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--- blog:articles:raspberry:phys_marsclock:2020-07-05 [2020/08/04 17:11] – ↷ Page moved from blog:articles:phys_marsclock:2020-07-05 to blog:articles:raspberry:phys_marsclock:2020-07-05 Phil Ide
+++ blog:articles:raspberry:phys_marsclock:2020-07-05 [2020/08/30 15:20] (current) – removed Phil Ide
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-====== 2020-07-05 ======
-It's been a few days since I last updated the progress of this project, for which I apologise. Here's what's happened:
-  - The new power unit arrived
-  - I put the Pi, screen and Case together and got it working (using the split cable)
-  - A small extension power cable arrived, it had an on/off switch, so I invested in it
-  - I installed the software... and it worked first time!
-  - Then there were the issues...
-===== Issues =====
-You just knew it wasn't going to be that easy, didn't you? To be honest, although the Pi is made to be easy and an educational tool, I was expecting more problems. The first and foremost of these was the screen brightness. It was so bright I could have used it for a bat-signal. A quick Google and I found a reference to the issue in a round-about way - someone wanted to programmatically turn off the backlighting, and then turn it back on again.
-The solution was to chmod a file that had the max screen brightness in it so I could edit it. Then it was just a case of echoing a number into the file, replacing the value that was there, and the screen would adjust itself. Alternatively, there was another file that handled the current brightness setting, and that could be set too in the same way. This chap updated the file as root, which works just as well:
-<code>
-root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# echo 100 > /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness
-</code>
-As you can see, it's pretty simple.Values can be from 0 (no backlight at all) to 255. I set mine at 75 and found that to be more than sufficient. You can also stop the screen from blanking after a timeout as it goes into screensaver mode, and I did play with that, but in the end allowed the screen to blank because it will eventually make the screen last much longer. I'm thinking of putting on a motion sensor to wake the screen up rather than having me tap the screen.
-===== The Software =====
-That naturally brings me to the software, which although working, was rather incomplete.
-The first thing I wanted to do was re-engineer the code for the skin system. That's what I've been doing for the last few days, and making some basic skins to try them out of course. Right now, you can create a skin simply by copying an existing skin, and then dropping the copy into its own folder in the skins directory. You can then start editing it to make it unique, but even before you do that, it is accessible from the program.
-The skin system is now finished, so the next step is the configuration system, because having to VNC into the device and edit config files is not exactly friendly. There's a reason I wanted a touch screen for this project. I think I'll also include a system to import skins into the software, although I'm not sure yet whether I'll force you to download them to the Pi first to allow you to fetch them directly through a URI.
-===== Project Name =====
-At some point, I was going to have to give this project a name, if only to name the software. "Mars Clock" or "Martian Clock" seemed boringly unexciting, so in the end I went with piMars.
-Once the software is ready for release, I'll make it available for anyone that wants it, along with instructions to aid in putting the hardware together (and configuring it), installing the software and configuring for autostartup.
-~~socialite~~
-~~DISCUSSION~~