Big Fun

[satkinsn]

All -

I know I'm literally years late to the party, but I just bought a Raspberry Pi.

What fun!

I held off buying a case - and more important, a DAC - until I could run the thing for a bit, make sure I understood it. It was on my front porch yesterday, and after the house got quiet, I opened the package, dumped the thing, the power supply and the SD card out onto the kitchen table.

Installing piCorePlayer onto the SD card was trivial, though after I booted the Pi with the card in it I couldn't for the life of me figure out why it wasn't showing up on wifi. This was one of those "How have I gotten so old and stupid" moments. After staring at things for a bit, sanity returned, I grabbed a LAN cable, plugged everything in and found the Pi right where it should be.

My guess is the options on other distros like Max2Play may be a bit easier for some, but setting up the USB DAC I had for the test - an old I Basso headphone amp/DAC - wasn't terrible. I had to try a few options under "output device" before I found one that worked, but once I did I had one of those rare, satisfying moments you don't get very often with computers or audio gear these days, the feeling that you contributed to making it work. Well, satisfying after I wasted a few more minutes clicking around the web interface for pCP, looking for the "player."

Finally, it dawned on me that I was once again acting my age. I grabbed an iPad, opened my player app - and there it was, ready to go.

So now I've got to figure out what to do with it: I still use a Classic in my family room/main set up, and connectivity is awful at my office. I'm torn between buying a DAC hat and buying an amp, adding a couple of boutique audio speakers i bought a few years back, and putting the thing somewhere - I don't know where yet - as another system.

I guess the big thing for me is, I realize in my gut now what I've carried around in my head for a few years, the knowledge that the Squeezebox idea actually has a pretty healthy afterlife, even though Logitech is out of the business other than generously keeping the servers up and running. Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed the work so far, and am looking forward to finishing this small project.

s.

[Grumpy Bob]

I brought home an original PiB (from the office) running piCorePlayer 1.20 and updated it to 3.20 yesterday evening. Very straightforward, especially as I remembered the ethernet cable! It has one of the original HiFiBerry DACs with phono outputs, which I use to feed a tiny Amptastic amplifier and a pair of bookshelf speakers. LMS is running from a WiFi enabled WD MyPassport drive.

At home I'm using a Pi3 for LMS (running on piCorePlayer) with files on a NAS - it's more than capable, so there's a neat 24:7 server solution using a Raspberry Pi.

Robert

[satkinsn]

So, question. If I decide to move LMS off the Mac Mini where it now lives and onto a Pi will I need to use a powered external USB drive for locally stored music? The Mini has plenty of power coming off its USB connections to drive a portable USB hard drive, which is what I now use - but the drive, obviously, has no separate power supply of its own. I can't imagine the Pi has enough in its USB connections to drive the portable well, but I don't really know.

tks,

s.

[Grumpy Bob]

So, question. If I decide to move LMS off the Mac Mini where it now lives and onto a Pi will I need to use a powered external USB drive for locally stored music? The Mini has plenty of power coming off its USB connections to drive a portable USB hard drive, which is what I now use - but the drive, obviously, has no separate power supply of its own. I can't imagine the Pi has enough in its USB connections to drive the portable well, but I don't really know.

tks,

s.

You could try the drive and see if if the Pi provides enough juice. In the past, the USB powered drives I've tried have need more power than the Pi can provide, but I imagine it depends on the drive and the model of Pi you are using, and what else on the Pi is consuming power.

One of my Raspberry Pi based players has a touch screen and DAC card, and only works properly on some USB cables, so maybe a bit or trial and error is worthwhile. All part of the fun.

Robert

[JerryS]

You could try the drive and see if if the Pi provides enough juice.
Robert

I agree, just try it. Conventional wisdom seems to indicate that a separate usb power supply is needed but I have been using a pi3 with the 'official' raspberry wall-wart power supply and a WD Elements 2TB usb portable disk drive with no extra power supply for over a year now with no issues at all, even with heavy usage in streaming videos and file backups.

Regards

Jerry

[kidstypike]

I agree, just try it. Conventional wisdom seems to indicate that a separate usb power supply is needed but I have been using a pi3 with the 'official' raspberry wall-wart power supply and a WD Elements 2TB usb portable disk drive with no extra power supply for over a year now with no issues at all, even with heavy usage in streaming videos and file backups.

Regards

Jerry

Agree, same set-up, Pi3, Pi 2.5amp power supply, WD Elements 2TB USB portable drive, flawless, spins down when not in use, wakes up as soon as there's a demand.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00D0L5BH8/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Portable-Computer-Chargers-Power-Supplies/Raspberry-Pi-adapter-UK-EU-5V-5A/B01CCR5P8U/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1498770129&sr=1-1&keywords=raspberry+pi+power+supply

[JerryS]

Agree, same set-up, Pi3, Pi 2.5amp power supply, WD Elements 2TB USB portable drive, flawless, spins down when not in use, wakes up as soon as there's a demand.

Hi,

Can I ask if the spin down is a function of the WD firmware or have you induced this with something like hdparm? These discs are so quiet and vibration free that I find if difficult to tell if they are spinning down or not! I've been wondering if I should install hdparm?

regards

Jerry

[kidstypike]

Hi,

Can I ask if the spin down is a function of the WD firmware or have you induced this with something like hdparm? These discs are so quiet and vibration free that I find if difficult to tell if they are spinning down or not! I've been wondering if I should install hdparm?

regards

Jerry

Nothing I've done, it follows most WD drives behaviour:

L.E.D. on steady - Idle
Fast flash - disc activity
Slow flash - system standby.

[JerryS]

Nothing I've done, it follows most WD drives behaviour:

L.E.D. on steady - Idle
Fast flash - disc activity
Slow flash - system standby.

Thanks, I should have 'rtfm'. I will leave hdparam alone then, I am sure I can find something else to break...

Jerry

[satkinsn]

So, another question: does anybody have a preferred case, either for the Pi by itself or with HAT? Not that picking the wrong one would break the bank, but reading the reviews is frustrating - a case will be generally well regarded, but then there'll be a minority opinion that seems pretty well thought out which says "It's fragile" or "It's cheap" or "the Pi overheats."

s.

[Grumpy Bob]

So, another question: does anybody have a preferred case, either for the Pi by itself or with HAT? Not that picking the wrong one would break the bank, but reading the reviews is frustrating - a case will be generally well regarded, but then there'll be a minority opinion that seems pretty well thought out which says "It's fragile" or "It's cheap" or "the Pi overheats."

s.

For my Pi3 running piCorePlayer/LMS and wired to the router, I went with one of these - basic and unobtrusive.

I also like the Pibow cases from Pimoroni - they come in variants to accommodate add-on cards. I have one screwed to the back of a Pi touchscreen.

Robert