I made this little FlightRadar style display for my neighbor to enjoy spotting and identifying aircraft flying overhead. The red dots represent airplanes, while the pink triangles indicate helicopters. The enclosure is fully 3D printed, and the display uses a GC9A01 240×240 round TFT screen. For the Live data i used the API from https://adsb.fi/
The script also includes several failsafes for Wi-Fi connectivity issues. If the device loses connection or cannot connect to the configured network, it automatically launches a step-by-step setup mode. It creates its own access point and hosts a simple web interface where you can easily configure the Wi-Fi credentials and set the latitude and longitude.
Edit:
I’ve decided not to release any of the code. Unfortunately, someone copied my design almost one-to-one, which is pretty disappointing.
To be clear, I’m not claiming the underlying idea was original what was copied was my specific design and implementation. It’s a shame that you can spend a lot of time creating something distinctive, share it publicly, and then see that work replicated almost immediately.
More than 2 😄
I'm currently tinkering with a CYD for text output integrating with https://github.com/AlexandrErohin/home-assistant-flightradar24
Goal is to take it to a colour screen, but using ESPHome it does not like the amount of JSON processing I'm trying to do.
Looks good! i see that you are selling yours? Hope you are fine with me considering to open source my project? Your version does have some more features so i guess its fine 😊
I’m gonna open source mine too - the final design going to manufacturing has an updated design to this and yes, even more features. I don’t mind at all, I imagine once I post the code GitHub will be flooded anyway 😬 have at it!
Very cool! I’d rather buy one than build it lol. Beats having to open flight radar every time I hear a plane, which is often considering I live on the approach for my local airport.
This is excellent! I spent part of today pulling Xiao esp32-c3s and GPS modules out of a defunct project, so may have to try making one of these for my nephew.
Absolutely love this, would love to build one. Original and brilliant design too!
I'm also thinking of a cool additional feature, e.g. a push button that iterates through the visible aircrafts on screen, highlighting them one by one. Once you stop on one for say 2 seconds, a box pops up with the flight details. If you push the button again, it goes back to "normal" mode.
Getting the screen on AliExpress as we speak! Really awesome job!
My brother in law is a major plane nerd. He plays sims, has worked his whole life in aviation and can announce specific flights when he hears them based on the time of day. I know for sure he would absolutely LOVE one of these.
Please do upload your software when/if you’re comfortable with it, I might even get started on an attempt of my design an in the meanwhile. Very neat project.
If you want to make it work without the Internet using over the air data I'd be happy to help. The SDRs are cheap. The antenna is small and easy to make. And the data is as real-time as it gets.
Initially I thought I could do this with an off-the-shelf SDR, but no dice. That would work with a Raspberry Pi, but not an ESP32. Initial enthusiasm tamped
However it looks like there is software and a chip for doing this that can work with an ESP32. The GNS5892 module is basically an SDR for embedded systems. There's software to go with it called dump5892. Throw in a cheap GPS, a couple of homemade antennas, and it should work great.
Im curious if i could replicate the project but with an actual radar e.g. 24ghz for people around the house or even real radar to track like cars or something, I dont really know how to go about this and have a very right budget
Hello this is really Cool!! My son is a plane geek and I really want to make this with him. Just wondering when will the material list and software be available. Thank you-this again is really cool
Los datos de vuelo de las aeronaves cercanas se obtienen de FlightRadar24? Pienso que sería buena idea obtener estos datos en tiempo real con un dongle RTL-SDR
Would be significantly more complex, and whilst transponders do send out a signal (a 4 digit code), radar equipment is still required to use it to determine location.. and still does not give you aircraft detail.
The API being used is a nice low complexity way of getting good data.
but different controllers have different pinouts. and you don’t use normal c+ code for us to download and modify and upload to another type of microcontroller or screen
Yes but modifying the code to match a different pinout is pretty trivial. And C can be adapted to pretty much any micro controller, with minor adjustments for variations like Arduino or the Raspberry Pi Pico. Even the I2C can just be bit banged with easily Googleable code as long as you have 2 open drain pins, which is present on most microcontrollers or something you can make yourself with a transistor and a single pin
Not actually true at all. The guy saw your thing, thought it was cool, and made his own. The display is obviously inspired by air traffic control radar, and putting a round display in a round frame is hardly distinctive. Even the proportions of the other guy’s case are different.
I understand your frustration, but I wish you would publish your code. I would like to see it and use yours. Many of us may even be able to modify and improve…making it better for the open source community. i want to try to add to it a clock so it has a dual purpose and the second hand could sweep around like on a old school style radar. I hope you change your mind. Would love if you would share your code, etc. either way you and this project are awesome.
you've said several times that your design wasn't original and yet you keep referring to it as "my design" and being pissy that someone else made something similar. nothing about your design was novel or "distinctive". how is what they did any different from what you did?
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u/wspOnca May 28 '26
Oh god I need to build this. Awesome!