PiBoy

Build your own Pip-Boy with some useful features for real-life using your Raspberry Pi.

Features

File Manager App

Provides basic functions for moving, copying and deleting files and directories. Plug in a USB drive as a holo tape.

System App

Can fetch and install updates from the git repository.

Environment App

Provides useful information about your environment like temperature, atmospheric pressure and humidity.

Radio App

Actually more like a classic music player. Stay tuned!

Debug App

Shows the last pressed key to help you check the key wiring.

Clock App

It just shows the time on a classic analog clock.

Map App

Supports zooming and moving the map around. Don't get lost in the wasteland.

Other shown apps are currently placeholders and not implemented yet.

Hardware

• Raspberry Pi (full size board with all 40 pins recommended)
• 3.5" SPI display module (with an ILI9486 display driver chip)
• rotary encoder module (KY-040)
• BME280 environment sensor
• NEO-6M GPS module
• DS3231 RTC clock (optional)

Additional parts depending on case variant.

Installation

Install system dependencies:

sudo apt install build-essential git usbmount python3 python3-dev python3-smbus python3-venv python3-audio fonts-freefont-ttf libjpeg-dev libatlas-base-dev libopenjp2-7-dev

Make sure the following entry in /lib/systemd/system/systemd-udevd.service matches and reboot after changes:

PrivateMount=no

Clone repository and go into it:

git clone https://github.com/SirLefti/piboy
cd piboy

Create a virtual environment:

python -m venv .venv

Install python dependencies:

.venv/bin/pip install -r requirements-pi.txt

Edit the crontab with crontab -e and add the following:

@reboot cd /home/pi/piboy && .venv/bin/python piboy.py &

To enable logging, use the following instead:

@reboot cd /home/pi/piboy && (.venv/bin/python -u piboy.py >log 2>err) &

Configuration

On first run, the PiBoy script will create a config.yaml if not found. In that config file, you can configure everything that relates to appearance and wiring. When running on a Raspberry Pi, dev_move must be set to false if not set by default. For development, it must be set to true instead, obviously. This setting automatically loads the right input and display modules. On a Raspberry Pi, ILI9486Interface and GPIOInput are being used. For development, TkInterface or SelfManagedTkInterface can be used, both implement full input and display functionality.

You can define additional color groups under app_config/modes for your own theme and set the index at app_config/color_mode. The first default color group is the traditional class green theme, the second is a yellow power armor mode theme.

This project uses FreeSansBold as default font. If the font cannot be found despite being installed, or you do not want to install it, place the FreeSansBold.ttf in the root directory as a workaround.

Assembly

See instructions for prototype 1.

Module specific instructions

• DS3231 RTC clock
• NEO-6M GPS module

Roadmap

• display driver
• project base
• build documentation / guide
• case
• file manager app
• map app
• radio app
• environment sensors (temperature, humidity, ...)
• GPS module
• other apps (?)
• battery power
• improved case
• utilities

Issues

PyAudio

pyaudio might require system dependencies to be installed. On macOS, install the portaudio dependency with MacPorts:

sudo port install portaudio

Then install the package with pip and pass the directories where to find the dependencies:

CFLAGS="-I/opt/local/include -L/opt/local/lib" .venv/bin/pip install pyaudio