PiProjector v1.x support

To all the PiProjector owners,
I’ve started a PiProjector v1.3 support topic.
I get a fair amount of emails for support and to avoid replying to similar issues it makes a lot more sense to reply publicly. That way other people can dip in with comments and suggestions.

So, add your questions, concerns, problems, fixes here!

Thanks.

Mick

Hello Mick,

I have alreay posted same question on the other forum thread but I think this forum will be the best to ask this question. I am running OSMC (kodi) on my pi 3 A+ and get your board and built the same projector with yours. But the problem is the projector works perfectly with raspbian OS meanwhile not with OSMC. Guess it is related to I2C interface setup. I have modify config.txt and rc.local on OSMC via SSH but was not able to enable I2C like raspbian config setup. Could tou please advise me how I can solve this??

BTW, you have done great job thanks!!

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Hi Yeonwoo,
Thanks mate.

Sounds like you’ve done all the right things. I haven’t tried OSMC yet, but looks like I’ll need to as a lot of people are using it.

I’ll have some time this week to look into it.

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Mick,

First off, thanks for your board, it works great and your explanations were clear. I tried it on my Pi 3 and the jumpers were too noisy. I used your pi zero board and it works great. I only had a problem with get the Pi Zero correctly orientated with respect to your board. I had it backwards.

Now on to the software, I used Rasbian 9 (stretch) and Kodi 18.0.

Kodi was installed with “apt-get install kodi”
Then the /etc/rc.local files has this line added to it to start kodi “sudo -b -u pi kodi”.

Then, I can just us my cell phone or ipad to drive “kodi”, no keyboard, mouse or remote desktop needed. For my purposes, I just power it up and have Kodi setup to access digital pictures on network driver and randomly play them under the kodi screensaver app. Hence I just power it up and let it run.

Just for an FYI, the preferred OS (at least by me) would be LibreELEC ( https://libreelec.tv/) which has kodi installed or closely coupled to the OS.

Using LibreELECT, these are the variations to your instructions

  1. The config.txt file in a different location.
  2. You enable i2c by editing the config.txt file and not the raspberry configuration app.
  3. the equivalent rc.local file is has a different name and location

However, there is NO i2cset command in LibreELEC so you are NOT able to do these commands

i2cset -y 3 0x1b 0x0c 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x13 i
i2cset -y 3 0x1b 0x0b 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 i

So if anyone knows how to get the “i2cset” feature into LibreELEC, everything should work. The reason for wanting LibreELEC, is that it Kodi users, the LibreELEC configuration is better.

So thanks again.

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Have found solution for pi projector with OSMC.

  1. First install OSMC and set SSH enabled.

Connect to your Pi via ssh and use the following commands:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get install i2c-tools
sudo apt-get install python-smbus

  1. Enable modules

sudo modprobe i2c-bcm2708
sudo modprobe i2c-dev

  1. Enable i2c on the pi

sudo nano /etc/modules

Add the following lines to the file, press ctrl + x and save it:

i2c-bcm2708
i2c-dev

  1. If you are running a recent Raspberry Pi (3.18 kernel or higher) you will also need to update the /boot/config.txt file.

Edit it with:
sudo nano /boot/config.txt

and add the following lines:

dtparam=i2c1=on
dtparam=i2c_arm=on

Then reboot your system:

sudo reboot

And now you have activated i2c on OSMC.

  1. Then do the same with Mick’s guideline, means you need to add lines on /boot/config.txt and also /etc/rc.local.

In my case, screen was scattered first time and I repeat booting several times. The main screen will be back to normal soon.

Good luck!!

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Fantastic work! Thanks for sharing that, mate.

Retro 8mm projector updated to PiProject.

Thanks Mick!!!

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Oh mate! Love it!
When’s the next showing?
:wink: