RP2040 Desktop Email Inbox Indicator

A desktop email inbox status display based on the Raspberry Pi RP2040 — on the Adafruit Trinkey RP2040 — and two SparkFun Qwiic Alphanumeric Displays.

Requirements

1. An Adafruit Trinkey RP2040 loaded with CircuitPython.
2. Two SparkFun Qwiic Alphanumeric Displays.
3. Two short QT Stemma/Qwiic cables.
4. A USB-A (female) to USB-C (male) adaptor if your computer only has USB-C ports.
5. Your email provider’s IMAP server URL and port number.
6. Your email access credentials.

Hardware Setup

1. On the back of one display, solder the A0 pads to connect them. This will be the left-hand LED as seen from the front.
2. Glue, tape or Blu-tac the two displays together, the soldered on the left, the unsoldered one on the right, as view from the front.
3. Connect the two displays together using a QT Stemma/Qwiic cable and the two closest QT Stemma/Qwiic connectors.
4. Connect the the Trinkey using a QT Stemma/Qwiic cable to the right-hand, unsoldered display.
5. Plug the Trinkey into a USB-A port on your computer. You may need to use an adaptor.

Software Setup

1. Open a terminal on your computer and cd to the directory in which you store your repos.
2. Enter git clone https://github.com/smittytone/pico-imap.
3. Enter cd pico-imap.
4. Enter git submodule update --init.
5. Enter chmod +x install.sh.
6. Optionally, enter ./install.sh to add the code to the Trinkey and copy the host app to your home directory.
   • If you don’t use the script, you will need to copy the files manually.
7. Edit the copied secrets.py file — ie. the one that isn’t in the cloned repo — and add your credentials, etc.
   • On macOS, the ports are typically /dev/cu.usbmodem<something>. The <something> varies based on the USB bus and port used. On Linux, the ports are typically /dev/ttyACM0 and /dev/ttyACM1. For both platforms, the data port will usually be second. On Windows, each serial device is visible as a separate COM port. The ports will often be assigned consecutively, console first, but this is not always the case.
8. Run the host app, eg. python ~/imap.py.
   • You can use python ~/imap.py & to run the code in the background if you prefer.

Copyright and Licence

The source code in this repository is © 2022, Tony Smith (@smittytone). It is released under the terms of the MIT Licence