Alpha 220 LED Sign

From Buffalo NAS-Central

You can find one of these signs for less than $100.

220 Full Matrix, (Case 37.7" x 3.8" x 2.9 ") Tricolor[1]

[edit] Install a Serial Port Interface

In this case a KuroBoxPro was used however any Linkstation could be used by accessing the serial port interface.

First, install a serial port interface. There are two physical serial ports on the KuroBoxPro. One serial port on the bottom^[2] which is the same as the port on the Linkstation Pro and one on the daughterboard accessible from the front. Both are addressed as /dev/ttyS0. Consider soldering in a pinheader rather than the pressure connector used in the LSPRO method.

[edit] Interface Sign to Serial Port Interface

A standard 6 wire telephone cable meant for a two line phone is used (a 4 wire one will not work) Plug one end into the sign, and one end into the Quick port RJ-12 Jack. Wire the jack into the serial port board as such^[3]

RS-279-422

Pin 4 of the RJ12 to RS-232 RXD Pin 3 of the RJ12 to RS-232 TXD Pin 6 of the RJ12 to RS-232 GND

[edit] Setup the serial port

Adjust the serial port settings, below is a script to do this. This information comes from a FAQ on using the Alpha sign with Linux^[4].

Basically this

1. Links /dev/ttyS0 to /dev/alpha
2. Gives everyone read/write access to your sign (/dev/alpha)
3. Provides a 9600,E,7,1 connection to the sign (/dev/alpha)

[edit] setledsign

# /usr/local/bin/setledsign
#!/bin/sh

rm /dev/alpha
ln -s /dev/ttyS0 /dev/alpha
chmod a+rw /dev/alpha
stty 9600 -opost -ocrnl -onlcr cs7 parenb -parodd < /dev/alpha

[edit] Wake up the sign and display something on it

[edit] alphamon.pl

# alphamon.pl
#
#!/usr/bin/perl
#
# Script will display the contents of /tmp/textfile to the ALPHA 220C LED
# Display
#
# Usage
#
# alphamon.pl [MODE TAG] [COLORTAG]


# Get the attention of the sign
print "\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0";


# Tell the sign to print the message
$message = `cat /tmp/textfile` ;

print "\001" . "Z" . "00" . "\002" . "AA" . "\x1B" . " $ARGV[0]" . "\x1C" . "$ARGV[1]" . $message . "\004";

[edit] Alpha Sign Syntax

[edit] MODE TAG and COLORTAG

The key parts of this are the MODE TAG and COLORTAG, there is full documentation available for this^[5][6]but here are the pertinent parts.

[edit] Stock Ticker

First install perl and make

apt-get install perl make

Then install the quote package ^[7]

wget http://www.circlemud.org/pub/jelson/quote/quote-0.05.tar.gz
tar -xvzf quote-0.05.tar.gz
cd quote-0.05
./configure
./make
./make install

install curl and lynx so that they can be used later to get content from the web.

apt-get install curl lynx

Lastly here is a shell script to display the ticker

[edit] leddisplay

# /usr/local/bin/leddisplay
#!/bin/sh
# Stock ticker symbols
#
PTE=/usr/local/bin

stocks="  ^DJI ^IXIC ^GSPC "

        quote $stocks | cut -d"(" -f1 |sed 's/^/\x1C9 \x7F \x1C3 /' | sed '/ -/s/:/\x1C1/g' | sed '/ +/s/:/\x1C2/g' > /tmp/textfile
        $PTE/alphamon.pl t A  > /dev/alpha
  

[edit] References

1. ↑ 220 brochure (Pdf)
2. ↑ Add a Serial port to the ARM9 Linkstation
3. ↑ Building a Data Cable for Alpha LED Scrolling Signs
4. ↑ Using the Alpha 215C with Linux
5. ↑ Alpha Sign Communications Protocol (pn 9708-8061)
6. ↑ Alpha® Sign Communications Protocol Revision F
7. ↑ quote -- command-line stock quote display