Waveshare PhotoPainter (ACeP RP2040) enhanced firmware

PhotoPainter-ACeP-Enhanced is a firmware for the Waveshare PhotoPainter (ACeP RP2040 version) e-paper photo frame. This enhanced version enables automatic slideshow functionality with various operation modes, supporting custom image selection methods.

This project adapts @myevit's PhotoPainter_B firmware (originally designed for the Spectra6 6-color e-paper display) to work with the ACeP version (7-color) of the Waveshare PhotoPainter.

The new version of Mode 3 implements Fisher-Yates shuffle-based randomization, generating truly random image sequences where each image appears exactly once per cycle. Each new cycle generates a completely different random order.

Settings File Format (settings.txt)

Mode=3
TimeInterval=720
CurrentIndex=1
RefreshCycles=0

• Mode: Operation mode (0-3)
• TimeInterval: Time between image changes in minutes
• CurrentIndex: Current position in the image list (automatically updated)
• RefreshCycles stores the refresh cycles of the display. It is purely informational. Do not change unless you need to, e.g. set a value after tinkering with the device.

For additional information about features, operation modes and settings please refer to the original Readme.md of the above project.

State file format (state.txt)

The state.txt file stores the current shuffled permutation. The format consists of two lines:

Line 1: Metadata

• CRC32 of fileList.txt
• Total number of image files
• Current position in shuffle

Line 2: Comma-separated shuffled indices (0 to N-1)

1733624837,161,4
0,5,2,8,1,3,7,4,6,9,...

Image conversion

Image conversion can be done with this Interactive image cropper and converter. It also creates the fileList.txt which is needed for Mode 2 and the new Mode 3 introduced in this firmware.

Firmware upload

The programming method is shown below:

1. Connect the device to a USB port
2. Press RUN, then press BOOT
3. release RUN, then release BOOT

A USB flash drive will pop up on the computer and you can drag the pre-compiled ACeP Enhanced UF2 file into it. The device reboots automatically. Then press the NEXT button.

Recent Updates

• Implemented Fisher-Yates shuffle for Mode 3, generating truly random image sequences with automatic re-shuffling each cycle

License

This project is available under open-source licensing. Feel free to modify and enhance the code for your own use.