LED Backpack With Programmable LED Display

Hi readers, in this instructable I have come up with an amazing project idea to make your normal backpack into an interactive LCD Backpack.

The best part here is you can write custom messages with your phone on the go and display them on the LED screen in real time.

Say that you are walking on a street and want to look cool so write some interesting texts to display on the screen.

In another instance say that you are at a party and want to say something to the people, You can display this on your backpack the choice of using this backpack is totally up to you, but the project is just amazing and the people around you will be just amazed.

How Does the LCD backpack work?

If we are talking about the general part the backpack will display the message that you write on the smartphone.

When it comes to the technical part it uses the concept of IOT, We are using the inexpensive Wi-Fi development board on this project and the control is via a webserver and there is no need for any additional application.

This project is a must-try if you are a student and willing to learn about IoT and its real-life applications.

Well, I know there are a lot of other LCD backpacks in the market but the joy of building something and later using it is another level of fun.

To begin with we will gather the supplies to build this project.

Supplies

ESP8266 board

Jumper wires

Piece of cardboard

Backpack of your choice

Hot glue

Arduino IDE and USB Cable

Step 1: Circuit Diagram

The circuit is very simple and easy and it is totally doable to any beginner.

The LED panel has 5 pins for connection and here we are connecting all of them directly to the Nodemcu pins and here are the connections.

Clk is connected to D5, Cs pin to D8.

Din pin is connected to D7 on the board.

Gnd and Vcc are connect to ground and 3v respectively.

This completes the connection and the circuit for this project.

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I bet you have not seen anywhere such assembly capabilities.

Step 2: Arduino Code

Arduino code I have provided below, Copy and paste that on arduino IDE.

Now select the type of board as Nodemcu and select the proper port number.

In the code, you have to make some changes, head on to the Wi-Fi name section and replace my credential with yours, and repeat the same on the password section too.

Now upload the code to the board and wait for some time, if everything is clear the board will automatically connect to the hotspot of your phone.

Now the circuit is ready for use.

lcd_display.ino
Download

Step 3: Webserver and Messaging

Since we are not using any external application to control the display board it will be easy for everyone to use their phone as a remote to display the message on the LED board.

Follow the simple steps to perform this action.

Connect your nodemcu board to the USB power supply and turn on the hotspot on your phone.

Wait for a few seconds and now you can see your IP being displayed on the LCD panel.

Open chrome browser and type this IP and click on search, You will see a panel where you can enter the messages

Enter the message you want and just click on send, now the message will appear on the LED panel.

You can type the message again by erasing the previous one.

Step 4: Adding LED Panel

I have thought of stitching the LED panel onto the backpack but there are many complexities on this part.

The main one was the material that is used in the backpack, since we have an open board placed inside the bag if the material for sewing the bag contains any conductor materials it may break the circuit in some way.

I wanted everything to be working without any issues so I just placed the panel on the outside of the bag.

I just made a small hole on the front lower side of the backpack and inserted the jumpers and added the panel later.

For the backside part, I used a piece of cardboard that served as a layer between the bag and the backside part of the led board.

Use a sufficient amount of hot glue to keep everything in place and allow the glue to dry completely.

Step 5: Testing

Now we can have the attention of the people as we are now wearing a piece of tech made at home.

This has a very long battery backup and the LED is very sharp to display the messages clearly in the outdoors with normal sunlight.

In the future, I'm planning to upgrade this to an RGB based so that we can display cool animations and other patterns on the backpack and make it more and more interesting.

If you have any questions ask me in the comments and I will assist you.