back from a vacation in March, and saw that the screen was stuck on the showtimes for 3/12. The thinking light wasn’t on this time. I checked the repository, and the showtime images were continuing to generate each day, so the problem was definitely with the screen itself. I tried to turn it on and off again and reset it, but that didn’t fix the issue. This indicated to me the batteries had probably died. I changed the batteries on 3/20 and reset the screen, and it started working again.
So this means that the batteries lasted for about 3 weeks worth of hourly refreshes. They weren’t a totally fresh set of batteries because they’re the same ones I used for all my testing, so it’s hard to know exactly how long a totally fresh set would last. I also think that the refresh rate is probably too high, so I’m going to try reducing it to every 2 hours and see how that goes.
Update 2024-04-21
More dead batteries on 4/17! So it seems like reducing the refresh rate to every 2 hours gave me about another week of screen time, 4 weeks total.
I’ll try to reduce it further to every 12 hours and see what happens. Start the clock: recharged the batteries and reset the screen at 5:35pm today.
Update 2024-08-25
After I increased the refresh time to every 12 hours on 4/21, the screen didn’t refresh on its own until 4/22 at 5:37pm, which was about 24 hours later. But after that first day it did appear to start refreshing every 12 hours as expected.
Since then there have been a few instances of it getting stuck, but hitting reset kicked it back into gear. One tricky thing about it having a more infrequent refresh every 12 hours is that when you have to reset it, you have to be more cognizant what time to you do it, or else it will get out of sync with when the GitHub Actions workflows scrape the showtimes and create the image.
On 7/7 the screen got stuck without the “thinking” light. I tried to refresh and didn’t seem to work so it thought the batteries died. I had to go on a trip and didn’t change the batteries for about a week. On 7/16 I was back and decided to try refreshing one last time before changing the batteries. Resetting actually worked and I didn’t need to change the batteries.
On 8/18 I noticed the screen got stuck again without the “thinking” light. I tried for a few days to reset, but it didn’t work. I thought the batteries finally had died, so I charged them up, but still I couldn’t get the screen to refresh. After plugging the screen back into the computer, I realized the issue was that I had made some updates to my wifi network, so I needed to update the credentials loaded to the screen. After doing so, the screen refreshed as normal!
The issue is now that I don’t have an accurate reading of how long the batteries can last with a 12-hour refresh rate, because I charged them before I really needed to. However I do at least have confirmation that a less-frequent refresh rate makes the batteries last longer–I was already up to 4 months on one charge with this twice-daily rate.
Update 2025-05-27
A couple of weeks ago I noticed that the screen stopped updating again. I tried resetting it, but it didn’t work, and no lights turned on. I changed the batteries to rechargeable lithium batteries, but still coudln’t get it to respond. I tried plugging it in to the computer, and it did refresh, but still on battery power it didn’t work. I switched to new disposable batteries, and this time I would at least get some lights, but still no refresh. Several times turned the battery pack on and off, I plugged it in, reran the code, hit “Stop”, unplugged, tried to reset again, got nothing. After making some edits to the logging of the code, it seemed like there’s some issue with connecting to the wifi. Seemingly it connected more easily when plugged in, but not on battery power, and I’m not sure why. I unplugged and tried resetting again, nothing. I waited a few more minutes, and finally it reset with the normal lights. So still not sure what’s going on or what the advice is here. Just try not to breathe on it too hard I guess and hopefully it’ll keep chugging along.
Update 2025-05-27 again
After the successful reset, I put the frame back where I normally have it, and then noticed a few minutes later it reset on its own. Like it’s finally catching up to some previous reset attempt?? No clue.
Update 2026-03-26
I started having issues with the screen not refreshing again. I tried all sorts of combinations of plugging in, unplugging, and resetting, but nothing worked. Eventually I opened up the battery pack and found that one of the batteries had corroded. This had actually happened before — I’d replaced the original pack with a new pack I wired up myself, so I figured maybe I hadn’t done the wiring right. I replaced everything: new batteries, new pack, and a new connector.
With fresh batteries in, I turned it on and reset it (reminder that a proper reset is supposed to be done by pressing A+E+reset button on the back. Typically the little light will turn on when the reset button is pressed). The light came on when pushing A+E, but not when pressing the reset button, and the screen did not refresh. After waiting a few minutes I tried resetting again, and this time I got lights on both A+E and the reset button — and it started refreshing! The only problem was I had set the refresh interval to every 2 minutes for debugging. I plugged it back in, clicked “Stop” in Thonny, changed the refresh timing back to every 12 hours, then unplugged and tried to get it running on battery again. Same story: light on A+E, no light on the reset button, nothing happened. I tried every combination I could think of — pulling the batteries, turning the pack off and on, letting it try to refresh on its own first — and still got the same result every time.
I also swapped in a different battery pack, one I ordered online with the JST connector already attached, thinking maybe my wiring really was the problem. Still couldn’t get it to reset on battery power no matter what I tried.
Eventually I gave up and decided to just try running it off a portable power bank instead. Plugged it in, hit reset, and it worked without a problem. A couple days later I tried a different new power bank and nothing happened — just the first light came on when pressing A+E, same as the behavior when connected to the battery pack. Then I realized I’d left the old battery pack plugged in and switched on the whole time, so it probably wasn’t even using the new power bank. I disconnected the power bank and kept the battery pack plugged in.
Frustration, dejection, just about ready to give up…but suddenly hope! While fumbling around I accidentally hit just the E button, and the light came on, and a minute later the screen refreshed. I tried it again: just hit E, light on, refresh. It worked twice in a row. Since then I’ve had no problems with the refresh, and I still have absolutely no idea what’s going on.