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Flaps

This repository contains two methods to create the flaps for the OpenFlap split flap display. Either you can order them as 0.8mm PCB's or you can 3D print them using a multicolor printer.

Flap Generator

The Flap generator is a browser based tool which allows you to quickly generate a character set for the OpenFlap display. You can select a font, size and the desired character set. Additionally you can adjust the scale, width and position of each character. The tool allows you to export and import your project file so you can continue your work at a later time.

A default character set is contained within the defaultFlapSet.json file. This file is loaded by default within the application. The default file contains the following character set:

 ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789€$!?.,:/@#&

By clicking on the Generate Files button, a set of .svg files are generated for each flap. Each flap contains a top and bottom layer. The top layer contain the upper part of the character and the bottom layer contains the lower part of the next character flipped vertically. All files are bundled in a .zip and downloaded to your computer. The .svg files within this .zip folder are meant to be used by gerbolyze to generate the gerber files for the production of the flaps.

A wrapper script flaps_to_pcb.sh is provide witch takes two inputs: the input .zip file generated by the browser based flap generator and the output directory where the gerber files will be stored. The script will extract the .zip file and run gerbolyze on each .svg file. The output gerber files will be stored as a .zip file in the output directory.

In a similar way, the script flaps_to_3d.py takes the same input .zip file and generates a set of .stl files for each flap. The output .stl files are stored in the output directory.

Click the link to use the Flap Generator.

Considerations

When creating a character set, make sure the flaps do not have any part of the character show below a certain distance from the bottom. This is because the bottom of previous flaps are always visible on the display. In the OpenFlap display, it's around 5mm from the bottom of the flap. The default character set uses 8mm to be on the safe side.

ToDo

  • Add support for custom svg glyph upload.

Known Issues

  • It's possible that "holes" in svg paths are "closed" when increasing the thickness of a glyph. This will only become apparent when viewing the gerbers as it does not show up in the generator tool.