Ma mate Davie runs a chippy doon in Greenock and was fed up writing the daily specials on a chalkboard. "Can ye no make me something fancy?" he says. Challenge accepted.

The Display

Four 32x8 MAX7219 LED matrix modules chained together, giving a 128x8 display. Mounted in a custom-routed MDF housing with a smoked perspex front โ€” looks dead professional. Total cost for the display hardware: aboot ยฃ35.

The Controller

ESP32 microcontroller running the show. It connects tae the chippy's WiFi and pulls the menu text from a wee PHP backend I built. Davie logs in on his phone, types in the specials, hits save, and the board updates within seconds. Magic.

The Backend

Simple PHP/SQLite setup on a cheap shared host. Admin page is password protected. Davie struggled wi' it for about 30 seconds before declaring it "easier than the chalkboard, pal." High praise from Davie.

The scrolling speed, brightness, and message can all be adjusted from the web interface. I added a scheduled mode so it automatically changes the message tae "CLOSED" at night. Davie was absolutely delighted. I got free chips for a month. Everyone wins.