fruitbox MP3 jukebox

[fruitbox]

Thanks for the tips, so I've done a few tests.
1) there are no x505 errors - the screen shows no other error messages either
2) runs fine with just the keyboard
3) indeed, runs fine with only 1 controller plugged in
- with 2 controllers, the first few presses have a second or two delay, then after a few more the delays increase to about 15 seconds
4) I'm using a 5v 2A supply, but I have not noticed any delay issues when running retropie
- I do have 12 buttons permanently lit, powered by the pi through the generic USB controllers (split 6+6), the other buttons only light up when pressed.
- I don't see any kind of voltage warning messages (am running from the command line, so don't know if I'd get one anyway)

I also tried removing the .btn file, but still running with the 2x USB controllers attached - in this case, the keyboard also slows down after the first few key presses, eventually taking 10's of seconds.

Actually, one thing that did confuse me was that the joystick up/down highlight does not go down from one tag to the one below (on the same WallJuke screen) - you seemingly have to move right until it moves to the tag below. Is that by design?

I'd be happy to run some further debug, or do you think I need a different power supply?

Hi,

this looks like a similar problem joggyBnoob had (https://jp.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewt ... 0#p1285446) but not sure if he sorted it in the end. I think it probably is power supply related, but that's just a guess.

About the joystick up/down etc. - this is not a bug, but a "feature" of the design. When you use the joystick to navigate, left / right takes you to the previous / next song page, and up /down takes you to the prev / next song on that page. The movement of the joystick highlight seems strange because of the order that the pages are defined in the skin config file, and their positions on the screen. If you had pages positioned randomly then the joystick highlighter would also seem to jump randomly around, but all it is doing is going from one page to the next / previous in the order they are defined in the config file.

You can improve this by changing the order of the [page] definitions in the config file (or their positions) to make more sense from a joystick position perspective (note though that this will affect the song codes, but as these aren't used in joystick mode it shouldn't matter). Or another way to do it is to increase the songs per page and define fewer pages...the 'TouchOne' skin is a good example of this...it only has two song pages - joystick mode for this skin works well (in the sense that the joystick highlighter moves around in a sensible way).

Cheers,
Mike

[mamer999]

Hi Mike,
sorry, I should have described that in more detail. I test on the monitor 1024x768. Here I use the skin, which I had adjusted natively for the monitor 1600x900.

On the monitor 1600x900 everything worked, the positions of evtest corresponded to the physical coordinates.

With the unmodified Skin TouchOne I have the same problems on the 1024x768 as described before. Buttons work when I set touch-offset to -500 -700. Title selection does not work correctly.

Cheers

Jürgen

Thanks Jürgen,

Just one last request; can you PM me the following information please?...

1. All your skin cfg files you are using for these tests
2. Each fruitbox command line including all arguments
3. A summary of the results for each test - what works, what doesn't.
4. evtest output for any touch device you are testing (top left, bottom right touch) along with the screen resolution

From this information I may be able to understand exactly what's happening!

Sorry if that's rather a lot of information I'm asking for...

Cheers,
Mike

Hi Mike,
no problem, I will provide you the data this afternoon.
But I hope you do not have to do it just for me. That only makes sense if others can benefit from it!

greeting

Jürgen

Hi Mike,
i have send you a pm but don't know how to add an attachment, sorry.

Cheers

Jürgen

[WolfRamiO]

Epic!!! thanks for your work... the only issue that i have is the needed of a screen saver after X time to prevent screen burn, any ideas?

[mamer999]

Hi Mike,
i have send you a pm but don't know how to add an attachment, sorry.

Cheers

Jürgen

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the new trial (fruitbox-1.11-jurgen2). I just tested it. What is happening:

- The buttons react now at --scale-offset -500 -500 as expected

but

- The animation (DRAW_BITMAP?) of the buttons is executed only once, UNDRAW_BITMAP? not anymore, the button will remain unchanged.

- The choice of title is still not working

I would not like to burden you with further attempts, with the monitor 1600x900 everything works. So please
just keep going if there is a chance that it will be useful to others.

If you try it again, I would find it helpful if you could log the detected touch position (i.e. touch.log).
I could then touch defined points and we could then possibly recognize the systematics from the offset?

However, I could not test a new version before tomorrow.

greetings

Jürgen

[Scally]

Thanks for the tips, so I've done a few tests.
1) there are no x505 errors - the screen shows no other error messages either
2) runs fine with just the keyboard
3) indeed, runs fine with only 1 controller plugged in
- with 2 controllers, the first few presses have a second or two delay, then after a few more the delays increase to about 15 seconds
4) I'm using a 5v 2A supply, but I have not noticed any delay issues when running retropie
- I do have 12 buttons permanently lit, powered by the pi through the generic USB controllers (split 6+6), the other buttons only light up when pressed.
- I don't see any kind of voltage warning messages (am running from the command line, so don't know if I'd get one anyway)

I also tried removing the .btn file, but still running with the 2x USB controllers attached - in this case, the keyboard also slows down after the first few key presses, eventually taking 10's of seconds.

Actually, one thing that did confuse me was that the joystick up/down highlight does not go down from one tag to the one below (on the same WallJuke screen) - you seemingly have to move right until it moves to the tag below. Is that by design?

I'd be happy to run some further debug, or do you think I need a different power supply?

Hi,

this looks like a similar problem joggyBnoob had (https://jp.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewt ... 0#p1285446) but not sure if he sorted it in the end. I think it probably is power supply related, but that's just a guess.

About the joystick up/down etc. - this is not a bug, but a "feature" of the design. When you use the joystick to navigate, left / right takes you to the previous / next song page, and up /down takes you to the prev / next song on that page. The movement of the joystick highlight seems strange because of the order that the pages are defined in the skin config file, and their positions on the screen. If you had pages positioned randomly then the joystick highlighter would also seem to jump randomly around, but all it is doing is going from one page to the next / previous in the order they are defined in the config file.

You can improve this by changing the order of the [page] definitions in the config file (or their positions) to make more sense from a joystick position perspective (note though that this will affect the song codes, but as these aren't used in joystick mode it shouldn't matter). Or another way to do it is to increase the songs per page and define fewer pages...the 'TouchOne' skin is a good example of this...it only has two song pages - joystick mode for this skin works well (in the sense that the joystick highlighter moves around in a sensible way).

Cheers,
Mike

I've just replaced my power supply with the official 5.1v, 2.5A unit from the pihut. But I'm still observing some very strange behaviour. When I first start up, the responses to the joystick and e.g. coin button are pretty fast. But once I select a song to play, the delays slowly creep up, first to about 7 seconds, then, even when the song is finished, eventually to about 30seconds.

As I don't see any delays using the 2 USB controllers elsewhere, nor when I run with your --test-buttons option, I am still wondering if it might be something to do with fruitbox? I'd be more than happy to run some additional debug (with the Jessie version), if you think it could help. I also added max_usb_current=1 to the boot/config,txt file, but that saw no effect.
Thanks in advance.

[fruitbox]

I've just replaced my power supply with the official 5.1v, 2.5A unit from the pihut. But I'm still observing some very strange behaviour. When I first start up, the responses to the joystick and e.g. coin button are pretty fast. But once I select a song to play, the delays slowly creep up, first to about 7 seconds, then, even when the song is finished, eventually to about 30seconds.

As I don't see any delays using the 2 USB controllers elsewhere, nor when I run with your --test-buttons option, I am still wondering if it might be something to do with fruitbox? I'd be more than happy to run some additional debug (with the Jessie version), if you think it could help. I also added max_usb_current=1 to the boot/config,txt file, but that saw no effect.
Thanks in advance.

Hi,

Yes - that does look like it may be something to do with fruitbox. Let me see if I can reproduce the issue on my set-up; if not I'll get back to you to maybe help with some debug.

Cheers,
Mike

[fruitbox]

Yes - that does look like it may be something to do with fruitbox. Let me see if I can reproduce the issue on my set-up; if not I'll get back to you to maybe help with some debug.

Cheers,
Mike

I've not managed to reproduce your issue I'm afraid...I used Pi3 with Jessie, boot to command line, 3 USB joysticks and USB keyboard. No slowdown at all.

So I'll have to get a debug build for you to try - probably next week now...

Just out of interest, were you running from a terminal from within the GUI, and/or did you have any other applications running alongside (ie. retropie?)

Cheers,
Mike

[Scally]

Yes - that does look like it may be something to do with fruitbox. Let me see if I can reproduce the issue on my set-up; if not I'll get back to you to maybe help with some debug.

Cheers,
Mike

I've not managed to reproduce your issue I'm afraid...I used Pi3 with Jessie, boot to command line, 3 USB joysticks and USB keyboard. No slowdown at all.

So I'll have to get a debug build for you to try - probably next week now...

Just out of interest, were you running from a terminal from within the GUI, and/or did you have any other applications running alongside (ie. retropie?)

Cheers,
Mike

My setup is an Rpi2 Model B, Jessie, plugged in I have a USB keyboard, USB Audio, the 2 USB controllers, and an Ethernet cable. I'm running fruitbox directly from the command line. I've only been using WallJuke for now.

Will gladly try out any debug options, thanks for taking the time to look at the issue!

[GeoffB]

I've just replaced my power supply with the official 5.1v, 2.5A unit from the pihut. But I'm still observing some very strange behaviour. When I first start up, the responses to the joystick and e.g. coin button are pretty fast. But once I select a song to play, the delays slowly creep up, first to about 7 seconds, then, even when the song is finished, eventually to about 30seconds.

As I don't see any delays using the 2 USB controllers elsewhere, nor when I run with your --test-buttons option, I am still wondering if it might be something to do with fruitbox? I'd be more than happy to run some additional debug (with the Jessie version), if you think it could help. I also added max_usb_current=1 to the boot/config,txt file, but that saw no effect.
Thanks in advance.

Hi,

Yes - that does look like it may be something to do with fruitbox. Let me see if I can reproduce the issue on my set-up; if not I'll get back to you to maybe help with some debug.

Cheers,
Mike

Mike / Scally

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the current through the USB ports on the Pi is limited to 500mA and I'm sure that the limit is for the the bus so the limit would apply across all four ports i.e. the 500ma would be shared across the four USB ports.

I may be barking up the wrong tree but have you tried connecting all your USB devices through a powered USB hub if only to rule out power supply problems.

If the power to the USB ports is limited internally then increasing the current capability of the PSU would have no beneficial effect.

regards

GeoffB

[dlink]

I've just replaced my power supply with the official 5.1v, 2.5A unit from the pihut. But I'm still observing some very strange behaviour. When I first start up, the responses to the joystick and e.g. coin button are pretty fast. But once I select a song to play, the delays slowly creep up, first to about 7 seconds, then, even when the song is finished, eventually to about 30seconds.

As I don't see any delays using the 2 USB controllers elsewhere, nor when I run with your --test-buttons option, I am still wondering if it might be something to do with fruitbox? I'd be more than happy to run some additional debug (with the Jessie version), if you think it could help. I also added max_usb_current=1 to the boot/config,txt file, but that saw no effect.
Thanks in advance.

Hi,

Yes - that does look like it may be something to do with fruitbox. Let me see if I can reproduce the issue on my set-up; if not I'll get back to you to maybe help with some debug.

Cheers,
Mike

Mike / Scally

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the current through the USB ports on the Pi is limited to 500mA and I'm sure that the limit is for the the bus so the limit would apply across all four ports i.e. the 500ma would be shared across the four USB ports.

I may be barking up the wrong tree but have you tried connecting all your USB devices through a powered USB hub if only to rule out power supply problems.

If the power to the USB ports is limited internally then increasing the current capability of the PSU would have no beneficial effect.

regards

GeoffB

Mike,
could these delays be because we are all using the same USB controller?
Name="DragonRise Inc. Generic USB Joystick"
I did a search in this thread and it appears the folks that are seeing these delays are using this controller.

[fruitbox]

Mike,
could these delays be because we are all using the same USB controller?
Name="DragonRise Inc. Generic USB Joystick"
I did a search in this thread and it appears the folks that are seeing these delays are using this controller.

Hi,

Not sure (as I don't have one of those controllers), but it would be nice (from my point of view!) if it was the controllers and not fruitbox

Out of interest, if you run fruitbox with --test-buttons, do both controllers give the same code? (the last number is the joystick ID, and should therefore be different...)

Mike

[Scally]

Mike,
could these delays be because we are all using the same USB controller?
Name="DragonRise Inc. Generic USB Joystick"
I did a search in this thread and it appears the folks that are seeing these delays are using this controller.

Hi,

Not sure (as I don't have one of those controllers), but it would be nice (from my point of view!) if it was the controllers and not fruitbox

Out of interest, if you run fruitbox with --test-buttons, do both controllers give the same code? (the last number is the joystick ID, and should therefore be different...)

Mike

When I run with the --test-buttons option, it shows both e.g. Joybutton 8 0 and Joybutton 8 1 to distinguish the 2 controllers. The results show instantly for both controllers, and continue to do so over many presses and time. But you're right, I am also using the DragonRise USB controller.

[dlink]

Mike,
could these delays be because we are all using the same USB controller?
Name="DragonRise Inc. Generic USB Joystick"
I did a search in this thread and it appears the folks that are seeing these delays are using this controller.

Hi,

Not sure (as I don't have one of those controllers), but it would be nice (from my point of view!) if it was the controllers and not fruitbox

Out of interest, if you run fruitbox with --test-buttons, do both controllers give the same code? (the last number is the joystick ID, and should therefore be different...)

Mike

When I run with the --test-buttons option, it shows both e.g. Joybutton 8 0 and Joybutton 8 1 to distinguish the 2 controllers. The results show instantly for both controllers, and continue to do so over many presses and time. But you're right, I am also using the DragonRise USB controller.

Mike\Scally
just as a side note I'm using the controller with only buttons, no Joystick hooked up. Not sure if that helps eliminate anything or even if Scully and my issue are related, but worth us investigating.

Scally,
we might want to check if there is something out on the net about flashing the controller with new firmware. I would also love to know if you have the same issues using fruitbox 1.05 as my issues doesn't happen in that version.

Mike,
any way to get older versions from github so we can test and maybe narrow down what version issues start?

[fruitbox]

Mike,
any way to get older versions from github so we can test and maybe narrow down what version issues start?

Hi,

Yes all previous versions of fruitbox are available from GitHub...check out the last paragraph of my post here...

https://jp.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewt ... 5#p1282610

...and thanks for helping out with this

Cheers
Mike

[Markal]

Hi Mike

I hope this is not a silly question as I do not remember reading anything about it in previous posts.

I want to wire in the switches to the gpio and obviously the hi-fi berry is using the connector.

what is the best option.

1 - Take off the hi-fi berry and wire it separately with loose wiring and then wire in the gpio switches

or

2 - Solder on a new connector to the hi-fi berry board as the holes are there to do so which looks like it is all parallel connected? I realize I will void my warranty on the board.



Your expertise would be appreciated.

Thanks

Regards

Mark

[fruitbox]

Hi Mike

I hope this is not a silly question as I do not remember reading anything about it in previous posts.

I want to wire in the switches to the gpio and obviously the hi-fi berry is using the connector.

what is the best option.

1 - Take off the hi-fi berry and wire it separately with loose wiring and then wire in the gpio switches

or

2 - Solder on a new connector to the hi-fi berry board as the holes are there to do so which looks like it is all parallel connected? I realize I will void my warranty on the board.



Your expertise would be appreciated.

Thanks

Regards

Mark

Hi Mark

Personally I would solder a header on the hifiberry board and then you can plug in a wiring loom to your buttons from there. That said, I've done a fair bit of soldering in the past so maybe not something you should try if you're not confident. Maybe you could use a solderless "hammer on" type of header? I've not used these before, but maybe an easier option. Worth googling....

But may be your first option would be easier..I don't think the hifiberry board will have that many connections to the Pi so that may be less work...

Cheers,
Mike

[Markal]

Thanks Mike

I have been known to be successful at soldering in the past. I have some spare connectors in my component box.

Just thought it might have been preferable to wire it, but I guess that introduces other issues as well.

Will give it a go.

Thanks

[karrika]

I have quite often similar problems. You can get a HAT stack board from Pimoroni that extends the bus.



Here is a PiZero+ LCD display. But I also needed to connect an AudioInjector card and DMX light control board + GPIO buttons. The PCB only costs €6 if I remember correctly. From Pimoroni.

[Peabo]

I just finished setting up fruitbox on a RPI2 using Raspian Stretch Lite, Offical 7" touch screen, usb drive for mp3 and a Hifiberry Amp+. I have to give a big thanks for Fruitbox! Just what I was looking for in my bonus room arcade. I'll be wall mounting this in the near future

Peabo

[greyfeld]

Hi,

Been working on my Fruitbox project a little bit at a time and having a lot of fun. Thanks Mike! Here's a couple things I've run into and solved that might help others.

Sound issues

I have a Raspberry Pi 3b with a Hifiberry Amp2 on top that is driving a pair of vintage Acoustic Research TSW-210 bookshelf speakers that I refoamed some years ago. Since I installed Fruitbox v1.03 a while back, the volume controls (+/-) and sound effects for things like page turn have lagged seconds behind the onscreen video trigger. Installing version 1.11 solved that issue. Glad you found that fix.

I also had an issue where the sound at default Fruitbox and alsamixer levels was so loud it was vibrating the floor and my wife complained. LOL. Had to get that figured out. The symptom was that it started out blasting, but using volume controls (+/-) took forever to get the sound down to an acceptable level.

The key was getting into alsamixer on the Pi and setting the playback volume to 85% (experiment to find what's best for your application). There is a great step-by-step tutorial on how to set it to your desired level by SC Phillips on his blog here - http://blog.scphillips.com/posts/2013/0 ... with-alsa/.

It requires some command line work, but it is all shown clearly on his site. Great guide. Remember to save your alsamixer setting by doing a "sudo alsactl store" or alternatively reboot with "sudo shutdown -r now". If you just unplug the Pi, you will not get the setting saved.

Once you've done that, you need to go into your skin's fruitbox.cfg file and add the SongVolume parameter in the Sounds section using a text editor like vi. I set it to 50 which starts it at 50% of what you set the Pi's master volume at using alsamixer. That way you have room to move the volume up or down quite a ways. You might also want to turn the others down or set to 0. PageMove is really annoying to hear every so many seconds throughout a song, so I set it to 0.

[sounds]
InsertCoin Volume (0..100), Filename of sound effect when a coin is inserted (wav, flac, ogg)
LoadSong Volume (0..100), Filename of sound effect when a song is loading (wav, flac, ogg)
UnloadSong Volume (0..100), Filename of sound effect when a song is unloading (wav, flac, ogg)
PageMove Volume (0..100), Filename of sound effect when pages are moving (wav, flac, ogg)
SongVolume Initial song volume (0..100)


My settings:

InsertCoin = 30
LoadSong = 30
Unload Song= 30
PageMove = 0
Songvolume=50

Now that I have those issues resolved the sound comes on and I'm not blasted into the wall behind me. I have control of the volume quickly since the Fruitbox 1.11 version fix and I have some room to work with if I still want to crank it when the wife is not home.

One issue I've noticed is that I'm getting the thermometer symbol in the upper right corner after I use it for a while. The Amp2 apparently generates a lot of heat. I'm looking to put it into a portable container of some sort and it appears a fan will be needed to cool it. Anyone have any thoughts about that?

Next up is a touchscreen. I'm planning to get the Raspberry Pi Element 7" and see how that works. If anyone has any helpful advice on setting up the touchscreen beyond what's been posted to date, please respond with some tips.

Thanks Mike, great stuff and appreciate your engagement with us.

Greyfeld

[Markal]

Good Idea Karrika Thanks for the input.

I think I am going to go that route. Its cheap for a three way extender. I have just ordered one from the local PiShop. Also use the excuse to buy a Pi Zero to play with.

[Markal]

Casing for the Fruitbox coming on brilliantly even for a non wood worker like me. Will post some photos soon.

[Carlb75]

Hi,
Apologies if this is the wrong way to ask for help but I'm totally new to all this. Can I just say that fruit box is exactly what I've been looking for so thanks to the creator, I've followed the instructions and have fruitbox installed, but how do i upgrade to the latest version, I'm currently using v 1.11.if someone can give me an idiots guide ii would be grateful

The other issue I have is that I have fruitbox auto booting by editing the bash rc as mentioned in this forum, but now my keyboard doesn't work with it it's a usb keyboard, again any help wed be appreciated.

Many thanks in advance and again thanks for creating a cool project

[karrika]

Good Idea Karrika Thanks for the input.

I think I am going to go that route. Its cheap for a three way extender. I have just ordered one from the local PiShop. Also use the excuse to buy a Pi Zero to play with.

I soldered a HAT connector to my PiZero so it would fit on the HAT stack directly.

I have also used it with Pi 3 like this:



Extending the bus with a flat cable to the HAT stack. This works better as the Flirc case keeps the Pi 3 cold.

[Markal]

Greetings again. Help needed please. This is the last step to the hardware part of this.

I have read through the past postings and have not seen anything that answers this, so sorry if it has been answered before and I have missed it.

I have run the

./fruitbox --config-buttons

command and managed to successfully map GPIO buttons for A-E, 1 - 4, page left, page right, jump right, jump left. The file fruit.btn successfully writes and I can go in and edit it so no problem there.

When I run fruitbox with the usual

sudo ./fruitbox --cfg skins/walljuke/fruitbox.cfg

after mapping the buttons, the buttons work great, but I have no audio.

If I reboot then Fruitbox loads fine and I have music, but no buttons.

If I do

sudo nano fruibox.btn

after rebooting I get an empty file so i am guessing I am in the wrong directory as I know the file wrote somewhere.

What have i missed? I assume I have to adjust a setting somewhere.

In case it makes any difference I have mapped the following buttons to these GPIO numbers

Left - 22
Right - 17
Jump left - 4
Jump Right - 23
1 - 20
2 - 19
3 - 13
4 - 12
A - 21
B - 16
C - 26
D - 6
E - 5

Thats it.

Also, if it matters, I am now running the Hi-Fi berry audio board from the Raspberry on an extender board which has the gpio numbers clearly marked and agree with the information from Fruitbox config buttons display so I have the gpio pins easily accessible and the markings agree with the fruitbox.btn file. I doubt it is the board as the audio works fine if I boot up and load Fruitbox without the buttons map.

I have the MP3's on the usb flash drive with the fruitbox.cfg file.

Any ideas? Do I need to add something to the end of the ./fruitbox --cfg/skins/walljuke/fruitbox.cfg when loading Fruitbox?

Have I put the fruitbox.btn file in the wrong directory? or do I need to point Fruitbox to it when loading?

Any ideas will be welcomed. I hope I have given enough information to give clues.

Thanks