Dummies Mini-Guide to Pi2AES 7" Display Case Build

Why are you planning to drop the pi and/or drop things on it?

 

Lol. I imagine you kid. But it's the screen that is the concern (the pi is safely inside the case , the display is entirely exposed) and it's the insurance against the unplanned things for which I plan.

 

I was only half kidding.

I don't put audio equipment costing hundreds of dollars (or more) in places where things can fall on them.

Considering how large the screen is - the bezels are very large for anyone used to modern phones/tablets - anything that hits it is likely to hit the screen itself and shatter it.

I doubt it's very high grade of mobile-device glass, probably the lowest possible rung.

 

If you every saw what the woman who used to clean our apartment could/would do (dont use her anymore), you may think differently about need to protect the fragile edge of the display from [ahem] accidents that you never imagined could happen. Hence my concern and question a few posts back, comparing it to the screen + pi case I usually use. So, as I have your attention. I'm assuming you own this? Does the bare screen seem fragile or is it stronger than it seems?

 

I am wondering what the interest would be in taking our PI2AES design and adapting it for the PI 400. Functionality would be pretty much the same (likely no parallel I2S), but the connector orientation would be different to accommodate the PI 400. Also need to figure out a simple, low cost case for it. I have started a new thread for this:

https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...pberry-pi-400-pi2aes-board.10165/#post-326120

 

Being kind of bored lately, I decide to drag my pi3 with HifiBerry digi+ out of storage and purge it of Volumio (I had nothing but issues with it and a bunch of bad micro sd cards). I decided to try moOde and it worked flawlessly for all my basic needs, so I ordered a 7" screen and case, and a 502 DAC from @Michael Kelly , with the intention of using it as a source for my SW51+. The 7" screen arrived first and I set it up to supply my 851N with music. Wow this is good, fun, and easy to mess with playlists by the touch screen, or through the local network and my phone, or laptop. I'm really digging this.

The 502DAC arrived yesterday and it didn't have the standoff's and other goodies, but a quick reply and apology explaining he was a man down due to illness by Michael, assured me they would be added to the pi2AES that I ordered a few days after the 502DAC (I need to build a pi4 and pi2AES dedicated to my main system). This stuff is really great high value gear. I cobbled together the 502DAC to the pi3 with a few odds and ends I had... and ugggggh this little bastard is shrill and etched with no bass!!! I decide to let it run all day and night in hopes it would "burn in". This morning still no dice, I can't deal with that kind of sound, no f'ing way. Hmmmm, I remember people mentioning using a dedicated power supply helped. OK before imminent destruction of said DAC, I hunted down an iFi 5V power plug I had... Yessssss the lower end filled out and the shrill top end was much better behaved, thank the stars!!! I can live with this. I had a 5V 3A power supply running the pi3, 7"screen, and DAC, so that probably wasn't doing the DAC any favors.

For roughly $1k this little system of the pi3/ 7" screen/ 502DAC--> SW51+ --> HD600 is a bad ass, highly transportable, community driven, music solution!! As you can see I have enough cables running all over the place, so I really didn't want to add another external DAC to the mix and/or have to drag an extra piece of gear and cables if I wanted to take this setup on the road somewhere.

Shout out to @crazychile for bringing up the Underground 80's radio station, it's so awesome, but like you said, it would be nice in a higher bit rate.

I'm totally blown away by the good stuff that has come out the last few years by people like @Zampotech and @Michael Kelly, and countless others. Not only do they listen to suggestions, seek feedback, they participate as members of the community, and bring high performance high value gear to us all.

 

I wish there was a way to properly recognize and reward @Michael Kelly and @Zampotech for their contributions beyond a golden penis. I know money talks, and I have tried to support them both, but I hope they feel some sort of real gratification from building what they have.

 

I know I certainly do. I appreciate the great comments and I also appreciate the real feedback that you guys give. No punches pulled. That's the way a good community should be, solid feedback,reasonable amounts of respect and fun!

 

Definitely badass. The customization and scalability of components gives each part of this chain longevity. Love it.

 

My Pi2AES arrived a few days ago, but while I was waiting for it to be shipped, I was searching for a different display on the market, since I didn't like the thick bezels on the official Raspberry Pi display. I had no clue whether it'll play nicely with Volumio or moOde, but I ultimately decided to be the guinea pig and ended up getting this:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07S51QDTG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1



For $75 (after using the coupon), it's slightly more expensive than the official one, but you'll have the benefit of mounting the Pi and Pi2AES together directly behind the display, so a separate acrylic case isn't required (the case offers far better protection for the electronics though). The display is also 7" IPS and has a screen resolution of 1024x600, up from 800x480. It claims that it can also handle other resolutions as well, but I prefer the native one. Viewing angles are great too. Color reproduction is decent, but it won't match what you see via the web interface, but I didn't care since I just want it for the touch interface to easily play/stop/skip songs. Oh, it also has screen protector applied for you, but you can take if off if you wish. There are also two low watt speakers attached at the top, but I didn't really care about those.



What I like about this display is that it also came with a flat ribbon cable that connects to the mini-HDMI output to the back of the display, unlike some of the other custom displays on the market where it requires you to plug to the side of it. Now I find this cable to be quite short and I had to be very careful. I find that it was easier to install by attaching the ribbon to the display and port first, then mount the Pi to the display after. You can always use the other included cables if you don't want to use the flat ribbon one. For the touch screen to work, you'll also need to connect the inlcuded USB cable to one of the USB-A ports to the display.



At the same time it can also be powered with the GPIO pins, so I can use their included cable to connect to the headers of the Pi2AES. External power supply isn't needed, but they did included one. Note that the cable is quite short so what I did is that I attached the ground wire first, followed by the other two +5v ones (top 2 pins for the red wires, 3 pin for the black one).



Here are the side profiles with everything mounted.



Now the included mounting brackets to hold up the display make it sit at certain angle, and with the Pi2AES's power port facing down, I couldn't use the included straight-through power adapter for my Mean Well power supply, since there isn't enough clearance at the bottom. I ended up getting a right-angle adapter, but even with that one the adapter was touching the surface before the mounting brackets can. Luckily I found some rubber feet off of this old keyboard and I attached to the legs. You can see that space of the adapter and the surface is extremely close. I mean, you could rotate the entire Pi/Pi2AES 180 degrees and have it facing up, but that means the ribbon cables would be too short to reach the HDMI port, but this shouldn't be an issue if using the non-ribbon route.




After doing all of that I can finally attach the entire unit to the rest of my chain.


Now setting up the display for Volumio is exactly the same as the steps mentioned by purr1n's 4th post and after. The user interface is similar to the one shown on purr1n's screenshot, but with the extrace horizontal space due to the larger 1024x600 resolution, you'll see a left sidebar, the same sidebar you would normally see when accessing it from the web. I wish I have some pics of it up and running for Volumio, but the OS was giving me headaches and I ended up going with the moOde route. I do love Volumio's user interface, but moOde v7.0.0 (a little buggy still) recently added some new options that I can use to tailor the interface to my tastes.

Setting up for moOde is also simple and it's just toggling the switch in the System options area. The only extra step you'll need to do for both the operating systems is to configure the /boot/config.txt (or userconfig.txt if you're using Volumio) file to use the 1024x600 native resolution. Here is a snippet of the file:

Code:

hdmi_group=2
hdmi_drive=2
hdmi_mode=87
hdmi_cvt=1024 600 60 6 0 0 0
hdmi_force_edid_audio=1

As an added bonus of finalizing my setup, I wanted moOde to auto-shuffle my local MP3 and FLAC files (over SMB) and queue up at least 15 tracks to the list. Usually the interface displays at most 2 tracks, but I wanted 15. To do this, using SSH, edit file /var/www/inc/playerlib.php, and then search for the line (around line 2581 for the v7.0.0 release) that contains the --queue-buffer parameter. Change it from 1 to 14 and you're good to go.

So yea hopefully this post will help out for those who are also searching for a different display instead of using the official one, and the issues I encountered with when going through this route.

Pi2AES is totally worth it. I've been exclusively playing my music through this instead of my laptop. Now normally I don't use EQ, but when I have it enabled on my laptop with an EQ'ed bass boost, it just made my tracks all muddy and hot mess, but the Pi2AES handled it flawlessly.

 

The coupon code "SBAF" is back! Choose any case (even the 7") and it's free, just pay shipping. 2021 will be awesome.

 

Dangit- now I am going to want to build the display case version.

 

Today's PSA:

This is a crop of Steve's completed build of this...

In the shadows near the top of frame you'll notice Steve forgot step #1 after unboxing his RPi4: Attach the supplied Heat Sinks to the usually hot running Raspberry Pi 4's heat producing ICs before assembly.

Steve feels like a ding-dong. DON'T BE LIKE STEVE!



(p.s. Yes, I know I can go in from the bottom. Removing the bottom plate and stand-off. Doing that right now. )

 

I have no experience with rasberry pi, and am not as tech-savvy as I'd like to be so I apologize for what may be stupid questions. I'm stuck at the volumio touchscreen plugin step. I hope someone can help. 1. I have never used volumio, so I just paid and have an account now. 2. I'm doing this at my office where I have ethernet as well as a wifi network.

My rpi4 and pi2aes hat are assembled and powered up. The SD card with volumio was installed and when I boot up I see the screen set forth in the instructions ("Volumio login:").

However, I don't understand how to get to volumio.local/playback on my desktop (plugged into the ethernet network) or laptop (I have a windows laptop with an ethernet port which is what I tried, but I also have a Mac laptop with no ethernet port and no adapter so I can only use it with wifi) so that I can go into settings and install the touchscreen plugin.

What is my next step and what should be plugged into what in terms of the ethernet connections?

 

I don't know what I did wrong or right, but I finally got it working. Sounds great. I think I can already claim a clear step up from my Mac airbook after two songs. I will report back after extended listening.

 

Production update:

PI2AES will be back in stock by the middle of April. All parts have been shipped to the assembly house and a build of 250 units is underway. Ordering is now enabled, but with a 4-6 week delivery time. Please plan accordingly.

 

Has anyone added a display recently? I tried adding the touchscreen plugin but it fails on both my Volumio boxes. Tried installing the plugin via SSH (per instruction on Volumio forum) but that failed as well. No useful error messages

 

Apparently it was the version of Volumio I was using. Updated to the latest and display is good. Now...what new unknown shitty bugs does this release hold in store lol?

 

Volumio 3 was released December 7 after a long public beta, but already there have been two updates for bug fixes.

Worse was a Roon update in the past week that hosed the local database of some users.

 

Does anyone know if Ropiee can be forced to use a non-official Rpi display? Or if HQplayer can use a display?

I have one of these displays on my work Moode setup, and I wanted to bring it home for use on a custom display/case I'm planning to put together. I currently use Ropiee/Roon, and am playing with @Woland 's HQplayer on Rpi4 (which may displace Ropiee on this rig).