volumio lcd display free sample

One of the most awaited plugins for Volumio is finall here: the touchscreen plugin. With it you can easily show the gorgeous Volumio UI on any display, included the official Raspberry PI Display, available on our Shop. Let’s see how to easily achieve a fantastic touchscreen for your favourite music player in less than 10 minutes. This tutorial will explain how to connect the Raspberry PI display and enable the Volumio UI with the plugin.

Assuming you’ve already downloaded and flashed Volumio to your Raspberry PI (we suggest to use the newest  Raspberry PI 3), the first step is the wiring:First, let’s attach the ribbon cable going from the Raspberry PI Display to the PI itself. On the Raspberry PI Side, make sure the blue part of the ribbon cable is facing outwards. Your final goal should look like this:

Notoriously, feeding your PI with an adequate Power Supply is mandatory to have a reliable system. That’s especially true when we connect a power-hungry device like the Raspberry PI Display. Luckily, there’s a way to understand if your PSU is good enough: just power on your pi and observe the screen, if you see a coloured square on the top-right side of the screen, it means that power to your PI is not enough. Don’t you see it? Then all is good.

That’s the easy one. Just connect to Volumio’s WebUi as you would usually do, and navigate to the Plugins page from the settings menu. In Miscellanea category, you’ll find the Touchscreen plugin. Just click install, nothing more. PLEASE NOTE: The touchscreen plugin is compatible with volumio version from 2.001 onwards

The installation will last about 7 minutes, so wait patiently until you see “Installation Complete”. Now you can enable or disable the Display output to your likings.

I must admit that altough this display is not particularly brilliant when it comes to resolution and colour accuracy, it looks indeed very nice with Volumio’s UI. Also, usability is very good on the Raspberry PI 3 and the UI runs smoothly also with big libraries… So, folks, enjoy!

If you don’t have a Raspberry PI, or you’re simply looking for alternatives to the Official Raspberry PI Display, there are at least two extra options for you:

The Odroid display is not only a viable alternative, it also have several advantages over its PI counterpart:Since it takes power from USB and video signal from HDMI, it can be used virtually with any Computer with an HDMI output, not just the Odroid or the Raspberry PI.

UPDATE: Lot of time since I published the original article. The Odroid 7” does not seem to work properly with Raspberry PI (not tested with the Odroid). So, if you’re looking for a display for the Raspberry PI, get the official one.

The Waveshare 7” display has become rapidly a widely adopted display, thanks to its cheap price. However this particular touchscreen has shown several reliability issues (altough this seems fixed in latest models, thanks to a firmware update), it requires a particular touchscreen driver which is not always included in major distros and its colour reproduction is not the best.

Here we are folks! Hope you found this article helpful, you can share via comment below how you use your Volumio’s touchscreen setup and if there are other display alternatives!

A python program written for the Raspberry Pi that controls small LCD and OLED screens for music distributions like Volumio, MoodeAudio, and Max2Play.

For LCD character based displays will dynamically generate custom characters to support characters missing from the font table. This feature can also be used to display some graphical content on character-based displays though this is limited by the small amount of memory available for customer characters on HD44780 based displays.

pydPiper now has standard page files for the displays that it supports. If the standard display configurations do not meet your needs, you can create your own. You will need to understand how the pages file system works to accomplish this.

pydPiper displays are configured based upon three key concepts. The first concept is the widget. Widgets are used to draw a particular type of content on onto the screen. There are widgets for displaying text, drawing lines and rectangles, displaying images, or showing a progress bar. The next concept is the canvas. Canvases are collections of widgets where each widget is placed at a particular place within the canvas. You will typically create a set of canvases that are the same size as your display with each canvas dedicated to a particular display purpose (e.g. show artist, display time). The last concept is sequences. A sequence is an ordered list of canvases that are displayed in turn when the sequence is activated. There should be a sequence for each mode that the music player uses (e.g. play, stop). Sequences are controlled through conditional expressions which are boolean logic statements. If the statement evaluates to True, the sequence is activated. If it is false, the sequence remains dormant. In addition, each canvas within a sequence can also have a conditional statement to control whether the canvas gets displayed when its turn within the sequence occurs. Here is a short example.

This simple example will display the artist on the top line and the title on the bottom line of the display if the system is playing a song. If the player is stopped, it will display the current time centered on the display. Full documentation for configuring the display will be found in docs/display.md once I"ve written it.

If you want to have weather data displayed on your system, you will need to request an API key from the Weather Underground service. This service is free for light usage and under normal conditions pydPiper will not exceed the license. Note: even if it did the only negative reprecussion would be that pydPiper would not be able to display the current weather.

There is a provided install script (install.sh) which will finish the installation and start up pydPiper assuming there are no problems. It is a basic shell script with no error correct and has only been tested on Volumio v2 so far.

This software was inspired by the work I had previously done on Raspdac-Display. The basis for most of that code came from Lardconcepts (https://gist.github.com/lardconcepts/4947360).

A great overview of LCD/OLED logic is available on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitachi_HD44780_LCD_controller). While that document is focused on the popular HD44870 LCDs, most of what is describe there applies to the Winstar OLED. There are important differences though. The OLED appears to be much more sensitive to timing issues and requires a different command sequence to reset it back to a known good state upon a warmstart.

Understanding the initialization behavior of the Winstar in 4 bit mode was greatly assisted by PicAxe who currently have a PDF posted which detailed a method to resync with the display. This is described on the last page of http://www.picaxe.com/docs/oled.pdf.

Creating a font system to work on a small pixel display was a challenge. The file format of my fonts was derived from BMFONT by Angelcode (http://www.angelcode.com). Finding good examples of low bitcount fonts was hard. A site dedicated to supporting the Dwarf Fortress game (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Main_Page) was invaluable. It contains many user contributed sprite tables include many different fonts. The characters for BigFont_10x16 though came from WoodUino (http://woodsgood.ca/projects/2015/02/17/big-font-lcd-characters/). This is a very clever font that allows a complete 96 character font to be created that is 16 pixels high while using just the 8 custom characters available on an HD44780 display. A few symbols (repeat, repeat once, random) where inspired by the LCD program of Randy Cupic (https://github.com/RandyCupic/RuneAudioLCD).

Rather than plug your Raspberry Pi into a TV, or connect via SSH (or remote desktop connections via VNC or RDP), you might have opted to purchase a Raspberry Pi touchscreen display.

Straightforward to set up, the touchscreen display has so many possibilities. But if you"ve left yours gathering dust in a drawer, there"s no way you"re going to experience the full benefits of such a useful piece of kit.

The alternative is to get it out of the drawer, hook your touchscreen display to your Raspberry Pi, and reformat the microSD card. It"s time to work on a new project -- one of these ideas should pique your interest.

Let"s start with perhaps the most obvious option. The official Raspberry Pi touchscreen display is seven inches diagonal, making it an ideal size for a photo frame. For the best results, you"ll need a wireless connection (Ethernet cables look unsightly on a mantelpiece) as well as a Raspberry Pi-compatible battery pack.

In the example above, Belkin WeMo switches and a Nest thermostat are manipulated via the Raspberry Pi, touchscreen display, and the InControlHA system with Wemo and Nest plugins. ST:TNG magic comes from an implementation of the Library Computer Access and Retrieval System (LCARS) seen in 1980s/1990s Star Trek. Coder Toby Kurien has developed an LCARS user interface for the Pi that has uses beyond home automation.

Building a carputer has long been the holy grail of technology DIYers, and the Raspberry Pi makes it far more achievable than ever before. But for the carputer to really take shape, it needs a display -- and what better than a touchscreen interface?

Now here is a unique use for the Pi and its touchscreen display. A compact, bench-based tool for controlling hardware on your bench (or kitchen or desk), this is a build with several purposes. It"s designed to help you get your home automation projects off the ground, but also includes support for a webcam to help you record your progress.

The idea here is simple. With just a Raspberry Pi, a webcam, and a touchscreen display -- plus a thermal printer -- you can build a versatile photo booth!

Various projects of this kind have sprung up. While the versions displayed above uses a thermal printer outputting a low-res image, you might prefer to employ a standard color photo printer. The wait will be longer, but the results better!

How about a smart mirror for your Raspberry Pi touchscreen display project? This is basically a mirror that not only shows your reflection, but also useful information. For instance, latest news and weather updates.

Naturally, a larger display would deliver the best results, but if you"re looking to get started with a smart mirror project, or develop your own from scratch, a Raspberry Pi combined with a touchscreen display is an excellent place to start.

Want to pump some banging "toons" out of your Raspberry Pi? We"ve looked at some internet radio projects in the past, but adding in a touchscreen display changes things considerably. For a start, it"s a lot easier to find the station you want to listen to!

This example uses a much smaller Adafruit touchscreen display for the Raspberry Pi. You can get suitable results from any compatible touchscreen, however.

We were impressed by this project over at Hackster.io, but note that there are many alternatives. Often these rely on compact LCD displays rather than the touchscreen solution.

Many home automation systems have been developed for, or ported to, the Raspberry Pi -- enough for their own list. Not all of these feature a touchscreen display, however.

Another great build, and the one we"re finishing on, is a Raspberry Pi-powered tablet computer. The idea is simple: place the Pi, the touchscreen display, and a rechargeable battery pack into a suitable case (more than likely 3D printed). You might opt to change the operating system; Raspbian Jessie with PIXEL (nor the previous desktop) isn"t really suitable as a touch-friendly interface. Happily, there are versions of Android available for the Raspberry Pi.

Suppose the power supply isn’t sufficient for the Pi’s power demands. In that case, the Pi incorporates low-voltage detection circuitry and displays a low power warning icon (yellow lightning bolt) on all attached displays. Insufficient power can cause erratic behavior, including unexplained crashes and corruption of the SD card.

For my own build, I wanted to maximize compatibility and features, including an integrated touch interface and an always-on, ‘now playing’ display. I needed a touchscreen!

The other connection method uses the Pi S2 connector. The S2 port is a display serial interface (DSI) for connecting a liquid crystal display (LCD) panel using a 15-pin ribbon cable. The official 7” Raspberry Pi Touch Display uses the DSI port.

“The Display Serial Interface (DSI) is a specification by the Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) Alliance aimed at reducing the cost of display controllers in a mobile device. It is commonly targeted at LCD and similar display technologies.” – Wikipedia

LCD displays have an optimum viewing angle, so it is advantageous to choose a case that can adjust the display to the proper angle for your application. Most LCDs seem to work best when viewed from slightly above. A 90 degree, straight up and down, vertically mounted display is easy to implement, but you may struggle to read or interact with it.

Please don’t let the number of options below overwhelm you. If you don’t know where to start, just pick Volumio for your network music streamer. It’s beautiful, fully-featured, easily configured, and has excellent documentation.

RoPieee – A Roon Bridge that enables playing audio over a USB DAC and supports most well-known audio HATs. It can use the original 7″ Raspberry Pi touchscreen for display and control purposes. RoPieee also supports RF-based remote controls and has an elaborate update mechanism (saving you the hassle of manually downloading and reflashing the card to update the program).

Volumio – A music server for the Raspberry Pi dedicated to audiophiles based on the Raspbian Pi operating system. Volumio is easy to use, supports all types of files (mp3, FLAC, Alac, Aac, Vorbis, etc.), and works with most DAC HATs and the official Pi touchscreen. Available extensions allow compatibility with DLNA, AirPlay, and Spotify. A subscription-based premium service called “MyVolumio” allows for Tidal and Qobuz support as well.

Volumio is likely the best (and most common) solution for a Pi-based network streamer. It offers an efficient and highly intuitive web control interface and is ideal for getting started. Newbies should start here!

Frankly, RoPieee is not the prettiest option for the touchscreen. Volumio’s fonts and layout are more attractive, but far more complicated. Certainly, Roon itself is much more aesthetically appealing. But, it’s a tradeoff I’m willing to make.

The left half of the Ropieee screen displays album art, while the right side has basic play/pause, previous, next, repeat, random, and volume controls. When no music is playing, RoPieee can default to displaying a digital clock. Simple and useful.

In the meantime, as indicated above, I discovered that a ROPIEEXL/Pi build does everything the Primo does, for far less, and with none of the above issues (and you can get it pre-built from Pi2AES). I don’t use the DAC, but I suspect a comparison of the Volumio DAC to a DAC hat would reveal sub-audible differences. I’m sure some of you want a sleeker black box. At a higher price point, it should come with at least similar software and better support.

I had RPi working with Volumio in the Raspberry 7" display and had it running for two weeks. It then would boot intermittently, and then it died. I took the RPi out of it"s display case, flashed several new good quality microSD cards with Volumio and Moode, but neither would boot. I"d get a solid red light (power), and 8 green light flashes and then nothing. With a little research it appears that 8 green light flashes indicate bad SDRAM. So it seems my RPi is faulty. I"ve tried to communicate with the EBay seller that the RPi he sold me isn"t working, but I"ve heard no reply. Thus, I"m assuming I just have a bad RPi and nothing can be done about it. I"m contemplating buying another RPi, but at $100 I"m hesitating.

Volumio2 introduces the concept of plugins to expand its functionality, and allow an easy sharing of the tweaks and improvements usually generated by the community. We"ve worked hard to create a standardized layout to make it easier to develop any kind of plugin. If you feel that your particular use case is not covered, please open an issue or discussion at the plugins repo:

Those plugins are meant to allow external communication to Volumio. Developing a new one will be useful to add API Rest Capability, or to extend Volumio interoperability with third party apps and controllers. Some examples:

This features could be miscellaneous, such as new online music provider, new radio stream, management of the GPIO (for supported devices), various DSP, display and plenty of other useful things ! The only limitation is your imagination !

A good way to understand how is made a plugin, is to browse /volumio/app/plugins folder and /data/plugins folder. You’ll find inspiration for your own dev !

The plugins.json file stores the status of core (found in /volumio/app/plugins/plugins.json folder) and extra (found in /data/plugins/plugins.json ) plugins.

IMPORTANT : If you create a new plugin MANUALLY, you MUST add a plugin reference to plugins.json files (in /data/plugins/plugins.json). If such reference is not found, volumio will automatically delete your plugin folder.

Adafruit has created a custom kernel package based of off Notro’s awesome framebuffer work, so you can install it over your existing Raspbian (or derivative) images in just a few commands. This tutorial shows you how to install the software, as well as calibrate the touchscreen, show videos, display images such as from your PiCam, and more!

Alternatively, we have tried installing the Graphics driver from LCD wiki page and is provided for Raspberry Pi OS/Raspbian. It also supports Ubuntu and Kali Linux too. Do follow the steps here: www.lcdwiki.com/2.8inch_RPi_Display

Stack the LCD onto Raspberry Pi, before the graphic driver is installed, the Raspberry Pi will output graphic to HDMI port, so you will need a monitor, mouse, and keyboard to access to the terminal.

and connect the other end of the USB cable to the USB port of the LCD; then supply power to Raspberry Pi; after that if the display and touch both are OK,

We"ve sourced a new LCD screen especially for our Pico Display Pack - it"s a lovely, bright 18-bit capable 240x135 pixel IPS display and fits the Pico perfectly. We"ve surrounded it with four tactile buttons so you can easily interface your Pico with your human fingers and an RGB LED that you can use as an indicator, for notifications or just for adding extra rainbows.

Pico Display lets you turn a Pico into a compact user interface device for a bigger project, capable of giving instructions, displaying readouts and even incorporating elaborate nested menus. If you"d rather use your Pico as a standalone device you could make a little rotating slideshow of images, display beautiful graphs from sensor data or build your own Tamagotchi or matchbox sized text adventure game.

The labels on the underside of Pico Display will show you which way round to plug it into your Pico - just match up the USB port with the markings on the board.

Pico Display also works very nicely with CircuitPython and Adafruit"s DisplayIO library - look for the Display Pack ST7789 example in the library bundle to get started!

Pico Display Pack communicates with the LCD display via SPI on pins LCD_CS, LCD_DC, LCD_SCLK, and LCD_MOSI. We also PWM the BL_EN pin (with gamma correction) for full, linear, backlight control. LCD_RESET is tied to the RUN pin on Pico so the LCD will be fully reset whenever Pico is.

Power is supplied through 3V3 meaning that you can use Pico Display Pack both on USB power and from external supplies (from 1.8V to 5.5V) making it ideal for battery powered projects.

For its third generation, the RaspDac Mini is now equipped with a color LCD screen and can now display the covers of your albums as well as the visuals of the web-radios being played. Likewise, the layout of the metadata and the reader status data becomes more readable thanks to a screen resolution that is significantly higher than in previous versions. The functionality as well as the audio performance of the kit remains unchanged.

The new infrared remote included with the RaspDacMini LCD is now the same that we use for our RaspDac EVO. It offers more option for fine control of playback and rendering.

Thanks to the Raspberry Pi 4, the RaspDAC Mini LCD is a real mini-computer with a high fidelity sound card. The installation of the software layer is easy (flash an SD card before inserting it in the integrated card reader).

The front screen is now a color LCD screen with a resolution of 320x240px. The latter is protected by a transparent acrylic surface making it invisible when the device is not switched on.