PandaKnomiDIY – Unofficial DIY Project

⚠️ Please support BTT/BIQU by purchasing the official Panda Knomi.
This project is for educational purposes only. OTA updates and some features may not work like the official product.

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🌟 About the Project

The official Panda Knomi is a compact device that visually displays your printer's status.
It uses an ESP32-WROVER-E (with 16 MB flash memory) and a round TFT LCD display.

I wanted to see if it was possible to run the same firmware on a regular ESP32-WROVER-E module with a compatible TFT round display — and it turns out, it is!

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🧩 Challenges I Encountered

1. ESP32 Flash Size:
   It's not easy to find an ESP32-WROVER-E with 16 MB flash, so I used a 4 MB version.

2. Partition Layout:
   I reverse-engineered the layout by examining the KNOMI (non-Panda) repository.

3. Bootloader:
   Since the bootloader is not open source, I compiled one using the KNOMI source code.

4. GIF File Sizes:
   I optimized the GIFs using a GIF compression tool to keep the image file under ~1.7 MB to fit into the SPIFFS.

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🔧 Parts List

1. ESP32-WROVER-E
   AliExpress Link

2. 1.28" Round TFT LCD Display (240x240, 3.3V RGB)
   AliExpress Link

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📌 Pinout

ESP32-WROVER-E Pin	TFT Display Pin
3.3V	VCC
GND	GND
GPIO 18	SCL
GPIO 23	SDA
GPIO 19	DC
GPIO 5	CS
GPIO 4	RST

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💾 Firmware

You’ll need the official Panda Knomi firmware, as it is closed source.
You can find it in the PandaKnomi GitHub repository – version v1.0.3.1 is recommended.
Other versions have not been tested.

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🔥 Flashing the Firmware

1. Download and install esptool.

2. Place all firmware files (bootloader.bin, partitions.bin, panda_knomi_v1.0.3.1.bin, images.img) into the same folder.

3. Flash the firmware using the following command:

   esptool.py write_flash \
     0x1000 bootloader.bin \
     0x8000 partitions.bin \
     0x10000 panda_knomi_v1.0.3.1.bin \
     0x240000 images.img \
     --flash_size 4MB

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