LED Album Cover

Parts Needed:

• Adafruit 64x64 display
• Raspberry Pi Bonnet
• 5V 4A Power Supply for 64x64 or 5V 15A for 128x128
• Raspberry Pi (zero - 4) Would recommend a 4 for better peformance
• A computer with ssh capability. This can be done by connecting a monitor to the Pi but, it is easier with ssh because you can copy over code from this repository

Setting Up Raspberry Pi

• For help with the next steps look here
• First, on the Raspberry Pi Bonnet solder the E pad to the 8 pad it should look like this:

• Next, solder a jumper wire between GPIO 4 and GPIO 18. This will reduce the flicker. It should look like this:

• Next, you want to plug in the power cable and ribbon cable (make sure its the "in" connection" to the led screen like this:

• Then, cut off the other end of the power cable and attach to bonnet like this:

• Connect ribbon cable to bonnet.
• Use the Raspberry Pi Imager to flash Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64/32 bit depending on which Pi is being used) to an SD Card. I would recommend going through the settings to set up a hostname, wifi, username and password, and enable ssh
• Insert SD Card in Pi
• Plug in the bonnet using the power supply. You can power the raspberry pi seperate or through the bonnet depending on current supply.
• Once turned on, if set up properly, you can ssh from another computer using hostname@LOCAL_IP then entering the password. Or, you can attach a monitor and keyboard to setup
  • LOCAL_IP usally takes the form of 192.168.1.### and can be found on your routers desktop settings as a connected device

Setting up LED Matrix Library

• Once at the pi's command line enter:
  • curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/adafruit/Raspberry-Pi-Installer-Scripts/main/rgb-matrix.sh >rgb-matrix.sh
  • then: sudo bash rgb-matrix.sh
• This will bring you to a setup menu for the library. The settings you want are:
  • Continue?: y
  • Adafruit RGB Matrix Bonnet: 1
  • Quality: 1
• Confirm Settings and answer yes to reboot after installation
• navigate to config.txt file with sudo nano /boot/firmware/config.txt
• Set dtparam=audio=off and save file with ctrl o then exit with ctrl x
• navigate to blacklist.conf with sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
• Add line: blacklist snd_bcm2835 then save file with ctrl o and exit with ctrl x
• Lastly navigate to cmdline.txt with sudo nano /boot/firmware/cmdline.txt
• At the end of the line of text, add isolcpus=3 then save file with ctrl o and exit with ctrl x
• Reboot Pi with sudo reboot

Setting Up Spotify Account:

• Set up Spotify for developers account and start a new app
• Give the app a name and description
• Make the Redirect URL: http://LOCAL_IP:8888/callback
  • You will want LOCAL_IP to be the address you used to ssh into the pi
• Go to settings
• Take note of the Client ID and Client Secret
• Save the settings

Setting Up Python Code:

• Install these dependencies using sudo apt install python3-MODULE_NAME
  • flask
  • requests
  • psutil
  • dotenv
  • qrcode
  • numpy
• The rest should come installed with python on Raspberry Pi but, if you get an error install it using the same method
• Navigate to the sample folder with cd ~/rpi-rgb-led-matrix/bindings/python/samples
• in this folder create album.py, image_show.py, and address_display.py and copy the respective code from this repo
• In album.py edit the variable LOCAL_IP to match the local ip of your Pi
• In address_display.py update the LOCAL_IP to the ip
  • This step is really optional but it shows a qr code to connect to the display
• Then save file with ctrl o and exit with ctrl x
• in the same folder create a file called .env by typing nano .env
• In .env add two lines
  • CLIENT_ID = 'YOUR_SPOTIFY_CLIENT_ID'
  • CLIENT_SECRET = 'YOUR_SPOTIFY_CLIENT_SECRET'
• Then save file with ctrl o and exit with ctrl x
• run nano pixel_data.txt and ctrl o ctri x to save and exit
• run chmod a+rw pixel_data.txt

Running from boot with keyboard input

• This allows for the code the be run without a monitor or ssh
• Install evdev using sudo apt install python3-evdev
• In the same directory as the rest of the scripts, create main.py by typing nano main.py
• Copy the code from the file on gitub
• Change the event# to the event of the keyboard you plugged in. For me, this was event 0
  • Use ls /dev/input/ to find the curent events
  • Run ls /dev/input/ before and after plugging in the keyboard to see which events get added
• After changing the code, run sudo main.py and press 1 to run the album.py file.
• 0 terminates the code that is running
• Type: sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/program_launcher.service
  • Copy over the contents of the file: program_launcher.service
  • Then save file with ctrl o and exit with ctrl x
• Go to the home directory with cd ~
• Type sudo nano shutdown_services.sh
  • Copy over the contents of the file: shutdown_services.sh
  • Then save file with ctrl o and exit with ctrl x
• Run sudo raspi-config
  • Select System Options -> Boot/Auto Login -> Console Autologin
• run: sudo systemctl daemon-reload
• run: sudo chmod +x /home/ledboard/shutdown_services.sh
• run: sudo systemctl start program_launcher.service
• run: sudo systemctl enable program_launcher.service
• run: sudo reboot

Running The Program (With ssh or a monitor):

• Make sure you are in the samples folder by typing cd ~/rpi-rgb-led-matrix/bindings/python/samples
• Run: sudo python album.py
• On another device, in a browser, visit http://LOCAL_IP:8888/authorize and log in to Spotify.
• Once Spotify is playing, the album cover should be displayed on the matrix
• Please leave comments for errors and improvements.
• Thanks to hzeller for creating the matrix driver