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Hub75clock_MicroPythonESP

https://github.com/danielmader/Hub75clock_MicroPythonESP/

A simple clock for a 64x32 HUB75 LED matrix display with scheduled NTP sync and Sensirion SHT40 ambient sensor.

Setup

RGB LED matrix 64x32

The display (23,95€) is from WaveShare (and was much cheaper than the similar product from Adafruit):

Here I've found very valuable information about how to use this kind of display:

Power supply

Interestingly enough, the display can be used without power supply, i.e. the small current fed into the HUB75 connector is enough to have the red pixels light up dimly, which is perfect for my use case as a night clock. During daytime, I'll turn on the 5V DC supply using a relay (yet to be implemented).

I'm using a salvaged 12V 1.5A power supply for the HUB75 controller. The required 5V are generated by this handy little DC-DC step-down converter (3.50€) with 10W output (15W max):

I²C temperature and pressure sensor

The sensor (7.95€) came on a convenient break-out board from Adafruit:

Dependencies

This project requires Ben Emmett's Hub75MicroPython library, which is perfectly suitable for a simple MicroPython-only application. Ben was very helpful to optimize his library to maximum performance and provided numerous tips and tricks on how to implement it.

There is still a noticable flicker when the screen objects are changed (and also sporadically when the board is busy), but it is certainly acceptable for an update of the clockface every minute.

The library is expected as a sibling checkout of this repository (the type checkers resolve hub75, matrixdata etc. from there):

Making/
├── Hub75_MicroPython/          # library checkout (src/hub75.py, ...)
└── Hub75clock_MicroPythonESP/  # this project

For deployment, copy the library modules from ../Hub75_MicroPython/src/ alongside the project scripts onto the board (see filelist_ESP-WROOM-32).

Development: linting & type checking

venv setup

The configuration files (pyrightconfig.json, scripts/update-typeshed.sh) expect the venv at .venv with Python 3.11. Set it up with either pip or uv:

## Option A: pip/venv
python3.11 -m venv .venv
.venv/bin/pip install -r requirements.txt

## Option B: uv
uv venv --python 3.11 .venv
uv pip install -r requirements.txt

## Both cases: generate the combined typeshed for ty
./scripts/update-typeshed.sh

requirements.txt contains everything needed:

  • micropython-esp32-stubs — type stubs for machine, network, time.ticks_ms() etc. (pulls in micropython-stdlib-stubs automatically)
  • basedpyright — type checker, same engine as Pylance
  • ty — type checker by Astral (makers of ruff/uv)
  • ruff — linter (import sorting, code style, complexity)
  • mpremote — deployment/REPL tool for MicroPython boards

Running the checkers

.venv/bin/basedpyright src    ## config: pyrightconfig.json
.venv/bin/ty check            ## config: pyproject.toml [tool.ty]
.venv/bin/ruff check src      ## config: pyproject.toml [tool.ruff]

All three must pass without errors.

How stub resolution works (important for troubleshooting)

The MicroPython stubs are installed flat into site-packages (time.pyi, machine.pyi, ...); micropython-stdlib-stubs additionally provides a partial stdlib/ directory (e.g. asyncio with sleep_ms). The checkers find them differently:

  • basedpyright/Pylance: via stubPath and typeshedPath in pyrightconfig.json — both point to .venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages. Adjust these paths when changing the Python version!

  • ty: has no stubPath concept, only a complete replacement typeshed ([tool.ty.environment].typeshed = ".typeshed" in pyproject.toml). scripts/update-typeshed.sh assembles that directory from the installed stubs (stdlib stubs + the top-level stdlib modules missing there, such as time and _thread). Re-run after every stub update:

    .venv/bin/pip install -U micropython-esp32-stubs
./scripts/update-typeshed.sh

Known pitfalls (ty 0.0.65): the generated typeshed must not be named typings/ (ty's implicit stub directory — causes a crash), src must not be listed in extra-paths (it is already the first-party root), and ty does not understand mypy error codes — lines needing suppression for both checkers carry # type: ignore[...] (Pylance) plus # ty: ignore[...] (ty).

VSCode

Recommended extensions: Pylance (or basedpyright) and ty. To make the extensions use the venv-installed checkers, add to the workspace settings (*.code-workspace is gitignored, recreate if needed):

"settings": {
    "python.defaultInterpreterPath": "${workspaceFolder}/.venv/bin/python",
    "ty.importStrategy": "fromEnvironment",
    "basedpyright.importStrategy": "fromEnvironment"
}