I have made a new release of the CarPC software for Raspberry PI. Updates: - RDS radio support(new radio application) - new application for managing everything on GPIO which takes about 3% of cpu(gpio interrupts are now used instead of polling mechanism) - new FM Radio XBMC addon - kernel 3.17.0 - optimised Navit and XBMC priorities to remove hang times
Minor issues: [Radio FM addon]: I tried different ways to set the height of the height of an item in xbmcgui.ControlList but it seems that nothing is working(I have tried adding as a parameter and also using setItemHeight). If you have any other idea please let me know.
In order to have RDS working pin22(GPIO25) from RPI should be connected to Radio(SI4703) GPIO2 pin. This is the full schematic for one SI4703 radio module and two rotary encoders:
Installation instructions are in the README inside the archive. Don't forget to(sudo apt-get update & sudo apt-get upgrade). For any issues please use the Forum to avoid filling this blog with comments.
Have fun and keep your eyes on the road while driving!
I have made some progress on my CarPC project and here are the main changes: - support for Raspberry PI Model B+ - update XBMC to 13.2 stable - update kernel to 3.16.0 - reworked radio(rds is available but not yet enabled because of some high cpu usage - will fix this shortly) - update system available(only ~150MB for download instead of a whole image) - file system restructuring - new skin - forum released(Engineeryng-Diy Forum)
First of all the installation process(this is only for a fresh install, update coming soon): - write a fresh image with the latest Raspbian from http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/ - copy the carpc folder in /home/pi/ on the SD card(gt this folder from my Downloads page/updates) - plug the image in RPI and start it --- use the auto menu to expand file system --- change password to 'a' --- enable boot into desktop-> Desktop Log in as user 'pi' at the graphical desktop --- enable ssh, disable overscan, disable serial messages --- Change Internalisation Options -> Locale and Timezone to your country - connect a keyboard and open the terminal or connect using ssh - change user permissions for pi: sudo chmod -R a+rwx /home/pi - type cd /home/pi/carpc/ and then ./carpc-install.sh and then wait for the system to install Note! If you get Cannot mkdir: Permission denied running this script then you should type sudo chmod -R a+rwx /home/pi/carpc/ and then run the script again. - after this, you should reboot(sudo reboot)
Calibrate the touch screen Forget about xinput-calibrator and X11 calibration metods. If you have calibration file(/home/pi/touchscreen_axes_calib) from a previous installation you can use it. If you don't, then use the touch screen calibration plugin. This plugin works if you set correctly the Raspberry PI resolution in /boot/config.txt. Follow the steps in this video.
Add a map for navigation Go to Navit Planet Extractor and download a .bin file for your area. Copy the .bin file in your RPI card in /home/pi/.navit/ folder. Rename the .bin file to map1.bin, map2.bin, map3.bin or map4.bin.
Setup the GPS receiver 1. For USB devices. After plugging the device into the usb port type dmesg and you should see somewhere that a new device was mapped on /dev/tty... Most probably the file name would be /dev/ttyACM0. 2. For Serial(UART) modules. The device will have the file name as /dev/ttyAMA0. You can test that the device is connected to a file name by calling cat/dev/ttyAMA0, for example and you should see some NMEA output. Now, copy this file name and put it in the file /home/pi/StartCarPC in the section: # Start gpsd # /dev/ttyAMA0 - RPI serial port # /dev/ttyACM0 - usb port sudo killall gpsd gpsd /dev/ttyAMA0
Voice configuration for Navit Each time a road indication has to be made, Navit will execute the file /home/pi/.navit/speech.sh with the indication text. This file will play a sound and the speak the indication, through speakers. aplay -r 44100 /home/pi/.navit/notification3.wav & sleep 0.7 && espeak -ven+f4 -s150 -a 150 -p 50 "$1" --stdout | aplay /home/pi/.navit/notification3.wav - the sound that will be played each time before an indication -ven+f4 - female voice number 4 -s150 - speed 150 words per minute -a150 - amplitude -p50 - pitch You can find more settings in the espeak manual If you don't want the voice guidance you can press the speaker button in Navit and it will be turned off.
Configure the Controller The controller can be easily used with Steering wheel controls or other physical controls in your car. You can set the configuration file like in this post.
Change the car logo in the Home screen The car logo is a png file in /home/pi/config/logo.png.
New skin Thanks to Doru, a new skin is available: CarPC-touch_carbon.
Comments moving to forum From now on, a forum is available for any issues/suggestions(http://engineeringdiy.freeforums.org/). Due to this, comments on this blog will be disabled.
After installing the image on an sd card, you have to configure the system for your needs.
Calibrate the touch screen The touch screen calibration involves two steps and you need a keyboard connected: 1. Calibrating the touch screen for X11 applications(like Navit). Open the terminal from Desktop and type xinput_calibrator and follow the indications. After the calibration is completed you have to put the output in a file to make this permanent: sudo nano /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/01-input.conf Put here the output of xinput_calibrator. It will be something like: Section "InputClass" Identifier "calibration" MatchProduct "eGalax Inc. USB TouchController" Option "Calibration" "121 1917 317 1741" Option "SwapAxes" "1" EndSection 2. Calibrating the touch screen for XBMC. In XBMC use the keyboard to go to Programs/Touch Screen Calibration and follow the informations on screen. Note, that in order to make a better calibration you can move the finger on screen towards the point, before pressing enter(as can be seen on minute 0:52 in the video). Touch each point and then press enter to go to the next one. At the end, you have to unplug the touch from usb and then plug it back(works on XBMC Gotham). After this, he calibration is stored permanently in the file /home/pi/touchscreen_axes_calib. You can edit this file to fine tune the position of the cursor if the calibration isn't perfect. calib_x_d and calib_y_d - control the cursor displacement up/down/left/right calib_x_fact and calib_y_fact - some factors obtained in the calibration process(don't edit them) click_confines - defines the area that will be used for click(if the touch moves outside of this area then a drag action will occur) - this area is measured from the first touched point touch_mouse - if you want to use a mouse you have to set this to 0, but some touch screens behave as mouses and you have to set this to 1 in order for them to work(with single click). For the most of the touches this can be 0 if you want to also use a mouse, but if you don't want to use a mouse it doesn't mater, let it be 1.
Change the resolution [XBMC] Using ssh you have to edit the file /home/pi/.xbmc/userdata/advancedsettings.xml and set your resolution. After this restart the whole system and XBMC should run with your new resolution. [LXDE] Connect with ssh and type tvservice -mDMT && tvservice -mCEA and get the desired resolution mode Edit /boot/config.txt and modify according to your preference, for example: hdmi_group=2 hdmi_mode=27 CEA group is 1 and DMT 2.
Add a new map for Navit 1. Go to Navit Planet Extractor and download a .bin file for your area. 2. Copy the .bin file in your RPI card in /home/pi/.navit/ folder 3. Edit the file /home/pi/navit_src/build/navit/navit.xml and search for the entry: <mapset enabled="yes"> <map type="binfile" enabled="yes" data="/home/pi/.navit/Romania.bin"/> </mapset> 4. Add your map name here like this: <mapset enabled="yes"> <map type="binfile" enabled="yes" data="/home/pi/.navit/Romania.bin"/> <map type="binfile" enabled="yes" data="/home/pi/.navit/new_map.bin"/> </mapset>
Setup the GPS receiver 1. For USB devices. After plugging the device into the usb port type dmesg and you should see somewhere that a new device was mapped on /dev/tty... Most probably the file name would be /dev/ttyACM0. 2. For Serial(UART) modules. The device will have the file name as /dev/ttyAMA0. You can test that the device is connected to a file name by calling cat/dev/ttyAMA0, for example and you should see some NMEA output. Now, copy this file name and put it in the file /home/pi/StartCarPC in the section: # Start gpsd # /dev/ttyAMA0 - RPI serial port # /dev/ttyACM0 - usb port sudo killall gpsd gpsd /dev/ttyAMA0
Voice configuration for Navit Each time a road indication has to be made, Navit will execute the file /home/pi/.navit/speech.sh with the indication text. This file will play a sound and the speak the indication, through speakers. aplay -r 44100 /home/pi/.navit/notification3.wav & sleep 0.7 && espeak -ven+f4 -s150 -a 150 -p 50 "$1" --stdout | aplay /home/pi/.navit/notification3.wav - the sound that will be played each time before an indication -ven+f4 - female voice number 4 -s150 - speed 150 words per minute -a150 - amplitude -p50 - pitch You can find more settings in the espeak manual If you don't want the voice guidance you can press the speaker button in Navit and it will be turned off.
Configure the Controller The controller can be easily used with Steering wheel controls or other physical controls in your car. To enable this controller, you have to edit the file /home/pi/StartCarPC and search for the entry: # Start the GPIO Remote #sudo opencarpc-controller /home/pi/gpio_description & You have to change it to: # Start the GPIO Remote sudo opencarpc-controller /home/pi/gpio_description & Now, you can set the configuration file like in this post
Change the car logo in the Home screen If you want to put another car logo you have to edit the file /home/pi/.xmc/addons/skin.CarPC-touch/16x9/Home.xml and find the entry: <posx>580</posx> <posy>205</posy> <width>550</width> <height>550</height> <texture>bmw_logo.png</texture> Here, you can set your new image instead of bmw_logo.png you can put a complete path of the new image.
Set up a WIFI connection If you want to have internet connection, or airplay or control the whole system using the XBMC remotes, you have to setup a wifi hotspot with your phone and then use an USB WIFI dongle(I am using EDIMAX EW-7811UN dongle). The system is configured to automatically connect to a wifi hotspot with the following settings: wpa-ssid "opencarpc" wpa-psk "opencarpc123" You can find these settings in the file /etc/network/interfaces.
