Reading a book on an eReader has plenty of benefits, but you do tend to run into one fairly serious hurdle. Almost every eReader available is locked into a proprietary system like Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, or Kobo. This makes it almost impossible to take control of your electronic library. One project, though, aims to provide not just an eReader that’s open-source but also one that’s a self-hostable eBook reading system. It’s by no means an easy project, but an experienced DIY maker should be able to complete it easily.

Building your own eReader from the ground up

The GitLab-hosted project provides details of a proof-of-concept eReader that uses Raspberry Pi hardware. Guyrandy Jean-Gilles, the developer behind the project, focused on the Raspberry Pi because that’s what he had on hand at the time.

When a supply shortage made obtaining Raspberry Pi boards difficult, he also looked at other SBCs like the Pine64-LTS. He ported the project to the Pine64-LTS and plans to support more hardware platforms in the future. Nevertheless, most of the project is designed around the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 (CM4).

Jean-Gilles uses an E Ink display manufactured by Good Display. It includes a front light for reading in dim lighting and a touch screen. The e-paper communicates with the CM4 through the SPI connector. A Texas Instruments TPS61165 drives the front light, while the CM4 controls brightness using PWM.

The GitLab project includes all the fabrication files needed to order the required PCB from PCBWay. You can download schematics, KiCAD files, and bills of materials for the CM4 version of the eReader and a Raspberry Pi HAT version to use alongside the full-sized SBC.

You can have PCBWay manufacture the board for the project, but you’ll still need to assemble the device. Jean-Gilles suggests ordering the PCB preassembled or buying a stencil; as you can see from the BOM, the project requires dozens of various electronic components like capacitors, resistors, and more.

The hardware’s nothing without the software

Of course an eReader isn’t much good without good software to drive it. Jean-Gilles wrote much of the eReader’s software but also incorporated various existing open-source code and libraries. In its current version, the Pi eReader includes MuPDF for managing PDF documents and eReader software from The Open Book project.

Jean-Gilles has also developed the software to work with a remote Calibre server to download books from your own central library. Calibre allows eBook owners to read their eBooks, edit metadata, purchase new titles, and even self-host a web server to act as an eBook library.

A true DIY eReader you can customize to suit your needs

Since the project includes all the schematics and CAD files, as well as the required bill of materials to generate production-ready files to send to PCBWay (or your chosen DIY PCB manufacturer), this is very much a DIY project. You can customize the eReader, assuming you have the engineering and software development skills to do it.

Also, you can design and build your own case for the eBook reader. Jean-Gilles doesn’t include one in the project, but you could easily design your own in KiCAD, OnShape, or any other 3D design software. If you don’t have a 3D printer to print it yourself, PCBWay offers that service, too.

All in all, it’s a neat project for someone who wants to tinker and build their own eBook reader that isn’t locked down to a particular retailer or library.