RasPi-OLED-Menu

This code is for a homemade internet radio. It is based on a Raspberry Pi Zero W with a USB sound card.

Features

• Show currently playing title information
• Rotary encoder to navigate menu on an sh1106 oled screen
• Connect to MPD to play webradio stations
• Receive AirPlay via Shairport-Sync with automatic pausing of MPD when connecting
• ALSA Volume control with a potentiometer connected to an ADS1115 ADC
• Connect to MQTT broker for volume control
• FastAPI REST-API and webui to see now playing info and edit saved webradio stations

Windows/Usage

Some screenshots from the different menu windows (sometimes the font is a bit off because of the simulator):

Now playing	Connection lost	Shutdown menu

Radio stations	AirPlay playing

When the software is started, it shows a loading screen until it gets a connection to MPD. If the connection is lost while active, it shows a little icon on the idle screen. MPD will be paused when an AirPlay connection is established and the screen will show now playing information.

Installation

The code is provided without further warranty or support. There is no guarantee that it will work properly, since I am not a professional developer and only develop this project in my spare time.

I'm running Alpine Linux (3.23) on the radio to reduce the memory footprint and boot time of the device.

• Install Alpine Linux to your SD Card and set it up, also enable the community-repo setup-apkrepos -c
• Update package cache: apk update
• Install alsa audio system, mpd, mpc, shairport-sync and tools: apk add alsa-utils alsa-utils-doc alsa-lib alsaconf alsa-ucm-conf nano git mpd mpc shairport-sync git nano
• Enable shairport metadata bridge like shown below
• Add root to audio group and enable services: addgroup root audio && rc-service alsa start && rc-update add alsa && rc-service mpd start && rc-update add mpd
• Edit MPD config to load radio stations playlist, see below
• Download this project: git clone https://github.com/techdiem/RasPi-OLED-Menu.git /opt/oledctrl && cd /opt/oledctrl
• Install python and dependencies: apk add python3 py3-pip py3-pyalsaaudio py3-pillow py3-gpiozero py3-fastapi py3-cbor2
• Create and activate venv: python3 -m venv --system-site-packages /opt/oledctrl/venv
• In /etc/pip.conf add this to download prebuilt wheels for the raspberry:

[global]
extra-index-url=https://www.piwheels.org/simple

• Install pip dependencies: venv/bin/pip3 install -r requirements.txt
• Create init system file: vi /etc/init.d/oled with the following content:

#!/sbin/openrc-run

command=/usr/local/bin/oled.sh
command_background=true
output_log="/var/log/oled.log"
error_log="/var/log/oled.log"
pidfile=/run/{RC_SVCNAME}.pid
command_args="-p ${pidfile}"

• Create launch script /usr/local/bin/oled.sh with the following content:

#!/bin/sh

cd /opt/oledctrl/oled
source /opt/oledctrl/venv/bin/activate
python3 oled.py

• Switch to the main code folder: cd oled
• Move font files to the fonts directory, they aren't included due to their copyright. instructions
• Copy the config file cp settings.example.py settings.py
• Set the pinout and other configuration values with nano settings.py

Start it using python3 oled.py for debug and using rc-service oled start for production. To start on system boot, use rc-update enable oled.

Configuration notes

MPD configuration

The following options should be configured at minimal:

playlist_directory	"/var/lib/mpd/playlists"
log_file			"/var/log/mpd/mpd.log"
pid_file			"/run/mpd/pid"
user				"mpd"

audio_output {
	type			"alsa"
	name			"USB Soundcard"
	device			"default"
	mixer_control	"Speaker"
}

Enter the same folder for playlist_directory as in the settings.py of this software. Additionally, the device and mixer_control should match the ALSA config options in settings.py for the volume control to work seamlessly from both sides.

Shairport configuration

The Shairport-Sync configuration is located at /etc/shairport-sync.conf.

Set the following entries for volume control to be synced to the iDevice, the config should match the ALSA configuration in settings.py:

output_backend = "alsa";
ignore_volume_control = "yes";

alsa =
{
	output_device = "default";
//	mixer_control_name = "Speaker";
};

Here, mixer_control_name is commented, because "Speaker" is the default, but you might need to change that.

Second, you need to enable the shairport metadata pipe. To do so, uncomment/edit the following options:

metadata =
{
    enabled = "yes";
	pipe_name = "/tmp/shairport-sync-metadata";
	pipe_timeout = 5000;
};

Now there should be now playing information on the screen if you connect via AirPlay.