Split Flap Display
By Andrew Gregory. Posted

Split flap displays: they’re a brilliant bit of retro technology, existing long before LEDs, OLEDs, 7-segment displays, and other modes of showing information. And yet none of those has the same majestic click-clack sound that a split flap display does. Maker Morgan Manley always wanted one of these for his desk, but most split-flap displays are large, loud, and have a load of wires hanging out the back – Morgan wanted something neater. And so he created this: a compact, modular and fully enclosed display.
Advertisement
The desktop computer you've been waiting for: Raspberry Pi 500+
Each module is approximately 40 mm wide and 80mm tall, so the full eight-module device is only 320 mm long in total. The modules fit together with only a four-pin connector between each module, and it’s powered via a USB-C power adapter.

The build is controlled by an ESP32 board in the leftmost module – all the other modules connect to this via I2C. As the drum within each module rotates, the flaps fall and show the character printed on them – each module displays 37 characters. On a technical note, this is wonderful – the fact that it’s modular makes it so easy to think of use cases with fewer modules, and from the evidence of the video Morgan’s made it’s comfortably quiet enough to sit in our office.

Features Editor Andrew trawls the internet for Cool Stuff while keeping the magazine running smoothly.
Subscribe to Raspberry Pi Official Magazine
Save up to 37% off the cover price and get a FREE Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W with a subscription to Raspberry Pi Official Magazine.
More articles

Raspberry Pi 500+ in Raspberry Pi Official Magazine issue 158
We’re quite taken with Raspberry Pi 500+. But when you don’t need all that processing power, and just want a board that will make a plastic skeleton jump around in a terrifying manner, you’ll find Raspberry Pi Pico more than up to the job. There’s more terror in the magazine (which is only right as […]
Read more →

Win one of five Raspberry Pi SSD 1TB
Raspberry Pi prides itself on high quality hardware, and this 1TB Raspberry Pi SSD is no different. You can use it with a standard Raspberry Pi or even in your desktop PC – the choice is yours. We have five to give away and you can enter below Win 1 of 5 Raspberry Pi SSD […]
Read more →

Dual-screen cyberdeck
Twin screens mean you can code on one screen while watching David Bowie’s 1978 Musikladen show on the other.
Read more →
Sign up to the newsletter
Get every issue delivered directly to your inbox and keep up to date with the latest news, offers, events, and more.