Well that only took a few years! Crack project.

[John EH]

The day I built this Crack i knew I wanted an integrated Raspberry Pi, hence the name CrackPipe.  I actually did it with another but never incorporated an LCD which was also part of the plan from day one.  There just wasn't enough real estate to mount it flush from inside really and I didn't have those tools anyway.

I 3D Printed a 20x4 LCD bezel and right now the pi is just laying down under it with a USB DAC HiFiMe 9018.

I only had 6" female to female breadboard wires and Mr. Amazon is bringing me 12" cables tomorrow so I'll be able to mount the pi on the side and make it nice and tidy.

Pi has logitechmediaserver on it with a python script somebody else wrote to fetch track data and such.

Also I need to touch up the case and snug the LCD a little tighter but it all has to come apart one more time.

[John EH]

This is kind of what the mounting will look like.  Will get some stand offs in here as well.  Also on the way from Mr. Amazon.

[BNAL]

John,

Looks great.

I have a raspberry PI with the IQaudio DAC running Picoreplayer in my office. I was using an Odroid C1+ and a IFi DAC at home and really like how it worked. I recently picked up a fanless PC with Windows 10 so that I could stream native DSD files. I never connected a display, but after seeing what you did wish I did.

Brad

[John EH]

John,

Looks great.

I have a raspberry PI with the IQaudio DAC running Picoreplayer in my office. I was using an Odroid C1+ and a IFi DAC at home and really like how it worked. I recently picked up a fanless PC with Windows 10 so that I could stream native DSD files. I never connected a display, but after seeing what you did wish I did.

Brad

I've got one of those too with a 7" touch screen.  I have another Crack that has a pi and HiFiBerry DAC + Pro under the hood but no LCD.  I've had this Crack built for years and always wanted to do this.

One thing I've learned about this is you either have to use ethernet or get an adapter and push the wifi dongle out from under the Crack or you'll get unwanted noise.

I'm quite pleased with the way this turned out and it looks better in person than the pic that shows every teeny tiny flaw and doesn't quite catch the light right.  The 3D plastic is exactly the same color as the black on the wood.

[John EH]

Not sure if this has gotten anyone's interest or not but I just had my first issue with the HD44780 LCD creating garbled characters when the Power On switch was tossed.  I initially suspected EMI from one of the tubes.  Seems the HD44780 in 4 bit mode is notorious for this.   I was about to add a .1uf cap across pins 1 and 2 of the LCD as seems to be a common fix according to Mr. Google.

I'm a tech rep and learned a long time ago to eliminate all the stupid stuff first.  I replaced the wall wart which was a CanaKit 2.5amp supply but feels cheap and plastic.   I dug through an old box and found a 2.1 amp cell charger I bought in Japan years ago and it's a tank with an impressive power supply.  Plugged it in and cycled the amp a whole bunch of times and no more garbled characters.  Kind of surprised because the CanaKit supply has a ferrite on it.  Also the Japanese supply comes with a shielded cable.  That could have been the ticket as well.

When I pull this apart for final assembly I'm going to apply copper or aluminum tape to the signal wires and ground it maybe just for an ounce of prevention. 

Anyway this is DIY addition and expect DIY problems.

[John EH]

Nobody really asked but.......Open Forum Rules!!!!

After what I thought was a raging success I continued to have corruption on the LCD screen and I noticed it only happened during power up and power down.  AC noise, the emissions from the tubes, something was dirty-ing up my signal line.

I tried to make myself as smart as humanly possible on HD44780 LCD's and sure enough the internets abounds with page after page of data corruption in 4 bit mode from motors, AC switches, etc.

I considered again dampening the 5vdc input with a couple filter caps then decided to try to wire up in 8 bit mode which according to the HD44780 docs is easily doable but nobody ever talks about it in Raspberry Pi Land because 4 bit mode is easy and fairly robust (unless you stick it under an unshielded tube amp).

I took a Raspberry Pi zero I had laying around and shoved it under the chassis (even though I'm not using the Pi Zero on the final install) and just put the LCD outside the base and tuned it on and off like 20 times with no data corruption.

Nice guy I am I documented the 8 bit mode wiring on a blog page with the appropriate code that needs to be added in lcdproc conf file (/etc/LCDd.conf)   I'll tidy up the few tiny missing details later.  A Pi Zero would easily fit under the crack although i have a hat board added to mine with USB and RJ45 ethernet.   Anyway I want the horsepower of a Pi 3 for running LogitechMediaServer.

http://www.hagensieker.com/blog/page/?post_id=42&title=lcd-hd44780-raspberry-pi-8-bit-wiring

[John EH]

Still need to do some clean up work.  Considering pushing the Pi against the back wall and cutting out a square for the USB and Ethernet.  Also the big Russian hacking capacitor kept falling down.  Need a new sticky stand off for it.  But this is the jest of how it turned out.  I can move the pi down a bit too if I get a right angle mini-usb connector.   Absolutely no noise in the music circuit from the amp.

I can confirm wiring the LCD in 8 bit mode stops the data corruption during power up and power down.  Only downside is there is now 12 wires instead of 8.  Not a big difference.

All in all this is about how I imagined it all those years ago.  Now my amp is truly CrackPipe.

[Paul Birkeland]

Whew, that's a lot of wiring in a tight space!

[BNAL]

John,

How do you plan to connect the DAC? Run the USB cable under the base or put it under the chassis?

Brad

[John EH]

John,

How do you plan to connect the DAC? Run the USB cable under the base or put it under the chassis?

Brad

Right now I have a HiFiMe 9018 USB just laying inside the case.  I think the obvious solution is to just add a Hat DAC like HiFiBerry.  I did that in my other Crack (but no LCD).  KrispyCrack has a Pi 3 with HFB Dac Plus Pro in it.

Only thing stopping me from doing this right now is that the HiFiMe USB 918 sounds AMAZING.  Better than the HiFiBerry and better than my Modi 2 that I was using to drive this Crack.

[John EH]

Whew, that's a lot of wiring in a tight space!

Barely fits. And I just got a 90 degree angle power cord for the Pi.  I can slide it down the wall almost to the ground now.  Just haven't gotten around to doing it.  Works great, looks cool.  Almost scared to pick it up and move it again.