In our drawers, there will be many old equipment that we have forgotten. Maybe we should let them work for us. [jonatron] found a simple touch screen of nook in the drawer – with its e-ink screen, wireless connection and feasible Android version, this 2011 e-reader has the courage to display at any time. Sadly, the soft touch cover on the back breaks down into a sticky thing. Like soft touch, the lithium-ion battery runs out of power and the software support is poor. These two situations can happen on many tablets, which is why we are glad [Jonathan] shared his story about the revival of this e-reader.
The back cover of the tablet in question was removed, and the battery cable was connected to the USB cable to supply power. The soft touch layer on the back did not disappear with the help of alcohol, but fortunately, there was an acetone bottle nearby, and acetone detergent helped remove the unpleasant viscosity. Facts have proved that the charging circuit of the tablet is not complicated – the tablet cannot be started from the microusb input, and [jonathan] connects the 5-volt voltage directly to the battery input through the USB cable. Please note that this may not be recommended, because the voltage range of lithium-ion battery is 3 V to 4.2 V, and a regulator is required, but [jonaton] said that it works well.
Usually, you can install a web server on your local network to provide useful information for the page and add code to refresh the page regularly – but nook’s browser does not support automatic refresh. Constantly, [Jonathan] wrote an application for nook’s Android installation; Rooting is necessary, but it is progressing smoothly. Android installation is very old, and Android studio can no longer be downloaded, so he uses an old development kit, which can still be downloaded online somehow. There is also a small web server written in Python running on a standby pi to prepare the application for data acquisition. Following the best tradition of hackers, applications and servers are open source! With the help of a 3D printing stand, this tablet can now display the train timetable – a perfect application for old e-readers like this.
Is there a corner in the drawer? Now you know you can easily convert it into a hacker e-ink display! We have seen many tablet computers repaired before, including replacing charger IC and EMMC drive, turning them into videophones, chatting with our relatives and smart home controllers, and even repairing databases to help you repair. In our last hackday prize, we have received many similar projects. Please crack them back. We hope to see more such reconstruction in our wildcard round!