After a couple of streamer builds in re-used housing of old tuners/amps eg… A project with a complete newly designed housing would be more challenging.
Inspired by a build I have found here in the community, I have made a first design in 3D software.
I will have a 3d printed front and back, spray painted in high gloss back. The top and sides will be a lasercut sheet. The pattern that is cut into the sheet will enable it to bend around the front and back pieces.
Decisions on the material choice for the sides and top have to be made. I have played around with some materials to create samples with a laser cut leather upholstered sheet, silver spray painted sheet and a sheet with sticking foil in several colors.
I really like the design; I think it has a vintage yet modern feel to it.
I think the rounded edges on each side in orange leather, the top and bottom made of wood with a distinct grain, and the matte metal front could look great!
In terms of size, what are you thinking?
Screen size?
Internal components?
I see two rotary knobs on your design, one for volume—and the second one?
And exactly how do you want to make them? Machine a solid acrylic disc and place LEDs on the chassis in front of the outer part? (I hope the translator got that right!)
In any case, if you want a raw look for the curves, go with wood; if you’re covering it with a flexible material like leather, I think 3D printing would be more appropriate.
I’ll be following the development of your project closely because it’s giving me ideas for my new streamer (I’ll definitely try it out on a simplified version)
For the screen I have found a 4.58 inch 320x960 pixel touchscreen.
The RPi will be a model 4B with the power supply external. Just a USB-C connector on the back of the unit. Power on/off will be switched over a small relay pcb connected to a pair of optocouplers.
The left rotary knob is power on/off and volume up/down. The right is Prev/Next and Play/Pause on push.
The size will be about 280mm x 80mm x 120mm deep.
Currently I am working on a prototype front piece to be printed with a resin 3D printer.
In a car project I have combined the orange leather with a weave leather. I still have some of this material. This is another option for the top piece.
The illuminated knobs are both finished. A first prototype of the front panel was printed.
It needs some fine tuning on some measurements and edges.
I am waiting for the touch screen to arrive so I can test fit the panel in this prototype.
For the back panel a design is made and hopefully can be printed in the next week.
I like the look of the leather with the pattern cut in to the panel to make it bendable.
Now there will be some experimenting with different materials for the top panel.
This week I received the small LCD panel.
It is a 4.58 inch 320x960 pixel HDMI touchscreen.
It looks very nice and fits tight in the prototype front panel. The HDMI interface will be mounted on the back of the panel with a small 3D printed adapter.
After some trial and prototype 3D prints, today the final front and back panel were printed.
It took some time to get these in one piece out of the resin printer. I had problems with the printed parts sticking to the release film when the print was at about 25%. After a lot of trials with different parameters for UV-exposure time and thickness of the supports, I finally got it to work and could print these parts without any further issues.
In the end these will be painted. First these need to be sanded, primed and painted with a filler. After another sanding the final paint can be applied. For now they remain as they are. Everything will be trial fitted first. A bottom and top part have to be designed. The bottom will be a 3D printed part. The top probably will be a leather upholstered piece.
Still not decided what to do with the finish on the 3D printed front and back panels.
The prototype 3D-prints are excellent to experiment a bit with colors and structures.
I have sprayed a dull black mat spray and the other one a special black paint with a fine speck structure. Please feel free to give your opinion on both finishes! A high gloss (piano) black could also be an alternative.
The final side panels are both cut out of 3mm triplex and upholstered with leather. The leather is glued tight to the panels. Next phase is laser cutting of the pattern inside these panels.
It’s coming along nicely—that’s cool.
I prefer the second rendering photo; it looks less like a 3D print.
Personally, I would have done the laser cutting before gluing the leather, but to each their own.
It’s great to make your own parts for your prototype and validate the concept.
#ThomasBuzet, both of the photos of the finish are real images I took of the 2 prototype fronts. These were not sanded very well before the paint was applied. The front with the speck structure finish indeed shows the very fine 3D printed lines. This will not be the case when sanded properly. I will sand these again and make 3 different finishes to choose from in the final build, matt black, gloss black and Matt black speck structure.
If the leather is applied after the laser cutting, the outside will not have the cutting pattern.
I think the line pattern makes the sides somewhat more interesting.
This week both the leather upholstered side panels are laser cut.
The advantage of the laser cutting is the ease of cutting a fine pattern in the panels. The disadvantage is the burn smell of the panels afterwards. Specially the leather has a not to nice aroma! Both panels have been washed shortly to remove a lot of the burned materials on the cutting sides. The sides of the panels that will become the insides are painted dull black. It still has a certain smell to it. Exposure the parts to direct sun light for a while hopefully will solve this.
The front and back panel have been sanded and painted in primer and multiple coats of paint. In the end the matt black paint was preferred over the speck and high gloss paint.
The used 2Gb Rpi 4B came in and is test mounted on the 3D printed bottom piece. The knobs and some other parts are trial fitted.
Next will be the assembly of both of the side panels and designing some electronics for powering up/down the unit. For the DAC a Raspberry IQaudio DAC Pro is ordered.
Just finished the startup and power down electronics and assembled all available parts.
It operates with 2 optocoupler modules and a simple delay unit. The input of the first optocoupler is connected to the push button contact of the left rotary controller. When pushed the output of the first opto coupler will set the delay unit and the Rpi gets power over the relay contact of the delay unit. As soon as the Rpi is starting GPIO 17 is set to high and is connected to the input of the second optocoupler. Both opto coupler are at the output sides switched in parallel. The signal of GPIO 17 will set the delay module as long as Volumio is running. When Volumio is powered down with a long push of the Rotary controller or by software, GPIO 17 will be reset and there is no longer a set signal for the delay module. After a preset delay, the relay will switch off and the Rpi will get powerless,
The side parts are fitted and a top and bottom piece is fabricated and upholstered.
At the moment the touchscreen has not been tested. Still waiting for some parts like the IQ DAC pro, flat ribbon HDMI and flat USB cable to come in.
Volumio OS is installed and the plugins Rotary Encoder II, Autostart, Now Playing, Spotify and PeppyMeter Screensaver are installed. Started with a graphic design for the Peppymeter screensaver.
It integrates nicely, it’s smaller, and it doesn’t fit anymore.
With the translator, I didn’t quite understand the power-on/power-off sequence—did you set up a timer to let the Pi shut down properly? I’m interested because I leave mine on all the time, but I’m not a fan of that. If you have a diagram…
Attached in this post is the schedule of the electronics. You see both of the opto couplers and how these are wired. When using GPIO17, you have to add the following line to userconfig.txt:
dtoverlay=gpio-poweroff,gpiopin=17,active_low=1
If GPIO17 is occupied in your setup, you can replace this by another free GPIO.
Optocouplers and delay are purchased at Aliexpress but are also available elsewhere:
You will need the 5V version of the delay.
I used the push button of the rotary controller for the power up/down signal. You can replace this with a single button. A short push will power the unit up. A long push will power the unit down. This (long push) is set in the Rotary encoder II plugin. It takes a while before the unit is powered down completely. But the advantage it is now done safe! The delay must be set to a time of about 45-60 seconds.
The trigger inputs of the delay have to be wired correctly to the optocouplers. One of the inputs is the negative terminal and the other the positive. Both are not connected to ground or 5V! If you need help identifying the terminals, you can do this by measuring the voltage over both terminals with a multimeter and determine the positive and negative. I can send you an image identifying both terminals.
A final update. This week the remaining parts came in and the build could be finalized.
I had to make a little change in the startup electronics shown in the previous post. A diode had to be added in the connection between GPIO6 and Rotary encoder 1. The Anode side pointing to the resistor connected to GPO6.
The installation of the HDMI touchscreen and getting the settings correct for the Touch Display plugin was not that difficult. Just adding a small addition to the cmdline.txt file in the boot section. After adding “video=HDMI-A-1:320x960M@60,rotate=90 plymouth=90” behind the first line, the screen had a correct image as of boot and afterwards. I can highly recommend this display. It is easy to setup and the touch function works excellent. Probably will use this type again in a future build.
With the screen hooked up, now the fine tuning could be done. Placing all items correct on the display in the Now Playing plugin and setting all parameters to get a nice running and good looking PeppyMeter Screensaver plugin. The resolution of this screen (320x960 px)is not supported with the standard layouts in the plugin so I had to thinker a bit to get the image in the correct place of the screen.
The unit will be placed in the master bedroom connected to an amp feeding several ceiling speakers.
