Digital Picture Frame Controller

hippy

Technical Support
Staff member
Today's project has been adding a PICAXE to a wallwart powered 7" 16:9 digital picture frame to get it to display a different picture every day. In slide mode the slowest rate of change is a minute but having it in static mode and pressing the 'next image' button does what's wanted.

I'm using an 08M with a 32kHz watch crystal to keep track of time which should be accurate enough; +/- 3 hours a year would be tolerable. Button gets pushed at around 3am and it starts timing 9 hours from when turned on then every 24 hours. So to re-sync after power fail, turn off and on at around 6pm. No need for DST/BST adjustments. To test, turn on at 9am, see what happens at 6pm.

Code ( includes circuit ) attached. The 5V supply is pulled from any convenient point on the frame's PCB. Currently it's on breadboard so timing seems way out or there's a bug, but I have had similar working in the past. Will update if things need changing.

Some possibly useful side-bar information for anyone else playing with digital picture frames as it seems fairly generic and this may apply to others ...

Resolution is 480x234 (16:9) and images have to be cropped to that size or a multiple. To get the images to fill the screen they have to be stretched in height to 480x360 (4:3) and saved at that size; this is so-called 'anamorphic'. If a raw 480x360 (4:3) image is used it fills the screen but the image will appear squished.

No manual came with this frame so I'm not sure how that's explained to granny or how she would be expected to deal with it, let alone understand aspect ratios ! In 4:3 mode it puts bars up the side no matter what the image size. Could explain why the seller was flogging it for a quid, thought it was broken or 'rubbish'. This issue seemingly 'afflicts' many 16:9 frames. Not a problem when you understand the issue and could mean some bargains to be found out there.

If hanging on a wall, take note of the LCD viewing angle. Most are designed to sit on a desk so you're looking down on them. If hung on a wall you'll be looking up and the display may be much poorer. You may have to turn the frame, and the images, upside down for a satisfactory result which makes mounting interesting and will also alter the heat flow.
 

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westaust55

Moderator
Great idea there hippy.

I have known that there was a need to cut/trim digital photos to suit these displays but had put up with the relatively fast roll over of the images.
The setting is for 3 minutes on my 7" display which if I go into "Photo" mode is the case.
After a power outage it in fact changes every 4 seconds until put back into "Photo" mode.

Maybe one day (so many projects so little time) I will do something akin to your modification.
 
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