Project Plan: Electronic door sign with e-Ink, Nano and RFID - Advice needed

Projects General Guidance
1

Dear community,

I am new to all this Arduino world. However, I was wondering whether it is possible to use some left-over components from a different project.

From the TonUINO project (sorry, German only) I have an Arduino Nano v3 and an RC522 RFID-Reader left.

My idea is to build an electronic door sign with an e-Ink-display, that updates once I hold a RFID-card to it (showing text like: Come in, I am on Holiday, I am in a meeting, ...).

I thought about these components:

  • Nano v3
  • RFID RC522
  • e-Ink-Display (e.g. Waveshare 2.7 inch)
  • Powerbank

My questions are:

  • a) Do you deem this possible? Has anybody probably already done this? (I could not find anything meaningful to me in the forum search.)

  • b) Can the Nano be used to control the e-Ink display, or does it have to be a different controller (which)? I only want to show/update text.

  • c) In this respect: Would you rather link the ID of the RFID-tag to a certain string defined in the sketch, or should I try to encode the text on the tag itself?

  • d) Do I need an additional driver board for the display? If so, what about the HAT-models that already have a controller (e.g. this)?

  • e) Can I switch off the power supply of arduino an display and still keep the displayed text?

Thank you very much.

2

mosesmami:

  • a) Do you deem this possible?/li][/quote]

Yes.

  • b) Can the Nano be used to control the e-Ink display, or does it have to be a different controller (which)? I only want to show/update text.

Probably.
Depends on the display and what you want to do with it exactly.

  • c) In this respect: Would you rather link the ID of the RFID-tag to a certain string defined in the sketch, or should I try to encode the text on the tag itself?

Depends on the use case - how many cards, how much text, what the card can hold, how often you want to update, how easy it is to update either the card or the Arduino, and maybe some other considerations.

  • e) Can I switch off the power supply of arduino an display and still keep the displayed text?

That's going to depend on the display. I'd guess not. Maybe there are displays that can do this.