Ganesha Day 7 OLED Animation

ESP8266 · SSD1306 · Ganesh Chaturthi · Free Code

Want Lord Ganesha to come alive on a tiny 0.96" SSD1306 OLED for Ganeshotsav Day 7? This project plays a full 150-frame mono animation loop using Adafruit SSD1306 — perfect for Ganesh Chaturthi desk toys, classroom demos, festival makers, and GIF-to-OLED experiments.

Connection / wiring

Match your board. Wrong SDA/SCL is the #1 blank-screen cause. This repo was generated for ESP8266 NodeMCU.

On ESP8266, call Wire.begin(4, 5) before display.begin() if default I2C pins fail. If the screen stays black, try address 0x3D and read OLED blank screen fixes.

Libraries

1. Arduino IDE → Tools → Manage Libraries
2. Install Adafruit SSD1306
3. Install Adafruit GFX Library
4. Select your board + correct COM port (example: NodeMCU 1.0)

How the player works

All frames are stored as const uint8_t PROGMEM frameN[1024]. In loop() the sketch advances the index on a timer and draws the current bitmap:

void loop() {
  static uint8_t frameIdx = 0;
  static unsigned long lastMs = 0;
  const uint8_t* frames[] = { frame0, frame1, /* ... */ frame149 };
  const uint8_t numFrames = 150;

  if (millis() - lastMs >= 67) {
    lastMs = millis();
    display.clearDisplay();
    display.drawBitmap(0, 0, frames[frameIdx], 128, 64, SSD1306_WHITE);
    display.display();
    frameIdx = (frameIdx + 1) % numFrames;
  }
}

Change 67 to speed up or slow down the Ganesha loop. Smaller = faster FPS (example: 100 ≈ 10 fps, 67 ≈ 15 fps). Full loop ≈ 10 seconds.

Upload & run

1. Open GaneshaDay7 → download ZIP or clone
2. Open code.ino in Arduino IDE
3. Install Adafruit GFX + SSD1306
4. Pick ESP8266 / ESP32 / Mega + COM port
5. Click Upload
6. Watch Serial at 115200 — if you see SSD1306 allocation failed, fix power/wiring/address

Make your own Ganpati animation

Ganesha Day 7 was exported from oledanimationmaker.com:

1. Open the free tool in Chrome/Edge
2. Go to Import → drop a short GIF or video clip of Lord Ganesha / Ganpati
3. Tune FPS / frame count for your board flash
4. Click Get the Code → Adafruit SSD1306 Arduino
5. Paste into IDE (or push to your own GitHub)

Related guides: GIF to OLED, Image to byte array, SSD1306 animation basics, Kalayani song OLED.

Troubleshooting

• Sketch too big — use ESP8266/ESP32 or fewer frames
• Blank OLED — 3.3V on ESP, check SDA/SCL, try 0x3D
• Slow / laggy — keep frame delay ≥ 50–80 ms; solid USB power
• Compile OOM — on ESP8266 set higher flash size in Tools (4MB typical)
• Garbage at end of file — delete stray characters after the last } in code.ino

FAQ

Is the Ganesha OLED code free?

Yes — github.com/itzmeAshish/GaneshaDay7.

Does it play aarti audio?

No — this is a visual OLED animation only. Pair a speaker separately if you need sound.

Can I change the Ganesha clip?

Yes. Import a different GIF/video into OLED Animation Maker and export a new sketch.

What is Day 7?

This sketch is a Ganeshotsav Day 7 Lord Ganesha (Ganpati Bappa / Vinayaka) loop — 150 frames at ~15 fps, about 10 seconds per cycle on a 0.96" SSD1306.

What the Day 7 sketch is made of

itzmeAshish/GaneshaDay7 plays a Ganeshotsav Day 7 visual of Lord Ganesha (Ganpati Bappa / Vinayaka) on a 0.96" SSD1306. The file is code.ino, not main.ino. Inside it: frame0 through frame149, 150 PROGMEM arrays of 1024 bytes, a pointer table, Adafruit SSD1306 at 0x3C, and a loop() that steps every 67 ms. There is no aarti audio, no bell pin, and no scrolling verse. The festival part is the picture loop.

Rename the unzipped folder to code before you compile. The IDE matches the folder to code.ino. A folder that is still called GaneshaDay7 triggers the “sketch name must match” prompt. Do not rename this one to main unless you rename the file too. That main rule belongs to other repos on this site, not to this file.

The header was generated with ESP8266 NodeMCU in mind. setup() talks to Serial at 115200 and stops in a clear way if display.begin() cannot allocate or cannot find the panel. If you see SSD1306 allocation failed, you are still in setup(). The 150 frames never get a chance to draw.

Festival loop timing at 67 ms

150 × 67 ms = 10,050 ms, about 10.1 seconds per cycle at about 15 fps. The page rounds that to a 10 second Ganpati loop. It is the same step the Khayalon Ki Duniya sketch uses, on a longer frame list, so the cycle is a couple of seconds longer than that 8.3 second Hindi loop.

A full frame on a 100 kHz bus takes on the order of 90 ms to clock out. The stock 67 ms test can fire again before that transfer finishes, so a pass may run a little longer than 10 seconds until you raise the clock. Wire.setClock(400000) after Wire.begin() brings the payload down to roughly 25 ms, which makes 15 fps honest. For a festival desk toy, 100 ms is often nicer than chasing 15 fps: every Ganesha bitmap stays readable and the wires can be ordinary dupont leads.

NodeMCU wiring this file expects

Build it on the board the repo names first.

• ESP8266 NodeMCU: VCC to 3.3V (not the 5V pin, even if the module has a regulator), GND to GND, SDA to D2 (GPIO4), SCL to D1 (GPIO5). In the IDE choose NodeMCU 1.0 (ESP-12E) unless your board really is a different module. If the default pins miss, Wire.begin(4, 5) before display.begin().
• ESP32, if you move the same file: 3.3V, SDA GPIO21, SCL GPIO22. Change the board menu to the ESP32 you own. The NodeMCU pin labels on the comment no longer apply.
• Uno pins A4 and A5 are correct for a classic Uno, and 5V is fine on a regulated 0.96" module, but only after the frame count is small enough for 32 KB of flash. This 150-frame file is not that sketch.

Select the COM port that appears when the NodeMCU is plugged in. A port left over from an Uno you used earlier will time out on upload, and the old Ganesha binary (or no binary) stays in the module. That looks like “the animation did not change” even though the IDE compiled the new delay.

Why 150 Ganpati frames miss the Uno

150 × 1024 = 153,600 bytes, about 150 KB of pictures. Uno flash is about 32 KB including the bootloader’s share. The IDE stops at link time. Classic Nano is the same chip family and the same wall. ESP8266 with a 4MB flash size, or any common ESP32, has room for this table plus Adafruit. Mega 2560 can also be large enough if you move SDA and SCL to the Mega’s I2C pins (20 and 21) instead of believing the Uno A4/A5 silk.

Cutting the delay does not cut the binary. If the class only has Unos, open the maker, keep a dozen frames of the Ganesha motion, and export a different sketch. Keep code.ino as published for the NodeMCU build. Deleting frame80 through frame149 in a text editor without rebuilding the pointer list leaves loop() reading addresses that are not bitmaps.

Retiming the loop

The constant sits in if (millis() - lastMs >= 67). Change 67, leave numFrames at 150, upload to the NodeMCU you already selected. The wrap back to frame0 is the whole repeat. There is no “end of Day 7” screen and no audio cue to line up.

A 200 ms step turns the same frames into a 30 second cycle. That is the change to make when you want each picture held long enough for people across a table to see it, or when you are about to film. A 50 ms step rarely looks twice as fast, because display() still has to move 1024 bytes. Measure one return to the opening frame with a watch before you edit the constant a second time.

Filming the 10 second cycle

Record about 15 seconds so the stock pass can finish and the first Ganesha frame can come back. Put the phone close. The 128×64 window should dominate the shot. Room light behind the camera becomes a white bar across the glass and hides the lit pixels.

You should see continuous motion and a clean loop, with no soundtrack from the board. This build does not play aarti. If you add a speaker later, it belongs on its own circuit and its own sketch. A good take of the display has even brightness from left to right. A band that flickers on the right side is usually a loose GND or a long SCL wire, not a frame that was exported half-empty. Half-empty exports look like a stable picture with a missing region, the same on every loop.

Board mismatch and a dark 0.96 inch panel

• Black screen: NodeMCU VCC must be 3.3V. D2 is SDA and D1 is SCL. Swapping them is the mistake that survives three library reinstalls.
• Wrong address: change 0x3C to 0x3D if Serial reports allocation failed. Most Day 7 builds on a generic 0.96" module stay at 0x3C. Both addresses failing means the bus is not there.
• IDE board: compiling for Uno and uploading to NodeMCU, or compiling for ESP32 and uploading to ESP8266, leaves the panel dark because the chip never reaches display.begin(). Choose NodeMCU 1.0 for this repo’s intended board, and the port that shows up on plug-in.
• Not enough flash: Tools → Flash Size → a 4MB entry. A 1MB setting can fail this 150 KB table once the core is linked. Uno cannot be given more flash from that menu.
• Stray characters: if compile errors start at the last line, the download picked up junk after the final brace. The troubleshooting note above still applies. Fix that before you touch the delay.

Day 7 questions before you flash

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