SBB split flap display

Project Summary

In 2025, me and a few friends where able to obtain 6 SBB split flap Displays from the train station Andermatt. Built by Omega Electronics in the early 2000s (yes, the same Omega that makes the expensive watches), these boards were standard in every medium to large sized train station.

The goals of the project to restore the boards to looking new and get them fully operational. We want to be able to control what’s being displayed and also be able to get live data from a actual train station.

05.04.2026 - Test Rig Setup

I have ordered a few Phoenix connectors from -Aliexpress to more easily test the modules. I also got another module from storage, this one with destinations. Now I have a near complete board at home. I connected alle the modules to power and the clackotron via a breadboard and jumper wires.

The clackotron is connected with a long USB cabel to my PC. Now i can make changes to the software and instantly test it. Still missing is a “Bemerkung” module that shows delays and such. We do have those in storage, but the why they are stored makes it pretty hard to quickly get one. This should be enough for most of the testing tho.

26.03.2026 - Multi Module Support Confirmed

I was able to wire two modules using a bread board and some jumper wires. Was able to confirm that the Clackotron is able to control multiple Modules!

22.03.2026 - Addition Modules Acquired

To test that if the controller can control more than one split flap module, I got two more modules from one of our Displays. Here’s me just testing one, I still need to find out how to wire everything up.

Modifying the Clackotron Firmware and Web interface

The default Clackotron 2000 isn’t really suited for our project, since it’s main fuction is to use the modules as a clock. We want to use the Displays as actual departure boards. Since im not a programmer and my friend that kinda is, is stuck doing military service, I decided to try out “vibecoding”. I downloaded Visual Studio and started the one month free Copilot subscription. It took a bit but I was able to get something that seems to work pretty well. I have uploaded the code to my github.

16.03.2026 - PCBs Received & First Test

I’ve received the Clackotron PCBs and was able to test a Module I had taken with me from storage. Take a look!

17.02.2026 - Clackotron 2000 Ordered

We are going to use the awesome Clackotron PCB to control our displays. The PCB was created by mburger82 and cybrox, and are available on there github. We sent there pre made Gerber files to PCB-Way for manufacturing.