This will be a super long read so to those who get to the bottom then thank you!

Over the past month I have been working on this design and I now feel like it’s in a position where I can share how it was built, firstly I want to say that this is not a tutorial, there are a couple of things with the design that work ok after some tweaks but could be redesigned to work right after printing, therefore I want to treat this as a “how it was built” vs “how to build” post.

Exact specifications of the camera are as follows:

Case size: 100mm x 100mm x 100mm
Battery: 10,000mAh Mophie Powerstation
Camera module: Arducam IMX477 HQ
Mount: C/CS
Power output: 5V USB-C
Buttons: Sleep/Shutdown, FPS, ISO, W/B
Mainboard: Raspberry Pi 5 - 4GB RAM
Storage: 16GB SanDisk Micro SD
Ext Storage: Over 100mbps USB3.0 drive
Display: Waveshare 4” 720x720 HDMI
Battery life: Approx 8-9hrs idle - 5-6hrs Rec
Tilt sensor: MPU6050 accelerometer
Cooling: Raspberry Pi 5 Active Cooler

General design:
All parts were modelled in Autodesk Fusion with parts I mostly had on hand, I had to take extra care in adding ventilation to the correct places as I found the plastic to warp slightly if it got above 60 degrees, with the active cooler it now sits at no higher than 50-55 which is just on the limit but I haven’t encountered any issues so far. The battery sits on a “shelf” that is connected to the left side panel for easy access if disassembly is needed, a small cutout for the flat USB-C cable was also made so it also firmly holds the cable in place when removing or reinserting it. All side panels were made with a -1mm tolerance again for easier access when removing and M2 threaded heat inserts were used for all screws except the camera module. The Pi 5 and displays motherboard sit on another shelf at the bottom of the case which should allow for I2C usage for the screen (I couldn’t get mine to work for some reason but the pins align perfectly so I believe my unit may be defective for I2C), this allows for a cleaner design and lets the Pi sit higher for better cooling and IO access.

Assembly:
After all parts were printed, I installed M2 threaded heat inserts into the mounting points for the front, left, right and rear panels, also adding an additional 4 inserts for the display board and Pi 5 to screw into the case. The order of assembly was preparing the panels with their correct components such as for the front panel, screwing in the camera module and soldering the Dupont wires to the 3.3V Filament LED and press fitting it into the cutout at the top. I added a small drop of superglue to the wires to prevent them from pulling on the LED just in case. There is room to store any excess cable underneath the shelf that the Pi is mounted to so nothing should pinch against the case, I also made sure to connect both the USB-C power cable and HDMI to Micro HDMI adapter to the Pi (the adapter comes with the waveshare display and also fits perfectly as you can use the standoffs from the screen) and attached the displays USB-C power cable and routed it under the shelf at the bottom. The front panel was then able to be mounted using the 4 M2 screws.

I then moved to the rear panel as I needed as much access as possible for the GPIO pins so I left the side panels and display till last, I attached the 4 buttons and the USB-C output to the rear panel, for easier assembly I used a 60mm x 10mm magnet and attached all ground wires to it leaving one Dupont cable ground wire for the GPIO to prevent having too many cables in the system, all other cables were then routed to their correct GPIO pins, the USB-C output jack simply uses the 5V and any GND GPIO pin. Just for fun I also added a small vibration motor from an Xbox controller trigger to create a small haptic when a button is pressed or when a USB drive is inserted but this does need to be mounted to a part of the case and not a side panel. I then routed the cables as neat as possible in front of the GPIO (Making sure no wires come into contact with the active coolers fan) and mounted the panel to the case exactly the same as the front panel.

I then moved onto installing the display, out of the box the display and driver board are attached with very strong adhesive, I removed this from my unit so they were separate as it now sits under the pi, this is an EXTREMELY difficult task and I advise to take extra caution if you are to try this as you do run the risk of destroying the screen, the display also doesn’t use the typical DSI ribbon cable that connects to the pi, so you will need a 51-pin extension cable with a 0.3mm pitch followed by an adapter to reattach it to the screen. The extension cable can be routed again under the display board through the shelf so it comes out of the front of the unit and behind the camera module. For easier assembly I attached the extension cable to the driver board and then left the adapter attached to the screen. I then peeled the adhesive backing off and seated the screen into the top of the unit making sure to attach the cables in their correct orientation.

The left side panel was now ready to be installed making sure to insert the 90 degree USB ribbon cable from the display board into the lower USB2.0 Port on the Pi and flat USB-C cable from the Pi through the hole on the side of the battery shelf, this way the battery can be installed from the right side ensuring a snug fit once assembled, I left a very short amount of cable before sliding the battery in to make sure it had a cleaner look. (When sliding in the panel I had to make sure not to snag any cables including the display ribbon cable, I went through the right side of the unit to lift the display cable above the battery so it wouldn’t pull on them when it was slid into place. (I printed a small cover as seen on the left side of the unit to cover the USB plug for the screen)

Finally the right side panel needed to be prepared, this has a cutout for an extension button that connects to the Pi’s power button, this is where my design was slightly flawed, under load the Pi will sit at anywhere from 50-55 degrees, so as I printed my parts with PLA, I started to see the button warping and no longer making contact, I chose to print the button from ABS although I could have tweaked the design to make the button baseplate thicker as it is quite thin, however I haven’t seen any warping since using a different material. Since the button pivots up towards the Pi’s button, there is a small plastic block that holds the button in place at the very top of the button baseplate, this was mounted in the centre but again the button did not work correctly, since moving the block it works perfect every time.

Software:
The system runs ApertarOS which allows for easy external button management and also rotary encoders if you want to add any other accessories, it also features a Web GUI, WiFi management, multiple camera module support including IMX477, IMX585, IMX294 etc… and a magnitude of other features, to see everything related to the software check out their GitHub page as there has been so much development and time spent on making the software what it is now. There is great support for it too, any issues I encountered during setup or making adjustments were always solved by the community. The software is also updated fairly frequently to bring even more new features and bug fixes runs very smoothly on a 4GB Pi, Apertar do say you can potentially use a 2GB Pi but this is best used as a photo only camera.

https://github.com/Apertar-Studio

I made some tweaks to the software to map the buttons to their correct functions and GPIO pins, added a custom splash screen for the logo of my camera on startup and shutdown and also added the cameras name in the metadata of the images.

As mentioned above, there is a small vibration motor attached to the unit, this was made as a separate service on the Pi to detect button presses and emits a small 130ms pulse when a button is pressed, holding the ISO button for 2 seconds will send it back to “Auto” and subsequently the vibration motor will emit a 230ms pulse to indicate it is complete. When inserting a USB drive into the Pi again the motor will emit 2 400ms pulses. (Of course during recording the motor is disabled to prevent any frame shakes)

The status light also has a few functions such as blinking during recording and turning on and off when pressing the power button at the back. I removed the blinking during photo capture as it made no sense to have it anymore.

The power button at the back runs on a separate script, pressing once will make the display go into a “sleep mode” and pressing again will wake it up, as mentioned above the LED also turns on and off with the display, pressing and holding for 3 seconds will perform a safe shutdown on the Pi.

The supported resolutions for the IMX477 are 1332x990, 2028x1080 and 2028x1520, this is a limitation of that certain module, the IMX585 and IMX294 are both to my knowledge capable of 4K output. In 1332x990 and 2028x1080 modes you can select from 24,25,30,50 and 60 FPS however in 2028x1520 you can only select 24,25 and 30 FPS, again better modules will support higher framerates.

You also get the option to take still images as RAW DNG, PNG, TIFF, JPEG or to add a RAW DNG to any other file type. Video mode records in cDNG stills which can be compiled and edited through Davinci Resolve.

The camera also supports input and output devices although I have not tested them yet, I believe on my camera they will work through the USB3.0 ports.

As a final touch I added button labels to the back of the unit and a serial plate to the side with the Pi information, mount type, build date and revision number, then installed the Smallrig cheese plate to the bottom of the case, this is attached by 2 1/4-20 screws.

Again I would like to say I don’t class this as a tutorial but rather how I built it, if you decide to build one for yourself please DM me and I will be more than happy to send over the STEP files but please keep in mind that I have made some changes to the parts post printing so there are some things that may fit different or need tweaking. Also if I have missed out anything in this post please ask away in the comments and thank you for the positive feedback from my previous two builds! I will add pictures from the camera in the comments soon.

For a long time, about 1,150 scanned family photos sat on my NAS in a folder called “scans.” Nobody looked at them. I rescued all these pictures and then buried them somewhere even harder to reach. So I built a frame.

Hardware

• Raspberry Pi 5 (4 GB) with an Active Cooler
• The 10.1" Raspberry Pi Touch Display 2, rotated to landscape
• A 3D-printed frame and stand, designed in OpenSCAD

I started with a Pi 4. The 10" display needs a four-lane display connector, and only the Pi 5 has one. I learned this while holding the ribbon cable. Off to Micro Center.

Software

A small Python server reads the photos from the NAS over SMB and resizes each one to the screen. Chromium shows them full screen.

• A new photo every 15 seconds, shuffled, with a crossfade
• The time and date in the corner
• Portrait shots sit on a blurred copy of themselves instead of black bars
• The names of the people in each photo, pulled from Immich face recognition running on another Pi.
• The backlight turns off at 10 PM and back on at 7 AM. The Pi stays on, so no smart plug is pulling the power and corrupting the SD card.

Things that bit me

• NAS permissions. My Buffalo LinkStation gave the frame’s account read access, but the account’s group was set to no access, and the group wins. The NAS accepted the login and then refused to open the folder.
• Dual-color filament. The frame is 263 mm wide and my bed is 256, so the bezel prints in two halves. I used Inland Wood Rainbow, a two-color filament. It lays its colors on fixed sides of the nozzle, so the mirror-image halves came out in opposite colors. Turning one half 180° on the plate should fix it. I gave up and reprinted in glow-in-the-dark PLA with a gold “Hall” inlay. Now at 10 PM the screen goes dark and the frame starts glowing. That was not the plan. I’m taking credit for it anyway.
• The schedule quietly stopped working. An update copied an empty file over the script that switches the screen. The installer now refuses to run if any file is empty.

The frame

It’s two bezel halves joined with pins and glue. The back cover screws across the seam to stiffen it and hides the Pi and the cables. A leg holds it at a recline. None of the parts needs supports.

The photos finally made it out of the folder. All the dirty details are written up here:
https://wesleyhalldigital.com/photo-frame/

Headless Pi Zero 2 W connects to my phone hotspot maybe twice, then stops. Nothing I change makes it consistent.

Setup: Raspberry Pi OS Lite 64-bit, flashed with Imager v2.0.12, WiFi and SSH configured in the customisation dialog. Hotspot is a Pixel, WPA2, confirmed broadcasting 2.4 GHz on channel 11 (checked with netsh on a laptop). Although pixel doswnt allow me to choose 2.4GHz but only 2.4 and 5 GHz dualband

Symptom: It connects fine two times in a row, then after a replug the hotspot shows 0 connected devices. Often the green LED flickers briefly then goes solid and stays that way.

Already tested and ruled out:

Two different SD cards (one Hama 64 GB, one SanDisk Ultra 256 GB). The Hama passed H2testw write+verify with no errors.

Two different Pi Zero 2 W boards, one used, one brand new. Identical behaviour.

Two different micro USB cables, 5V 3A capable charger.

Verified the SSID and password in network-config on the card match the hotspot exactly.

No monitor or mini-HDMI adapter available.

Is there anything that explatins "works twice, then stops" across two boards and two cards?

Hey everyone,

I’ve been working on a native Linux driver for the Brother DCP-150C. The goal is to use this old USB printer as a network printer through a Raspberry Pi, with a local web dashboard.

It’s still an early preview: device status and ink readings work on the real printer, but physical printing has not yet been validated.

The project currently includes:
- Print-data conversion that runs natively on ARM without x86 emulation.
- CUPS integration for sharing the printer over the local network.
- A web dashboard showing device status, print jobs and cartridge levels, with English and German language support.

One interesting detail was getting the ink readings working. The printer takes almost eight seconds to respond to each request, and cartridge levels and device status require separate queries. The ink percentages in the screenshot represent the printer’s reported level bands.

Generated print data has also been compared against the original driver’s output. Testing actual printed pages is still outstanding, so I’m sharing this as a work in progress.

This project was developed with substantial assistance from Claude and OpenAI Codex.
GitHub repository

Does anyone here still use a DCP-150C? I’d be interested in hearing how you’re keeping yours running, especially with a Raspberry Pi or another ARM device. Technical feedback is welcome too!

I have over 20 unfinished projects on codex so decided to make something I actually need. I have had some Bluetooth speakers I found under me and my partners bed for a while now that we cast YouTube sleep sounds too. We go to bed and wake ui at different times. I go to bed early so don't bother pairing mine because then she has to repair hers and I wake earlier and have to disconnect it. So I realized I could use my old raspberry pi 3b and put a sleep sound app on it and make a remote apk. I put it on github. Last minute last night I had it update one of the themes components and haven't went back to fix it. Looked a lot less like it's a website made in the 90's. I need to clean up some of the screens. I went overboard like usual and started adding everything too it. I made it one apk that can be the player or remote. Currently it is tested and working so with wired and Bluetooth speakers. I was having stuttering issues but, tested tonight 6 hours so far no stutters. Also, it has a output helper and can output to multiple Bluetooth speakers at once. Not yet integrated into ui. Has normalize, compressor, limiter. Supports profiles, favorites, ratings, tags and comments. UI support desktop and mobile browsers. You can upload from your remote app. If you upload image and audio together it will add that image as the thumbnail. I added this feature because Parabolic YouTube Downloader includes downloads the thumbnail too. I added controller support, and went down a rabbit hole with that, it needs some work. But can assign buttons. I have a lot of features coming eventually. Customizable multi output, sleep sound studio with different noise generators, sounds/tracks with option to go to different speakers, network app sync integrated with the studio outputs, might integrate YouTube Downloader into it. Open source with anyone can use personally license. If you have a Google box you can find Bluetooth speakers all over the place at thrift stores.

https://github.com/JeremiahFD/Bluetooth-Sleep-Sounds

Most official retailers (PiShop, CanaKit, etc.) either show out stock or discontinued.

Banging my head against this...I have a project where I've connected 5 servos using the Adafruit PCA9685. The servo hat is connected to a 5v power supply. The challenge is 2 of the servos are 45kg that should have ~8v. When all servos are running, the two larger ones are underpowered.

In scouring the internet I've discovered you can power individual servos directly, but can't seem to get it working. Below is the layout I originally followed which works but underpowered. The variation I've tried, is for the large motor, Yellow connects to hat, Red directly to 8v power supply, neutral on 8V power supply --> black servo wire AND --> also to black pin on the servo hat.

In this setup all the servos powered by the hat's 5v supply connected to the hat function, but the servo powered directly to the servo does not respond.

What am I missing?

The Bluetooth module of my 2011 Alfa Romeo Giulietta died, and it never did music anyway, only calls. A Pi Zero W now lives in the module's original case and does both. The factory radio stays and treats the Pi as the original part.

The Pi-specific parts, in case they help someone:

• **CAN:** MCP2515 + TJA1050 board on SPI. The board needs its supply rails split, or MISO drives 5 V into a 3.3 V GPIO. One cut track and one wire.
• **Audio:** a USB sound card soldered to the test pads under the Pi. Music uses A2DP; calls use HFP with bluez-alsa built with mSBC, so call audio is 16 kHz instead of 8. Calls work with the unit fully installed, but the other person still hears a slight echo and the Pi has no echo cancellation yet.
• **One radio:** Wi-Fi and Bluetooth share it on the Zero W. With Wi-Fi up, the music lost a few hundred audio packets a minute. A small service turns Wi-Fi off while audio plays.
• **Boot time:** the car checks its modules in the first three seconds after it wakes. On the measured cold start, the application reached the bus about 53 s after power-on, so the Pi uses a measured 0.63 W standby. The configured 72-hour halt and long-parking restart have not yet been tested in the car.
• **Power:** the first buck converter dropped to 0 V out at 10 V in, so the Pi reset on every engine start. The Zero has no under-voltage detection, so `get_throttled` told me nothing.
• **Wake:** CAN traffic wakes the Pi from standby. An optional GPIO3 ignition circuit was bench-tested to restart a halted Pi, but it is not part of the installed behavior proved in the car.

Full write-up with diagrams and measurements:

https://duzgun.org/blog/giulietta-blue-me/

The CAN side builds on fmntf's fiatcan project. Happy to answer questions

Processing img 7w10bkvf4wxh1...

I've been running Home Assistant Container on my Raspberry Pi 5 for a while now, along with a few other Docker services.

The Pi is inside a SunFounder Pironman 5 case, which has a fan, RGB lighting and an OLED display.

One thing that always bothered me was that I could control pretty much everything in my smart home through Home Assistant, except the case my Pi was sitting in. 😅

I looked into the Pironman's local REST API and started building a custom Home Assistant integration.

Initially, I just wanted to monitor the hardware and control the fan. Eventually, I added RGB lighting, OLED display controls and more system sensors.

Since I'm using Home Assistant Container, I also wanted it to work over the network without needing Home Assistant installed directly on the Pi.

I've since added support for the Pironman 5 Max and spent quite a bit of time fixing bugs, testing things and improving the integration.

A few days ago, it was accepted into the default HACS repository, so it can now be installed directly through HACS without adding a custom repository.

That was pretty cool, especially since I originally built it just to solve an annoyance with my own setup.

Here's the GitHub repo if anyone wants to have a look or try it:

https://github.com/ChristophKomenda/pironman5-homeassistant-container

I'd be interested to know if anyone else is running Home Assistant Container on a Raspberry Pi and how you're handling hardware monitoring or fan control.

YOU WILL BE MONITORED. THIS IS MANDATORY!

Hello! I am trying to run Openvpn on my pi5. I have the openvpn command calling a .conf file with my user/pass. I am getting an "AUTH_FAILED" error. I am logged in as myself (pi has been renamed to my username) the permissions on the user/pass .conf file are "-rw-r--r-- 1 root root" Could this be the problem? I did see an error a few days ago about accessing this .conf file with the user/pass. How can I fix this? I can't understand how whomever is logged in can't access that user/pass file. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

Source code and more info here: https://github.com/AdrianCX/picohive-robotarm

Controlled via internal web page (gamepad, keyboard), LLMs, MQTT, with an openGL visualizer

No not to buy a UPS - I have one 😂 Though only a small one it runs the load for around an hour and talks via USB to a Pi Zero to control things. Visit https://networkupstools.org if you are not using this - way better than some of the 'free' manufactures software (inc DSM on my Synology box).

Though most kit shut down and restarted fine, I had forgotten that a couple of smart switches come back in the off position and one of these was on the DNS server (Pi 4B 2GB running unbound) so a couple of services needed restarting to come up cleanly.

UPS control (Pi Zero with Ethernet HAT) and NUT ran fine (as per testing) and the card survived me manually turning the UPS off after 45 minutes of power outage.

WiFi AP came up before the router and falls back to a lousy flaky WiFi connection and not the faster SOLID Ethernet link (stupid or what) - I think it times out checking the Ethernet port and then just looks for the WiFi to come up from any other device to create a mesh.

Bits learnt / re-enforced:

• Pi boxes are so handy on a UPS compared to the bigger X86 boxes / NAS. Only the N95 and N150 boxes here matches them for power consumption and the UPS run time is way longer now I have moved a fair number of services to the Pi boards in the rack.
• Practise a full power restore rather than dry running it. My shutdown was OK but coming back was a bit of a pain
• Finish the family documentation - the notes I have are not up to date and my wife / son would be stuck without me. NO EXCUSES on this ❤️
• My ISP does not have any long term power backup - they dropped before I had to power off the NTU... Real issue as our mobile signal here rates "pathetic" on a good day and we rely on WiFi calling.

Things to ponder over:

1. Changing the NUT server to a read only overlay rather than just risking the manual power off and relying on a 'hot' backup card taped to the box!
2. May be add a soft shutdown button to the NUT server rather than just killing power from the UPS.
3. Check the boot sequence of the Pi boards - the USB should be first and the SD card in the built-in reader should be up to date. Big thanks to Jeff Geerling for keeping https://github.com/geerlingguy/rpi-clone/ running.
4. Think about adding a 'Smart switch' control Pi (with a small screen / buttons) to control the rack power sockets - I was lucky this time but if I need to manually control the switches a 'phone may not have WiFi and they are a pain to reach in the cabinet.
5. Making the NUT server control the power on sequence for all devices not just the rack
6. Add a DNS server to the UPS Pi Zero (or get another Pi Zero set up) to act as a backup to the 'lan support' Pi (this runs DNS, some days DHCP, Reverse Proxy, MQTT server, Cloudflare tunnel and lan monitor - not bad for a 2GB Pi).
7. RSYNC (running in a tmux session) is a life saver - I was copying 3.4TB of files between boxes and the systems shut down after 3.8TB. Rsync just carried on from the last successful file once I restarted it and though tmux looses the bash history in this situation the command was easy to reconstruct - tmux is so handy for ssh when you are running long tasks or have a host that sleeps and easy to install on the Pi with apt). 2 minutes to learn the very basic use.
8. No WiFi is a pain with smart sockets / switches - possibly use a Pi as a backup AP or look at power line ethernet for the access points. Maybe limit devices that can connect (with static IP addresses matching the main router allocation) and swap over once the main system are up??? Currently I need WiFi to be able to turn the WiFi access point on 🤔
9. Review the start up of Docker containers rather than the default 'just restart' - make sure a DNS server is up first and lan connection is available (esp on WiFi)...
10. Decide if I close the last big i5 power eater down and move the jobs to a couple of Pi boards / N95 boxes. Fortunately I had just moved Jellyfin to my NAS so that box was not eating UPS power.
11. Decide what is handling DHCP . Currently it is my router but it maybe better if I take this over once TP-Link have investigated / fixed the curious errors we are seeing on the web console.

Hello y'all! Hope you are good. I have asked the same question on the Discord server 15 days ago, no answer, not that i'm mad or anything, just put the project on hold, anyways, I hope I can get one from here.

I have a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 w (Trixie, version 13.6, flashed it the third time an hour ago), a Camera module 3 NoIR (the second one, the first one I returned it under warranty and they sent me this one) and the Standard to Mini 200mm Camera ribbon (official) (also have misc. stuff, sd card heatsink etc). Now, the problem is that the pi doesn't want to detect/recognise the camera, I have tried everything, I went PERSONALLY and searched online for forums and tutorial, tried with Claude, Claude Code, nothing. On the hardware side, I have reseated the ribbon cable many times (IT IS CORRECTLY ORIENTED AND EVENLY PLACED), did a continuity test on it with my multimeter, measured 3.3v across the data and power lines (which Claude told me that they are from pin 15 to pin 11, I THINK.). I have to admit, unfortunately, I don't know how it happened but a little leg from the Pi's connector snapped (it still fits in place, stays in place, the pins have good contact, just the little pull tab doesnt stay in place when I dont have the camera attached or when it the tab is out, this isnt the reason, I hope and I believe..). It is the second camera I've gotten and I dont believe it's the camera either, like... the second time too? Can it be the power source? I had it connected from my pc and from a 5v 1.2a power supply (dont have the official one).

It's copy-pasted from the Discord post, but its the same problem so yeah. I want to build a monocular NVG device and the camera is the only thing that doesn't work.

Thanks so much,

Pilot.

tl;dr I resurrected my old Google AIY Voice Kit. Details below.

---

I had an old Google AIY Voice Kit lying around that I hadn’t used in some time, so I decided to make use of it for Halloween. For those who don't recall, Google bundled a cardboard case with an audio HAT, a mic daughterboard, a speaker, an arcade-style button and you supplied the Raspberry Pi for use with it.

I named the project called AlsaGeist, and configured a personality named Grimjaw who sits by the candy bowl and listens for trick-or-treaters. When kids walk up, Grimjaw recites scary quotes, makes jokes, and reacts to a selection of different costumes if they tell him who they're dressed as.

The engine is modular and designed so different personalities can be created, loaded, and configured. Custom prompts can be created easily by editing a single file. Only the Grimjaw personality is bundled at the moment but others can be added.

For the enclosure, I printed the Halloween Skellington Pumpkin by serev3d from MakerWorld. In the slicer, I added a blank cube matching the exact dimensions of the AIY cardboard case. The entire original cardboard box slides right in, so the speaker, mic, and Pi stay snug without needing extra brackets or glue. I designed two perforated eye inserts and hot glued them in.

Alsageist can be configured to run completely offline (using Vosk for speech-to-text and Piper for local voice synthesis with zero lag or API fees) or online with cloud speech-to-text and Gemini LLM fallback. Holding the button down for 10 seconds says "Powering off" and safely shuts down the Pi so it can be unplugged cleanly. It also responds to a short list of password-protected superuser commands (like Shutdown.) All of this is documented in the respective guides within docs/.

While I created Alsageist for my AIY kit, you don't need the AIY kit to use it. It runs on any Raspberry Pi (tested on 3+) with a regular USB speaker with a mic.

If you want to build one, I've bundled a Docker setup script that automates the full install on a vanilla OS. See the getting_started guides in docs/ for more detail.

git clone https://github.com/sancheza/alsageist.git
cd alsageist
./scripts/setup_docker.sh

GitHub: https://github.com/sancheza/alsageist
Pumpkin STL: MakerWorld Model 623029

Disclaimer: I used both Claude Sonnet and Google Antigravity to assist with coding, testing and documentation.

Hello, i was trying to build a Flight tracker but I currently facing this problem with my 64x32 led matrix display, im trying to troubleshoot by editing the multiplex and slow the GPIO but nothing works, im just thinking maybe its hardware defect or maybe it because im running both the pi and the panel at 5V 3A? (They recommend 8A for the build), my DC to DC booster will arrive tomorrow hoping it fixes it, but im still open for ideas and explanation on why it's doing this.

Is it possible to conditionally enable composite OR HDMI on boot depending on which is connected? If so, how are you doing this (composite fail over, etc)?

I have both outputs working, but manually have tk switch the config.txt and cmdline.txt files before boot depending on what output I'm using.

I don't have a need for "hot swapping" and a reboot in between is completely fine. I'm thinking of some sort of systemd service to handle it but figured I'd ask here if someone has this solved already.

pi@raspberrypi:~$ sudo systemctl restart dhcpcd
Failed to restart dhcpcd.service: Unit dhcpcd.service not found.
pieraspberrypi:~$ ip a
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000 link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
valid Ift
forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 /128 scope host noprefixroute
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: eth0: <BROADCAST, MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN group default qlen 1000 altname endo
link/ether e4:58:01:60:89:73 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
altname enxe45f01608973
3: wlan0: <BROADCAST, MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN group default qlen 1000
link/ether e4:5f:01:60:89:74 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
altname wlxe5101608974
4: dockero: <NO-CARRIER, BROADCAST, MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state DOWN group default link/ether Oe:68:43:24:67:ae brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
inet 172.
172.17.0.1/16 brd 172.17.255.255 scope global dockero valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
pi@raspberrypi:~$
$ ifconfig
docker0: flags=4099<UP, BROADCAST, MULTICAST> mtu 1500
inet 172.17.0.1 netmask 255.255.0.0
ether Oe:68:43:24:67:ae txqueuelen
RX packets✪ bytes 0 (0.0 B)
broadcast 172.17.255.255 (Ethernet)
RX errors ✪ dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 0 bytes 0 (0.0 B)
TX errors ✪ dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0
lo: flags=73<UP, LOOPBACK, RUNNING> mtu 65536
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 255.0.0.0
inet6:1 prefixlen 128 scopeid 0x10 <host>
loop txqueuelen 1000 (Local Loopback)
RX packets 28 bytes 1768 (1.7 KiB)
RX errors ◊ dropped 0 overruns 0 frame (
TX packets 28 bytes 1768 (1.7 KiB)
TX errors ✪ dropped overruns ✪
pi@raspberrypi:" $
carrier 0 collisions 0

Note, i had to use a image to text extractor because it's against rule 3 to post screenshots apparently, i have the actual screenshots of the command line here if you'd prefer to read it that way. I used a video capture card with my PC to use it since i cant access it via SSH due to the network not working. https://imgur.com/a/EPveYVL

How do i resolve this? systemd-networkd-wait-online.service fails during boot. Running sudo ip link set eth0 up makes eth0 go from "down" to "up" and it shows up in ifconfig, but it still doesnt give me any internet connection, please help.

Checking the administrator panel on my router, the raspberry pi does not show up at all on the network.

I had updated from Bullseye, to Bookworm, to Trixie. The issues appeared after upgrading to Trixie.

Yes, I tried restarting the Pi
Yes, I checked the cables.
Yes, other devices can connect to the network and the internet.

Jetpack compose is native UI framework on android, I've been trying to build embedded-compose, which runs Jetpack Compose (Kotlin/Native, no JVM, no Android) on small Linux devices. Added backend for the MAX7219 "4 in 1" (FC-16) LED boards, tested on a Raspberry Pi 3.

HARDWARE

- Raspberry Pi 3, Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit, dtparam=spi=on

- MAX7219 4-in-1 board (32×8 red LEDs), 5 jumper wires, no level shifter

HOW IT WORKS

- The app is ordinary Compose code: Canvas, drawText, LaunchedEffect, state. It's cross-compiled into a single static arm64 binary (~3 MB), so nothing needs installing on the Pi.

- The backend draws each frame in RAM and sends it through /dev/spidev0.0. A pixel is lit when its color is bright, since the LEDs are only on or off.

CHALLENGES

- Pixel mapping. Bytes shift through the chain, so the first ones sent end up in the last module. On FC-16, each module's digit register is a row and each bit is a column. Other boards are wired differently, so there are flip and block=90/180/270 settings.

TESTING WITHOUT THE BOARD: A BROWSER PLAYGROUND

The Pi build takes over a minute, and I didn't always have the board at hand, so I made a playground that runs the same app in a browser tab:

- Your Kotlin code is compiled to WebAssembly by JetBrains' Kotlin playground server, together with the embedded-compose toolkit. Nothing to install.

- The pixels come from the *same* C++ LED backend the Pi uses, also compiled to WebAssembly. Only the last step differs: frames go to a canvas instead of SPI. So spacing, clipping and the 5×7 font look the same as on the real LEDs.

LINKS

- Code + wiring: https://github.com/kaiwalyakhasnis/embedded-compose (board: rpi-max7219)

- Playground (LED test opens by default): https://kaiwalyakhasnis.github.io/embedded-compose-led-matrix-playground/

I wanted instant replay for a console without a cloud account or an app. Snapback is a Raspberry Pi 5 that records an HDMI capture card in a rolling buffer. A phone on the same Wi-Fi opens a web page and can save a screenshot or the last 30 seconds.

What it does

• Grabs a 1920x1080 JPEG of the live input.
• Saves the previous ~30 seconds as an H.264 + AAC MP4.
• Shows a live preview, or live video with sound a few seconds behind.
• Runs on the local network only. No accounts, no cloud.

Parts, roughly $110

• Raspberry Pi 5, 4 GB (~$60)
• USB 3 HDMI capture card that does 1080p60 MJPEG (~$20). A generic one is fine. An Elgato Cam Link 4K also works.
• Official 27 W USB-C supply (~$12), a good 32 GB microSD (~$10), and an active cooler (~$5)

The cooler matters. The Pi is software-encoding 1080p60 all the time, and ffmpeg sits on about 3 of the 4 cores.

How it works

The capture card shows up as a normal USB webcam (/dev/video0) and an ALSA sound card. One ffmpeg process reads 1080p60 MJPEG, encodes H.264 with libx264 ultrafast, and writes 2-second MPEG-TS segments. "Save Last 30 Seconds" concatenates the newest finished segments with -c copy, so it does not re-encode. Screenshots are a JPEG the same process is already writing.

The audio device name depends on the card. The Elgato is hw:CARD=C4K. A cheap MacroSilicon card is hw:CARD=Video. Snapback finds the sound card on the same USB device as /dev/video0, so swapping cards does not mean editing a config file.

It runs as a systemd user service and can start at boot. Install is a venv and pip install -r requirements.txt, then python -m snapback serve. The page is http://<pi>.local:8080/.

The annoying part

Cable boxes and streaming sticks encrypt HDMI with HDCP. A card that honors HDCP shows a solid blue frame, and there is nothing to fix in software. Computers, cameras, and game consoles work. On PlayStation, turn off "Enable HDCP" in the system settings.

Code is MIT licensed: https://github.com/dconroy/snapback

Write-up with the parts list: https://www.snapback.video/