I’ve been wanting to make a 1:220 scale megacity diorama and don’t know what options I have. I’m projecting I’ll need to control the speed of two motors, some LEDs, and maybe a dozen or so tiny screens as digital billboards. It’s the screens I’m worried most about.
I’d like to scavenge digital displays from e-waste, group them by type/resolution, and have a slideshow for each group that rotates throughout the city.
My initial idea was to use digital photo frames, but they’re too big, and used ones are still too expensive for the quantity I need.
I’m assuming I will need multiple controllers(/processors?), but I don’t know enough terminology to find what I need. I’m still thinking out the diorama, so if it’s too hard/expensive I can just do backlit decals, but that’s boring.
The atmega328 and stm32f411 are good. Both are well documented, have boards available with good peripherals, and plenty of other hobbyist projects on them.
The atmega328 is 8-bit. It was made by Atmel, which was a great company until they got bought by Microchip a decade ago. Their IDE sucks now, but you can still program them with other tools and IDEs.
The stm32f411 is 32-bit, a bit more recent, and a bit more expensive. ST microelectronics has great documentation and hobbyist support.
These are microcontrollers, so you’ll be running without an operating system. If you want embedded Linux, you’ll need something with an MMU and more power than a microcontroller.
The atmega328 was a fine option a decade ago, and I still love them, but they aren’t what I’d recommend to someone new. The Pi Pico or an ESP32 make more sense in the current day.
This seems like a project that doesn’t need super high performance nor tight timing requirements (for anything other than driving displays), so I’d recommend considering Circuitpython or Micropython instead of C++.