Instructions on setting up a Raspberry Pi Zero WH with a Waveshare ePaper 7.5 Inch HAT.

Shopping list

Waveshare 7.5 inch epaper display HAT 640x384
Raspberry Pi Zero WH (presoldered header)
microSDHC card

Setup the PI

Use Etcher to write the SD card with the Raspbian Stretch Lite image, no need for desktop.

After the image has been written,

Enable SSH

Create a file called ssh in the boot partition of the card.

sudo touch /media/mendhak/boot/ssh

Enable WiFi

Create a file called wpa_supplicant.conf in the boot partition

sudo nano /media/mendhak/boot/wpa_supplicant.conf

with these contents

update_config=1
country=GB

network={
    ssid="yourwifi"
    psk="wifipasswd"
    key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
}

Start the Pi

Connect the Pi to power, let it boot up. In your router devices page, a new connected device should appear. If all goes correctly then the pi should be available with its FQDN even.

ssh [email protected]

Login with the default password of raspberry and change it using passwd

Connect the display

Put the HAT on top of the Pi's GPIO pins.

Connect the ribbon from the epaper display to the extension. To do this you will need to lift the black latch at the back of the connector, insert the ribbon slowly, then push the latch down.

Setup dependencies

supo apt install git ttf-wqy-zenhei ttf-wqy-microhei python3-pip python-imaging libopenjp2-7-dev libjpeg8-dev inkscape
sudo pip3 install spidev RPi.GPIO Pillow  # Pillow took multiple attempts to install as it's always missing dependencies
sudo sed -i s/#dtparam=spi=on/dtparam=spi=on/ /boot/config.txt  #This enables SPI
sudo reboot

Get the BCM2835 driver

wget http://www.airspayce.com/mikem/bcm2835/bcm2835-1.58.tar.gz
sudo tar zxvf bcm2835-1.58.tar.gz
cd bcm2835-1.58/
sudo ./configure
sudo make
sudo make check
sudo make install

Get the WiringPi library

sudo git clone git://git.drogon.net/wiringPi
cd wiringPi
sudo ./build

Get the Python3 libraries

sudo apt-get install 

Start the script

Run ./run.sh which should query OpenWeatherMap and create a png, then display the png on screen.

Waveshare documentation and sample code

Waveshare have a user manual which you can get to from their Wiki

The Waveshare demo repo is here. Assuming all dependencies are installed, these demos should work.

git clone https://github.com/waveshare/e-Paper waveshare-epaper-sample
cd waveshare-epaper-sample

Run the BCM2835 demo

cd ~/waveshare-epaper-sample/7.5inch_e-paper_code/RaspberryPi/bcm2835/
make
sudo ./epd

Run the WiringPI demo

cd ~/waveshare-epaper-sample/7.5inch_e-paper_code/RaspberryPi/wiringpi/
make
sudo ./epd

Run the Python3 demo

cd ~/waveshare-epaper-sample/7.5inch_e-paper_code/RaspberryPi/python3/
sudo python3 main.py