Hackerspaces are not any strangers to reusing obsolete technology, and the Nottingham Hackspace has one in every of those oddities that rarely gets its hands on: a railway departures board. Left idle for over a decade, it was brought back to life by [asjackson]. Originally salvaged around 2012, it remained unused until mid-2024, when [asjackson] decided to reverse engineer it. The board now switches between displaying Discord messages and actual train departures from Nottingham Railway Station every jiffy. The full construction history may be found here blog post.
The technical details are fascinating. Each side of the board incorporates 4480 LEDs driven by two parallel chains. [asjackson] he delved into its innards, decoding circuits, fixing mismatched logic levels, and designing custom circuit boards in KiCAD. The latest version replaces the Wi-Fi with a WizNet W5500 Ethernet module and even integrates the Arduino Uno R4 directly into the board design. In addition to the cool technology, the display connects to MQTT, retrieving real-time train data and Discord messages via scripts connecting APIs and custom Arduino code.
This CD is an actual gem for any hackerspace, especially since it really works now. It was waiting for the exact mixture of ingredients for which hackerspaces exist in the first place: curiosity, perseverance and problem solving. Nottingham Hackspace is home to far more, as we previously wrote in this introductory article. If you do not have room for the real thing, possibly reduce your crosshairs a bit.
Do you might have such a cool statement in your hackerspace or home? Let us know!
