Main > Raspberry Pi & Dev Board
Raspi3 + Dabs radio
Dal1980:
Hi Guys,
Nice to see there's a Pi section here. This will be useful!
I've been trying to get my head around a concept but ended up falling into a technical bath of confusion and finding a field full of rabbit holes :cry:
Can anyone suggest where I might start my journey (cheat codes to the last level also accepted)...
I'm looking to create a Steepletone (basically a radio in a wooden box) using the raspberry pi (v3), perhaps some kind of dabs expansion thingy (stop me if I'm getting too technical for you), and a touch screen interface. This is still early days for showing anything and I'll be including this in the project announcements (or appropriate place) when I get past the initial concept.
My rough idea is to:
Wooden box with speakers connected either the standard headphone jack on the Pi or utilising left + right channels if an expansion board has this. I'm not sure if I go down the route of buying a DABs USB to plug into the pi or utilise the GPIO connection. If the GPIO connection is the better/cheaper option then I've got the problem that the screen also uses this GPIO interface. I've order a 1:3 expansion board but read some complicated issues with devices sharing this connection and issues arising if they don't support other stuff being connected at the same time.
What I would like would be for the box to allow for playing MP3's (I don't think it matters if I just FTP the MP3's across), playing something like Spotify perhaps (not too important), and the ability to utilise the Dabs device through a front-end program. Ideally some linux based entertainment centre would be great but I know I'm a bit limited on what is available for pi builds (not sure if any of these would be compatible Kodibuntu, GeeXboX, OSMC, etc but failing that I could utilise Attract Mode's front end as I've been messing about with Squirrel layouts anyway... in fact come to think of it, that would make a nice front end! hmmm)
I guess, with me not ever dealing with Dabs tech and anything more than vanilla Pi builds I'm a bit lost and any help would be really appreciated.
Many thanks
Dal
mahuti:
The onboard headphone jack's audio kinda stinks. I often see people suggesting something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/External-Adapter-Headphone-Microphone-Windows/dp/B016CU2PEU/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1484385741&sr=8-7&keywords=raspberry+pi+audio+usb
I can't speak to using the DAB.... but since you mention frontend, I can tell you from experience that Kodi works on RetroPie as I have it set up running an 80s MTV video loop on one of my arcade machines when I'm not using it for games. I don't use the music add ons, but Kodi has a pretty deep list (including Pandora). Not sure how well Pandora would run... I'm guessing fine, but who knows. I did a compile of Kodi on RetroPie, but I think Floob's latest image may have it preinstalled. Compiling it required a bit of research to find all of the stuff I'd need, but somewhere on Kodi's site, I think I ended up finding really simple to follow step-by-step instructions for installing all of the required libs.
http://kodi.wiki/view/Category:Music_add-ons
Sorry I can't help much more than that.
Dal1980:
Thanks mahuti
That all helps!
--- Quote ---I can tell you from experience that Kodi works on the RetroPie as I have it set up running an 80s MTV video loop on one of my arcade machines
--- End quote ---
:D :applaud: That's awesome!
Anyone got any info on DABs modules and if they play well with touch screen GPIO connections. I guess since mahuti mentioned the onboard audio jack being a bit pants I'm hoping that the dabs module provides audio out but this may now even require some kind of sound module which probably also connects to the GPIO. Like I say I've ordered an expansion board that converts the single GPIO (header?) and grants me up to 3 devices... link below to what I bought
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01AENUC3M/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Also for the record, my touch screen device is this one
http://www.waveshare.com/product/mini-pc/raspberry-pi/displays/5inch-hdmi-lcd-b.htm
Cheers
Dal
Hawkeye71:
Can I jump onto the back of this thread with a question about these Pi's?
Probably stupid question but.... why is it they don't need a fan?
mahuti:
They use a very very tiny ARM processor and are very low power consumption. Only about the size of a credit card. You can literally run one off of a AA battery. Mine is overclocked and only averages about 120*. It's basically a low power embeddable device like the guts of a smartphone
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