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Comment by solarkraft | Hacker News Reader

A friend and I have had somewhat concrete plans for a Linux (Pine64 SOPINE SoM) based e-Ink tablet for a while, but aren't as involved in supply chain stuff. Are the prices you get for orders of new screens in the same ball park as the old Kindle DX display stock? Are my fears that supply will dry up soon (in part due to new popularity) unfounded?

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I've been trying to do some E-Ink stuff lately and prices seem to get higher the bigger you go and then drop off. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places, but my experience is something like:

2.5 inch display - $1

6 inch display - $400

12 inch display: $1200

36 inch display: $1400

Waveshare sells 1 to 13-inch panels for 7 to 540 USD: https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper.htm

Pixel density isn't as good as say a nice Kindle, but they are usable. I've played around with one of their 1.5 inch module

You can buy old 6" e-reader panels for ~22+ USD https://www.ebay.com/b/ed060sc4/bn_7024905630

See https://spritesmods.com/?art=einkdisplay for how to drive them.

Indeed and the biggest one is in fact much cheaper than 540USD (more like 180). The 540 is HDMI based.

Oh the e-reader panels and that link are a godsend. Thank you!

Huh, the display I'm referring to seems to be less well known than I had thought. At the risk of accelerating its popularity gain: I'm talking about the 9.7" ED097OC1, which costs about 30$. (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33007519185.html).

Sure, you can get a few, but can you get them at this price at volume or will the supply instantly dry up? Are these so cheap because it's old stock, someone got their hands on beyond life span production equipment, there's some special licensing deal with E-Ink ... ? If the price was sustainable, wouldn't everyone use this display? Or is this price what OEMs actually pay for E-Ink displays (seems unlikely)?

> Are these so cheap because it's old stock

ED97 Looks like an ancient Vizplex panel. I would guess 2010s timeframe. Probably fine. Newer EPD controllers are still backward compatible I think.

> Or is this price what OEMs actually pay for E-Ink displays

E Ink is a niche market. In the display industry, anything below 2 million displays per quarter would be considered niche. Amazon is likely the only player in this market that can reach that kind of volume. Their volume is not high enough to justify scaling up a real high volume factory. From what I've heard, E Ink repurposes existing LCD production lines.

Where have you seen a 36" screen for $1400

I don't remember exactly which one, but one of the big Chinese wholesalers. Alibaba, DHGate, etc.

FWIW a 6-inch display is available for $100ish, because that's what Kindles use.

Seems you have to roll your own controller hardware though.

I meant that you could just literally buy a kindle (or Kobo etc). They cost way less than $400 and IIRC Kobo is relatively hackable.

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