Show HN: I made my own TRMNL e-ink device

Summary

My obsession with e-ink displays continuesSome time ago, my friend George linked me to TRMNL, a new battery-powered e-ink display with an associated service that generates the images that the display will actually show. It looks really well-made, and I have an irrational attraction to e-ink displays, so naturally I had to pre-order one. Their website is a bit confusing, and doesn’t entirely tell you what the things you’re buying are, which made the purchasing experience somewhat more painful than it needed to be. For example, along with the device, they sell a $20 “developer edition” license which “unlocks their API”. I expected this upgrade to give me API access so I could retrieve the image that’s displayed of my device, but that’s not actually the case, and you need a $50 “virtual device” license for that. Anyway, I did manage to preorder the thing, but it will take a few months to arrive, and if there’s one thing I’m not known for, it’s my patience. Impatience A TRMNL. It's smaller than it looks.Having seen quite a few AliExpress listings in my time, I knew that the screen that TRMNL are using goes for under $50, and that I can get an ESP32 driver board for around $20. I would post links to these components on AliExpress, but they would probably go stale before the ink on your screen is dry, so I’ll post links to the Waveshare website: The display is a Waveshare 800x480 7.5” e-ink (get the black and white version, more colors are much slower) and the driver is a Waveshare ESP32 driver board. With those components, a LiPo battery, a charging board, a bit of designing, and some 3D printing, I could have my own TRMNL for under $80, or, if you factor in my time, around $5,000, which is a bargain. Plus, these would arrive much more quickly than the actual TRMNL, which is still months away, so I ordered and waited. Making the display work This isn’t my first time working with e-ink displays, as I’ve made things like the Timeframe, the Weatherframe (which I never wrote...