WiFi Marquee Scroller

I wanted to build a wireless sign that could be portable, and setup anywhere using any mobile device. Possible uses are for store promotions, yard/flea market sales, tailgating, parties, office use, and public events.

The design is based on an ESP8266 MCU which drives a 8x64 matrix display (basically two 8x32's daisy chained) and scrolls a message that is entered via web browser. To enter the message, you simply browse for the sign's wireless network AP, open a browser to 10.10.10.1 and then type your message into the web form, hit SUBMIT and your message scrolls. The Marquee runs on 5 volts DC @ approx. 2 amps.

At the moment, I could use some help modifying the code to store the submitted message into the ESP8266's flash memory so that if power is cycled, it will read the last stored message and continue scrolling it. Once that milestone is reached, I will mark this project finished.

EDIT: This is now fully complete and now the last entered message is stored in NVRAM so if the sign is power cycled, your last configured message will continue to scroll until changed! Enjoy!

I found a nice acrylic tube and ABS caps to build a sweet looking case for it from parts on Amazon. Here's what I used:

• Caps

• Tube

• Tension Rods

For the ESP8266, I used the Wemos D1 Mini, but any 8266 chip should work. Comments are in the sourcecode on how to wire the display.

In the code, there are TWO versions: one with an AP (to operate as a stand-alone unit) and one without AP using WiFi Manager to set it up on your network so that you can operate it or push messages to it. This is useful if you want to push data, say temperature, and you setup a script to read the temperature and format it into a URL such as: "Temperature: 72F" Would be formatted and pushed as: http://x.x.x.x/msg?msg=Temperature%3A+72F (where "x" is the IP address of your scrolling sign). The uses for this are endless!

Video: