I recently built a music streamer based on the Raspberry Pi mini-micro computer, and it was a nice replacement for a very old (way over 15 years) Squeezebox Classic streamer that was beginning to suffer its own version of digital dementia. I used a Raspberry Pi 4B, with an InnoMaker DAC HAT for audio line-out to my stereo receiver, and after an easy assembly and setup, it worked marvelously, though I needed to use a phone app to actually control it.
So, I decided to take a step up and add a 7" touchscreen. While there is an "official" Raspberry Pi screen, this one was about half it's price, and had decent reviews... so I pulled the trigger on it and a week later it was in my hands.
Physical setup was quite easy, as the basic standoffs, ribbon cable (three different sizes... I used the short one) and other hardware was included and easy to identify. The touchscreen included a link to a "tutorial" PDF on physical assembly of the touchscreen to the Raspberry Pi, and it was straightforward enough to easily get that job done. And finally, hook up power and RCA cables to the Raspberry Pi and boot it up.
And that's where it became a challenge, partly because I'm a bit of a Noob at this. The system booted just fine, and would play music from the server, but the display was NOT the music streamer interface I'd expected. It was instead the command line interface to the Raspberry Pi, and I am most definitely not experienced enough with that to even contemplate finishing the setup through that. So, what next? A lot of internet sleuthing, and finally learning that I had not yet installed "JiveLite", but that turned out to be an easy thing to do through the PiCorePlayer interface. Once that was done and I rebooted, I got into the PiCorePlayer setup screens and quickly discovered that something was very wrong: no matter what setup selection I made, I ended up with something else instead. Grrrr!
After some trial and error (lots of error, actually), I discovered that the touchscreen orientation was set up rotated by 180 degrees from the display screen. At that point, a lot of internet sleuthing ensued, I discovered that there is a dearth of step-by-step guides on how to set it up properly. I also discovered that I could connect a usb keyboard to the Raspberry Pi, and with the up-down-left-right arrow keys manage to work my way through the basic setup to get to a working PiCorePlayer display. But I still had the upside down touchscreen.
I could probably have managed to get the guidance I needed from the manufacturer website, but I was impatient and plunged ahead to eventually find that I needed to change some settings in the /boot/config.text file (Yikes!!!). Fortunately, those setting changes were relatively simple, involving the "display_rotation=n" and "lcd_rotation=n" commands. It was trial and error, but what eventually worked for me was to use "lcd_rotation=0" and display_rotation=0". While I could have done this through the ssh terminal access, it was (for me) easier to simply remove the microSD card from the Raspberry Pi, mount it on my PC, and then simply edit the config.text file using the NotePad app. Once properly configured, the display and touchscreen mapped together most excellently, and the rest of setup was a breeze.
Properly configured, this touchscreen is a great addition to a PiCorePlayer setup, and it is very easy to use. A bonus with this touchscreen is that it doesn't add much to the power demands of the system. Without the touchscreen, I was able to measure the load at a little over 500 mA from the power supply. After adding the touchscreen, I expected to add another 1,500 mA, but was very pleasantly surprised to see that it was consistently less than 1,000 mA, even with the screen at its brightest setting.
The negatives about this... the information provided with the touchscreen did not adequately address the setup required to make it work properly. A simple step-by-step guide would have helped immensely, and I doubt that the problems are just confined to setup with the PiCorePlayer. Also, if you ever need to remove/replace the necessary SD card, you will find it nicely hidden by the ribbon cable connector between the Raspberry Pi and the touchscreen. I ended up using sturdy tweezers to remove and replace the card, and that was not as simple as it sounds, especially for re-inserting the card.
Would I buy this again, knowing what I do now? Certainly! It works great and the price is right. But better instructions on setup from the manufacturer would have greatly reduced my frustration level at several points during my setup adventure.
| Standing screen display size | 5 Inches |
|---|---|
| Screen Resolution | 800 x 480 |
| Max Screen Resolution | 800 x 480 Pixels |
