Pirate Audio without mopidy?

Support
1

I have the Pirate Audio pHat, and have worked out how to get it to display text and pictures, and how to use the audio side, without actually using the mopidy software. Mopidy is probably fine if it matches your project intentions, but that’s not what I want a display and speaker for - and I suspect there are lots of other people who’d be the same.

Can anyone tell me how I can load the drivers etc I need to use the screen and the speaker without installing the whole mopidy thing? I can, of course, just prevent mopidy from starting on boot - but I’m a little averse to having stuff on my system that I don’t want to use!

I guess I’m really looking for a list of libraries (ST7789, PIL, what else?) and help with config files. Presumably this has all been done to get mopidy working, so someone knows!

2

Have a look see here and the manual build your own instructions.

3

Thanks - that neraly got me there!

The instructions there miss out the need to enable SPI in raspi-config,but otherwise it all works!

4

Thats good to hear, the it all works part anyway. The one line installers turn that on for you, they must have missed that in the manual translation I guess. Anyway, now you get to have some fun taking it to the next step. Putting my own custom spin on something is one of the more rewarding aspects or tinkering with this type of tech. It’s not nailed down and locked into one roll in life.

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5

What music app are you using?

6

I’m currently just using the sox package to play sounds. My aim isn’t specifically to use this to play music.

For where I got to (I’m gong to get back to it after Christmas!), see my script in this thread

8

I am also looking to just install the hardware with none of the packaged software.

I would like to make use of the speakers and screen for outputing various things and use the buttons as inputs.

Would anyone be able to help me install the hardware so it can be used in this manner?

I am a near total newbie so step-by-step instructions would be helpful.

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9

Can I suggest trying the steps and script I provided in this post - and see if that helps you both make the thing work and understand how to extend it further?

10

H - I am trying, without much sucess, to use the Pimoroni Audio board to play a local hospital radio station stream. I work for station in my spare time ( we are a charity station ) and we are trying to get some internet radios onto the wards for the patients to listen us. What I want to achieve is for the Pi ( ideally Pi Zero W to reduce cost of the units ) to boot up, without the complexity of Mopidy, link to the station stream and then display the current trrack playing on the display on the board. Is this feasible ? I am a novice to the Pi and so far have only built the Pirate Radio and the Pirate Audio baord using the supplied software. I want to branch out further but admit I have got a little confused on how to move forward with this. Any help really appreciated !

11

This is the guide I followed with my pHat Beat based Pirate Radio, for Internet Radio.
My setup doesn’t have any LCD display though so I have no idea if that is supported.

I just dropped my own playlist file in to get the stations I wanted.

12

Thanks for the feedback but I think I may have confused matters. I am using the Pirate Audio boards with the Pi Zero W not the phat beat DAC from the Pirate Radio - any further ideas at all ?

13

I was just posting what worked for me. Have a look at this, might help.
https://learn.pimoroni.com/tutorial/sandyj/getting-started-with-pirate-audio