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mogrinz • last Monday at 9:06 PM • 5 replies • view on HN

This started because I built a full-size Robby the Robot suit and discovered I couldn't actually see out of it (https://youtu.be/gAHd46ErNA8?si=-iOwbobp4trPXdGB)

I bought a $35 backup camera/display to solve that problem, then discovered that the display contained an AMT630A video processor with a surprisingly capable OSD system. That sent me down a rabbit hole of I2C probing, firmware dumping, register tracing, custom graphics, bitmap formats, hidden factory menus, and eventually figuring out how to use an ESP32 to generate a programmable HUD over the live composite video.

I ended up turning what I learned into an Arduino library, which I've released on GitHub. It supports built-in and custom fonts, multiple OSD windows, 16-color bitmaps, palettes, transparency, and animation. It can also be used with composite video sources other than the camera.

The library and code are here: https://github.com/mogrinz/AMT630A You can also install directly from the Arduino IDE Library Manager (search for AMT630A)


Replies

netsharc • today at 5:17 PM

Hah, the video is more exciting than the readme, IMO an image of the robot in the readme would be attention-getting.

Would "rear view mirrors" help navigation in the suit? So 2 extra displays that would give you a view of what's over your shoulder, like on some cars nowadays (for example): https://www.carscoops.com/2022/02/heres-what-you-wanted-to-k...

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theamk • today at 4:46 PM

Neat! Can you add the pictures of your setup? Display, soldered wires, some overlays?

(sorry if they in the video - I generally don't watch the videos before reading the text first)

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Retr0id • today at 4:59 PM

Heads up, your youtube link has a tracking ID in it that is bound to the account/device you shared the link from.

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ls-a • today at 4:10 PM

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