Developers need a nice way to put text on a screen.

Modern tech is using HTTP for everything, our web based Point of Sale app couldn't use a Pole Display until now.

Maybe you want to put the weather on a screen, or put a screen on your kitchen counter for family messages?

Look no further!

Just hook an Intel Edison with wifi up to a pole display and with a little nodejs you've got a REST API on that screen :)

Step 1: Disassemble the Pole Display

For this we just bought a reasonably priced display on amazon because we wanted the cool look and feel.

In version 2 we'll use the sexy VFD display that it comes with, but I didn't have time to get that working for this demo.

Pop the screen apart, you'll see where we want to place our RGB screen from the Grove starter kit.

We are going to run a couple feet of cat5 cable up the pole to extend the cables that the Grove came with.

Step 2: Get the Edison Online and Ready

Start out by putting the board together so we can use the cool arduino pins with the edison.

Then you can plug the screen into any i2c port.

We are going to make use of a few node libraries in our app, express, and cylon.

This is a long step - but here goes:

Download the latest firmware and flash the edison, you can find a guide here https://github.com/mashery/edison-guides/wiki
Download and register/setup the Intel XDK for IOT devices so you can easily push the node code and run it
Get the Edison online with an IP address (wifi) - all of this is in the above wiki page
Grab the code for the edison here: https://github.com/RepairShopr/HTTPole
Optionally use the node client module to send commands to it: https://github.com/blairanderson/httppole
Grab the JS library to send strings/weather to it here: (coming shortly)

Step 3: Final Assembly

Once you have the Edison/Node/Client code all working, it's time to finalize the build!

Strip about 1/4" of bare copper on 4 wires of the cat5 cable from both ends.

Run that cable into the pole.

Stick the copper ends into the cables that the Grove comes with and add hot glue, duct tape, or just tie a knot.

(this is a hackathon btw)

Now you can add some velcro to the screen to place it in the correct area, put the screen back together, and you up with a pretty decent looking display.

Version 2 will hide the edison inside, and use the built in display for a way better finished product.