Adafruit PyPortal US User manual

PyPortal US Election Calendar

Created by Álvaro Figueroa

Last updated on 2021-03-17 01:18:28 PM EDT

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Guide Contents

Guide Contents Overview

Parts

Install CircuitPython

Set up CircuitPython Quick Start! PyPortal Default Files

CircuitPython Libraries

Installing the CircuitPython Library Bundle Example Files

Copying Libraries to Your Board

Example: ImportError Due to Missing Library Library Install on Non-Express Boards Updating CircuitPython Libraries/Examples

PyPortal CircuitPython Setup Code PyPortal with CircuitPython

Location Adafruit IO Time Server CircuitPython Code How It Works PyPortal Constructor

Background

Time API Query and JSON Fetch JSON Traversal

Font

Graphics Text Position Text Color

Build The PyPortal Stand

Prep Sandwich Legs Add Long Screws Screw It All Together Bonus! Penny Roll Weight

Laser Cutter Files for PyPortal Stand Troubleshooting

Problems with the WiFi Problems setting up the county/state PyPortal library on other devices

Overview

Voting is important to make the voice of the people as loud as possible.

But, it is also very complicated to remember all of the involved dates, so much so that you are almost certain to miss a registration date.

To try to make it easier for us with forgetful minds, a community driven effort has been gathering all of the hard to find information and dates, and compiling it on the Electioncal Website (https://adafru.it/M7F).

It's designed to share this information as an iCalendar url, which is super easy to add to your favorite desktop software or to your mobile phone.

But sometimes we need a little visual reminder, and a beautiful way to do it, is with a PyPortal.

We are going to use CircuitPython to connect to the Internet, download and process the data, and then display it in a nice and clean way, so we can always keep the pulse on our Election Calendar.

Parts

Adafruit PyPortal - CircuitPython Powered Internet Display

PyPortal, our easy-to-use IoT device that allows you to create all the things for the “Internet of Things” in minutes. Make custom touch screen interface... Out of Stock

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Stock

Adafruit PyPortal Desktop Stand Enclosure Kit

PyPortal is our easy-to-use IoT device that allows you to create all the things for the “Internet of Things” in minutes. Create little pocket... $9.95 In Stock

Fully Reversible Pink/Purple USB A to micro B Cable - 1m long

This cable is not only super-fashionable, with a woven pink and purple Blinka-like pattern, it's also fully reversible! That's right, you will save seconds a day by... Out of Stock

Add to Cart

Out of

Stock

5V 1A (1000mA) USB port power supply - UL Listed

Need a USB jack for charging or powering a project, but don't want to lug around a computer? This switching supply gives a clean regulated output at up to 1000mA! 110 or 240 input,... $5.95 In Stock

Add to Cart

Install CircuitPython

CircuitPython (https://adafru.it/tB7) is a derivative of MicroPython (https://adafru.it/BeZ) designed to

simplify experimentation and education on low-cost microcontrollers. It makes it easier than ever to get prototyping by requiring no upfront desktop software downloads. Simply copy and edit files on the CIRCUITPY "flash" drive to iterate.

The following instructions will show you how to install CircuitPython. If you've already installed CircuitPython but are looking to update it or reinstall it, the same steps work for that as well!

Set up CircuitPython Quick Start!

Follow this quick step-by-step for super-fast Python power :)

https://adafru.it/Egk

https://adafru.it/HFd

Click the link above to download the latest version of

CircuitPython for the PyPortal.

Download and save it to your desktop (or wherever is handy).

Plug your PyPortal into your computer using a known-good USB cable.

A lot of people end up using charge-only USB cables and it

is very frustrating! So make sure you have a USB cable you

know is good for data sync.

Double-click the Reset button on the top in the middle (magenta arrow) on your board, and you will see the NeoPixel RGB LED (green arrow) turn green. If it turns red, check the USB cable, try another USB port, etc. Note: The little red LED next to the USB connector will pulse red. That's ok!

If double-clicking doesn't work the first time, try again. Sometimes it can take a few tries to get the rhythm right!

https://adafru.it/Egk

https://adafru.it/HFd

You will see a new disk drive appear called PORTALBOOT.

Drag the adafruit-circuitpython-pyportal-<whatever>.uf2 file to PORTALBOOT.

The LED will flash. Then, the PORTALBOOT drive will disappear and a new disk drive called CIRCUITPY will appear.

If you haven't added any code to your board, the only file that will be present is boot_out.txt. This is absolutely normal! It's time for you to add your code.py and get started!

That's it, you're done! :)

PyPortal Default Files

Click below to download a zip of the files that shipped on the PyPortal or PyPortal Pynt.

https://adafru.it/Env

https://adafru.it/HFf

https://adafru.it/Env

https://adafru.it/HFf

CircuitPython Libraries

 As we continue to develop CircuitPython and create new releases, we will stop supporting older releases. Visit https://circuitpython.org/downloads to download the latest version of CircuitPython for your board. You must download the CircuitPython Library Bundle that matches your version of CircuitPython. Please update CircuitPython and then visit https://circuitpython.org/libraries to download the latest Library Bundle.

Each CircuitPython program you run needs to have a lot of information to work. The reason CircuitPython is so simple to use is that most of that information is stored in other files and works in the background. These files are called

libraries

. Some of them are built into CircuitPython. Others are stored on your CIRCUITPY drive in a folder called lib. Part of what makes CircuitPython so awesome is its ability to store code separately from the firmware itself. Storing code separately from the firmware makes it easier to update both the code you write and the libraries you depend.

Your board may ship with a lib folder already, it's in the base directory of the drive. If not, simply create the folder yourself. When you first install CircuitPython, an empty lib directory will be created for you.

CircuitPython libraries work in the same way as regular Python modules so the Python

docs (https://adafru.it/rar) are a great reference for how it all should work. In Python terms, we can place

our library files in the lib directory because its part of the Python path by default.

One downside of this approach of separate libraries is that they are not built in. To use them, one needs to copy them to the CIRCUITPY drive before they can be used. Fortunately, we provide a bundle full of our libraries.

Our bundle and releases also feature optimized versions of the libraries with the .mpy file extension. These files take less space on the drive and have a smaller memory footprint as they are loaded.

Installing the CircuitPython Library Bundle

We're constantly updating and improving our libraries, so we don't (at this time) ship our CircuitPython boards with the full library bundle. Instead, you can find example code in the guides for your board that depends on external libraries. Some of these libraries may be available from us at Adafruit, some may be written by community members!

Either way, as you start to explore CircuitPython, you'll want to know how to get libraries on board.

You can grab the latest Adafruit CircuitPython Bundle release by clicking the button below.

Note: Match up the bundle version with the version of CircuitPython you are running - 3.x library for running any version of CircuitPython 3, 4.x for running any version of CircuitPython 4, etc. If you mix libraries with major CircuitPython versions, you will most likely get errors due to changes in library interfaces possible during major version changes.

https://adafru.it/ENC

If you need another version, you can also visit the bundle release page (https://adafru.it/Ayy) which will let you select exactly what version you're looking for, as well as information about changes.

Either way, download the version that matches your CircuitPython firmware version. If you don't know the version, look at the initial prompt in the CircuitPython REPL, which reports the version. For example, if you're running v4.0.1, download the 4.x library bundle. There's also a py bundle which contains the uncompressed python files, you probably

don't

want that unless you are doing advanced work on

libraries.

After downloading the zip, extract its contents. This is usually done by double clicking on the zip. On Mac OSX, it places the file in the same directory as the zip.

Open the bundle folder. Inside you'll find two information files, and two folders. One folder is the lib bundle, and the other folder is the examples bundle.

https://adafru.it/ENC

Now open the lib folder. When you open the folder, you'll see a large number of mpy files and folders

Example Files

All example files from each library are now included in the bundles, as well as an examples-only bundle. These are included for two main reasons:

Allow for quick testing of devices. Provide an example base of code, that is easily built upon for individualized purposes.

Copying Libraries to Your Board

First you'll want to create a lib folder on your CIRCUITPY drive. Open the drive, right click, choose the option to create a new folder, and call it lib. Then, open the lib folder you extracted from the downloaded zip. Inside you'll find a number of folders and .mpy files. Find the library you'd like to use, and copy it to the lib folder on CIRCUITPY.

This also applies to example files. They are only supplied as raw .py files, so they may need to be converted to .mpy using the mpy-cross utility if you encounter MemoryErrors . This is discussed in the

CircuitPython Essentials Guide (https://adafru.it/CTw). Usage is the same as described above in the

Express Boards section. Note: If you do not place examples in a separate folder, you would remove the examples from the import statement.

 If a library has multiple .mpy files contained in a folder, be sure to copy the entire folder to CIRCUITPY/lib.

Example: ImportError Due to Missing Library

If you choose to load libraries as you need them, you may write up code that tries to use a library you haven't yet loaded. We're going to demonstrate what happens when you try to utilise a library that you don't have loaded on your board, and cover the steps required to resolve the issue.

This demonstration will only return an error if you do not have the required library loaded into the lib folder on your CIRCUITPY drive.

Let's use a modified version of the blinky example.

import board import time import simpleio

led = simpleio.DigitalOut(board.D13)

while True: led.value = True time.sleep(0.5) led.value = False time.sleep(0.5)

Save this file. Nothing happens to your board. Let's check the serial console to see what's going on.

We have an ImportError . It says there is no module named 'simpleio' . That's the one we just included in our code!

Click the link above to download the correct bundle. Extract the lib folder from the downloaded bundle file. Scroll down to find simpleio.mpy. This is the library file we're looking for! Follow the steps above to load an individual library file.

The LED starts blinking again! Let's check the serial console.

No errors! Excellent. You've successfully resolved an ImportError !

If you run into this error in the future, follow along with the steps above and choose the library that matches the one you're missing.

Library Install on Non-Express Boards

If you have a Trinket M0 or Gemma M0, you'll want to follow the same steps in the example above to install libraries as you need them. You don't always need to wait for an ImportError as you probably know

what library you added to your code. Simply open the lib folder you downloaded, find the library you need, and drag it to the lib folder on your CIRCUITPY drive.

You may end up running out of space on your Trinket M0 or Gemma M0 even if you only load libraries as you need them. There are a number of steps you can use to try to resolve this issue. You'll find them in the Troubleshooting page in the Learn guides for your board.

Updating CircuitPython Libraries/Examples

Libraries and examples are updated from time to time, and it's important to update the files you have on your CIRCUITPY drive.

To update a single library or example, follow the same steps above. When you drag the library file to your lib folder, it will ask if you want to replace it. Say yes. That's it!

A new library bundle is released every time there's an update to a library. Updates include things like bug fixes and new features. It's important to check in every so often to see if the libraries you're using have been updated.

PyPortal CircuitPython Setup

To use all the amazing features of your PyPortal with CircuitPython, you must first install a number of libraries. This page covers that process.

At a minimum, the following librarie are required. So grab them and install them into CIRCUITPY/lib directory if you have not already done so:

adafruit_esp32spi - This is the library that gives you internet access via the ESP32 using (you guessed it!) SPI transport. You need this for anything Internet adafruit_requests - This library allows us to perform HTTP requests and get responses back from servers. GET/POST/PUT/PATCH - they're all in here! adafruit_pyportal - This is our friendly wrapper library that does a lot of our projects, displays graphics and text, fetches data from the internet. Nearly all of our projects depend on it! adafruit_touchscreen - a library for reading touches from the resistive touchscreen. Handles all the analog noodling, rotation and calibration for you.

adafruit_io - this library helps connect the PyPortal to our free data logging and viewing service adafruit_display_text - not surprisingly, it displays text on the screen adafruit_bitmap_font - we have fancy font support, and it's easy to make new fonts. This library

reads and parses font files.

neopixel - for controlling the onboard NeoPixel adafruit_sdcard - support for reading/writing data from the onboard SD card slot. adafruit_bus_device - low level support for I2C/SPI

Code PyPortal with CircuitPython

Location

In the code.py file (which you will have renamed from electioncal.py), you can change the location for which you want to display the election data in this lines:

# Change this to your state and county, replacing spaces for underscores and in lowercase STATE="new_york" COUNTY="new_york"

Adafruit IO Time Server

In order to get the precise time, our project will query the Adafruit IO Internet of Things service for the time. Adafruit IO is absolutely free to use, but you'll need to log in with your Adafruit account to use it. If you don't already have an Adafruit login, create one here (https://adafru.it/dAQ).

If you haven't used Adafruit IO before, check out this guide for more info (https://adafru.it/Ef8).

Once you have logged into your account, there are two pieces of information you'll need to place in your secrets.py file: Adafruit IO username , and Adafruit IO key . Head to io.adafruit.com (https://adafru.it/fsU)

and simply click the View AIO Key link on the left hand side of the Adafruit IO page to get this information.

Then, add them to the secrets.py file like this:

secrets = { 'ssid' : 'your_wifi_ssid', 'password' : 'your_wifi_password', 'aio_username' : '_your_aio_username_', 'aio_key' : '_your_big_huge_super_long_aio_key_' }

CircuitPython Code

In the embedded code element below, click on the Download: Project Zip link, and save the .zip archive file to your computer.

Then, decompress the .zip file, it will unpack to a folder named PyPortal_Electioncal_US.

Copy the contents of the PyPortal_Electioncal_US directory to your PyPortal's CIRCUITPY drive, and then be sure to rename the electioncal.py file to code.py so it will automatically run when the PyPortal restarts.

This is what the final contents of the CIRCUITPY drive will look like:

import sys import time import board from adafruit_pyportal import PyPortal cwd = ("/"+__file__).rsplit('/', 1)[0] # the current working directory (where this file is) sys.path.append(cwd) import electioncal_graphics # pylint: disable=wrong-import-position

# Get wifi details and more from a secrets.py file try: from secrets import secrets except ImportError: print("WiFi secrets are kept in secrets.py, please add them there!") raise

# Change this to your state and county, replacing spaces for underscores and in lowercase STATE="new_york" COUNTY="new_york"

DATA_SOURCE = "https://electioncal.us/en/" + STATE +"/" + COUNTY + "/voter.json" DATA_LOCATION = []

# Initialize the pyportal object and let us know what data to fetch and where # to display it pyportal = PyPortal(url=DATA_SOURCE, json_path=DATA_LOCATION, status_neopixel=board.NEOPIXEL, default_bg=0x000000)

gfx = electioncal_graphics.Electioncal_Graphics(pyportal.splash, am_pm=True) display_refresh = None while True: # only query the online time once per hour (and on first run) if (not display_refresh) or (time.monotonic() - display_refresh) > 3600: try: print("Getting time from internet!") pyportal.get_local_time() display_refresh = time.monotonic() except RuntimeError as e: print("Some error occured, retrying! -", e) continue

try: value = pyportal.fetch() #print("Response is", value) gfx.load_data(value) except RuntimeError as e: print("Some error occured, retrying! -", e) continue try: gfx.elections_cycle() except RuntimeError as e: print("Some error ocurred, retrying! -", e) continue

 If you run into any errors, such as "ImportError: no module named `adafruit_display_text.label`" be sure to update your libraries to the latest release bundle!

How It Works

The PyPortal Electioncal US has a few steps it takes to provide you with the information desired. It has a boot-up screen, a nice simple background, and multiple fonts for displaying the election dates.

PyPortal Constructor

When setting up the pyportal constructor, we are providing it with these things:

url to query json_path to traverse and find the key:value pairs we need default_bg default background color

Background

First, it displays a bitmap graphic as the screen's startup background while getting ready to download the Election dates. This is a 320 x 240 pixel RGB 16-bit raster graphic in .bmp format.

Time

Next, the program connects through the WiFi to get the local time via the adafruit.io server, for which we will display today's date at the bottom of the screen, to give you better context of the election dates.

API Query and JSON

At the top of this page, you configured:

DATA_SOURCE = "https://electioncal.us/en/" + STATE +"/" + COUNTY + "/voter.json"

This, with the STATE and COUNTY you defined, will turn into something like (New York County, New York State in this example):

https://electioncal.us/en/new_york/new_york/voter.json

When this query is complete, it returns a JSON file that looks like this:

{ "version": 0, "name": null, "description": null, "dates": [ { "date": "2020-04-28", "name": "Presidential Primary", "original_date": "2020-04-28", "state": "New York", "county": "New York County", "key": "20200428", "type": "election" }, { "state": "New York", "county": "New York County", "name": "Mail voter registration", "type": "reminder", "election_key": "20200623", "subtype": "registration.received_by", "date": "2020-05-26", "postmark_too_late": true, "deadline_date": "2020-06-03", "explanation": "Voter registration must be received by June 3rd." } ] }

Here is the same file beautified with the Firefox browser's built in tools (You can also use online code "beautifiers" such as https://codebeautify.org/jsonviewer (https://adafru.it/Eb5) or

http://jsonviewer.stack.hu (https://adafru.it/Eb6)) :

Fetch

With the PyPortal set up, we can then use pyportal.fetch() and then from the screen object we call

load_data() to load the JSON data to a way that is easy to pass through all the dates.

All of the heavy lifting of parsing that data and displaying it as text or bitmaps is done in the electioncal_graphics.py code.

JSON Traversal

The JSON file is formatted in a way that makes it easy to traverse the hierarchy and parse the data. In it, you'll see keys, such as state , county , name , type and date , and their respective values. So, here are

some key : value pairs we care about:

state: "New York" county: "New York County" name: "Presidential Primary" date: "2020-04-28"

In order to fetch this data from the file, we need to be able to describe their locations in the file hierarchically. This is helpful, for example, in differentiating between the 'name' value that you have in the

Presidential Primary and the 'name' of the Mail voter registration. To avoid name clashing, we rely on JSON traversal.

In the electioncal_graphics.py file, you'll see how this is done. For example, the first date is found in this hierarchy of the JSON file: ["dates"][0]["date"] .

In this case the number 0 is quite important, as it has the sub-tree that is relevant for the first, date, but if you change it to a number such as 1 or 2 , you will print the second and third date. Please note that the counter starts at zero.

Depending of the STATE and COUNTY you configured, you will have several election dates, so the program then tries to replace this number by [i] , so that we can display not one date but many, and cycle

them through the screen.

Font

The data is displayed as text created with bitmapped fonts to overlay on top of the background. The fonts used here are bitmap fonts made from the Arial typeface. You can learn more about converting type in

this guide (https://adafru.it/E7E).

Graphics

Let's have a look at how the electioncal_graphics.py code places the elements on screen. Below, we can see the icon and text that are displayed. The items in quotes are the key names from the JSON file, and their values are what we see displayed using the CircuitPython label from the displayio library.

import time import json import displayio from adafruit_display_text.label import Label from adafruit_bitmap_font import bitmap_font

cwd = ("/"+__file__).rsplit('/', 1)[0] # the current working directory (where this file is)

small_font = cwd+"/fonts/Arial-12.bdf" medium_font = cwd+"/fonts/Arial-16.bdf" large_font = cwd+"/fonts/Arial-Bold-24.bdf"

class OpenWeather_Graphics(displayio.Group): def __init__(self, root_group, *, am_pm=True, celsius=True): super().__init__(max_size=2) self.am_pm = am_pm self.celsius = celsius

root_group.append(self) self._icon_group = displayio.Group(max_size=1) self.append(self._icon_group) self._text_group = displayio.Group(max_size=5) self.append(self._text_group)

self._icon_sprite = None self._icon_file = None self.set_icon(cwd+"/weather_background.bmp")

self.small_font = bitmap_font.load_font(small_font) self.medium_font = bitmap_font.load_font(medium_font) self.large_font = bitmap_font.load_font(large_font) glyphs = b'0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ-,.: ' self.small_font.load_glyphs(glyphs) self.medium_font.load_glyphs(glyphs) self.large_font.load_glyphs(glyphs) self.large_font.load_glyphs(('°',)) # a non-ascii character we need for sure self.city_text = None

self.time_text = Label(self.medium_font, max_glyphs=8) self.time_text.x = 200 self.time_text.y = 12 self.time_text.color = 0xFFFFFF self._text_group.append(self.time_text)

self.temp_text = Label(self.large_font, max_glyphs=6) self.temp_text.x = 200 self.temp_text.y = 195 self.temp_text.color = 0xFFFFFF self._text_group.append(self.temp_text)

self.main_text = Label(self.large_font, max_glyphs=20) self.main_text.x = 10 self.main_text.y = 195 self.main_text.color = 0xFFFFFF self._text_group.append(self.main_text)

self.description_text = Label(self.small_font, max_glyphs=60) self.description_text.x = 10 self.description_text.y = 225 self.description_text.color = 0xFFFFFF self._text_group.append(self.description_text)

def display_weather(self, weather): weather = json.loads(weather)

# set the icon/background weather_icon = weather['weather'][0]['icon'] self.set_icon(cwd+"/icons/"+weather_icon+".bmp")

city_name = weather['name'] + ", " + weather['sys']['country'] print(city_name) if not self.city_text: self.city_text = Label(self.medium_font, text=city_name) self.city_text.x = 10 self.city_text.y = 12 self.city_text.color = 0xFFFFFF self._text_group.append(self.city_text)

self.update_time()

main_text = weather['weather'][0]['main'] print(main_text) self.main_text.text = main_text

temperature = weather['main']['temp'] - 273.15 # its...in kelvin print(temperature) if self.celsius: self.temp_text.text = "%d °C" % temperature else: self.temp_text.text = "%d °F" % ((temperature * 9 / 5) + 32)

description = weather['weather'][0]['description'] description = description[0].upper() + description[1:] print(description) self.description_text.text = description # "thunderstorm with heavy drizzle"

def update_time(self): """Fetch the time.localtime(), parse it out and update the display text""" now = time.localtime() hour = now[3]

minute = now[4] format_str = "%d:%02d" if self.am_pm: if hour >= 12: hour -= 12 format_str = format_str+" PM" else: format_str = format_str+" AM" if hour == 0: hour = 12 time_str = format_str % (hour, minute) print(time_str) self.time_text.text = time_str

def set_icon(self, filename): """The background image to a bitmap file.

:param filename: The filename of the chosen icon

""" print("Set icon to ", filename) if self._icon_group: self._icon_group.pop()

if not filename: return # we're done, no icon desired if self._icon_file: self._icon_file.close() self._icon_file = open(filename, "rb") icon = displayio.OnDiskBitmap(self._icon_file) try: self._icon_sprite = displayio.TileGrid(icon, pixel_shader=displayio.ColorConverter()) except TypeError: self._icon_sprite = displayio.TileGrid(icon, pixel_shader=displayio.ColorConverter(), position=(0,0)) self._icon_group.append(self._icon_sprite)

Text Position

Depending on the design of your background bitmap and the length of the text you're displaying, you may want to reposition the text and caption.

The PyPortal's display is 320 pixels wide and 240 pixels high. In order to refer to those positions on the screen, we use an x/y coordinate system, where x is horizontal and y is vertical.

The origin of this coordinate system is the upper left corner. This means that a pixel placed at the upper left corner would be (0,0) and the lower right corner would be (320, 240).

So, if you wanted to move the subscriber count text to the right and up closer to the top, your code may look like this for that part of the pyportal constructor: text_position=(250, 10)

Text Color

Another way to customize your display is to adjust the color of the text. The line text_color=0xFFFFFF in the constructor shows how. You will need to use the hexadecimal value for any color you want to display.

You can use something like https://htmlcolorcodes.com/ (https://adafru.it/Eb7) to pick your color and then copy the hex value, in this example it would be 0x0ED9EE

Now, we get ready to assemble the case on the next page.

Build The PyPortal Stand

Here's how to assemble the laser cut acrylic stand for the PyPortal. The kit comes with six pieces of acrylic and six nylon screws and nuts.

Prep

First, remove the protective paper from all of the acrylic pieces.

Sandwich

Next, do a dry fit of the three clear piece of acrylic on the back side of the PyPortal to get everything oriented properly.

The two small pieces are used as spacers to allow clearance around some of the larger parts. Lay them onto the board first, as shown.

Then, place the large clear piece on top, making sure to align the hole for the reset and the cutout for the three JST ports.

Complete the sandwich by placing the stack on top of the black front bezel with the hole for the light sensor oriented as shown here.

Legs

Now that the fit and orientation have been established, we'll install the legs.

The two legs are identical. Pick one and slot it into the case back as shown.

Place a nut into the captive slot of the leg and then feed a short screw through from the front of the clear acrylic case back. Fasten the screw (not too tight!) and then repeat for the second leg.

Add Long Screws

To put it all together, we'll use the four long screws to secure the entire acrylic - PyPortal - acrylic - acrylic sandwich!

Run the four long screws from the front to the back, as shown.

Screw It All Together

Finally, add the case back and legs assemblage and then thread on the four nuts to secure it all in place.

Be careful not to over-tighten the screws. Doing so can potentially crack the Pyportal display!

Bonus! Penny Roll Weight

If you'd like to give your PyPortal a bit of extra heft so it won't get pushed around on your desk, you can make a great weight for $0.50. A roll of 50 pennies does the trick! The legs are designed to hold a roll of coins perfectly!

Laser Cutter Files for PyPortal Stand

If you need to replace a piece or just want to make a spare for another PyPortal, here are the vector files for 1/8" (3mm) acrylic, in Adobe Illustrator format:

https://adafru.it/EqN

https://adafru.it/EqO

https://adafru.it/EqN

https://adafru.it/EqO

Troubleshooting

While setting up our PyPortal with this project for Electioncal US, you might run into a bit of trouble. Nothing to worry, all should be easy to solve.

Problems with the WiFi

If something is wrong with the WiFi connection, one way to recognize this problem is by connecting to the REPL Serial Console, where you might find messages like:

Connecting to AP my-access-point Could not connect to internet ('Failed to connect to ssid', b'my-access-point') Retrying in 3 seconds...

Here are some things you might look at to solve this:

Checking the name of the access point and it's password on the secrets.py file Getting closer to the access point if it is far away

Problems setting up the county/state

If the JSON data cannot be found, you will see an error such as:

Error loading JSON data: Please check the configuration of county and state, in code.py

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "code.py", line 60, in

File "code.py", line 57, in

File "electioncal_graphics.py", line 76, in load_data

File "electioncal_graphics.py", line 72, in load_data

ValueError: syntax error in JSON

If this happens:

Check the spelling of the state and county If the name of your state or county has a space, replace it with an underscore _ Remember to lowercase both names

PyPortal library on other devices

The PyPortal is a wonderful device, but it is not the only device that has a screen, such as the larger and smaller versions of the PyPortal such as the PyPortal Titano and the PyPortal Pynt.

Everything in the code should work well, but the laying of the text and background might be a bit off. Nothing to worry here.

Make gradual changes to electioncal_graphics.py in the __init__ section, where x and y are defined for all of the displayed objects.

Adafruit PyPortal US User manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual