monisrahmen

A digital picture frame you can send emails to.

Description

Send pictures as email attachments or put them on a network share. They will be displayed in a random loop.

The frame is 3D printed.
Some light soldering may be required.

Features

• Send one or more pictures as email attachments.
• Add more pictures by putting them on a network share.
• Duplicate files and non-image formats will be ignored.
• Screen blanking is controlled by a motion sensor.
• Off-hours can be enabled, so the screen stays off after blanking.
• A splash screen is showing device information.
• Most options are configurable.

Remark

There's a redesigned version of the frame.
Files with the naming scheme frame2_ are referring to it.
They're located in site_documents/.
A larger printer is required also.
The software installation largely stays the same.

Bill of materials

• 1 Raspberry Pi 2
  The Raspberry 2 is sufficient for this project and can be found for relatively cheap in late 2022.
• 1 USB WLAN adapter like Edimax or TP-Link brand
• 1 WaveShare model 7" IPS/QLED Integrated Display, 1024x600, 70H-1024600
• 1 RCWL-0516 doppler radar microwave motion sensor module
• 1 HDMI cable of 30 cm length
• 8 M2.5 screws, nuts and standoffs
  Plastic is fine.
• 1 USB-A to Micro USB-B cable
• 1 USB-A to USB-C cable
• 1 USB wall charger
  The power draw of the display is about 350 mA. 100 mA when blanked.
• 6 square head female-to-female DuPont cables
• 1 4x1 male pin-headers
• Small cable ties

Tools

• Soldering equipment
• Hot glue gun

3D printing

The STL files are located in site_documents/designs/.
Frame and stand have been printed in PETG with 15 % infill and supports, but PLA will also work.

Hardware setup

• See ASSEMBLY.

Installing

• Install Pi OS Lite 32-bit using the Raspberry Pi Imager.
  You can set up the host name, user account, SSH and Wifi in the options of the Imager. You should then be able to ssh into your Raspberry.

• Install dependencies:

  sudo apt-get install fbi fonts-dejavu-core git incron python3 python3-pip python3-venv samba
  

  If using DietPi instead of Pi OS add also:

  sudo apt-get install libopenjp2-7 libxcb1
  

• Download the software:

  git clone https://github.com/sabotrax/monisrahmen.git
  

• Create the virtual environment for Python and install the required modules:

  cd monisrahmen
  python3 -m venv .
  source bin/activate
  pip3 install -r requirements.txt
  echo "source ~/monisrahmen/bin/activate" >> ~/.bashrc
  

• Create .env as the configuration file:

  # installation directory
  PROJECT_PATH=/home/schommer/monisrahmen
  # email account settings
  EMAIL_USER=IMAP_USER
  EMAIL_PASS=IMAP_PASSWORD
  EMAIL_HOST=IMAP_HOST
  EMAIL_PORT=993
  EMAIL_INBOX=Inbox
  # email subject for image processing
  EMAIL_KEYWORD=foto
  # number of emails to fetch
  FETCH_EMAIL=5
  # delete emails after retrieval
  DELETE_EMAIL=False
  # unkown sender
  UNKNOWN_SENDER=Unknown
  # image reload time (seconds)
  RELOAD_IMAGE=120
  # image transition time (milliseconds)
  BLEND_IMAGE=500
  # motion sensor (either or)
  MOTION_SENSOR=RCWL-0516
  #MOTION_SENSOR=HLK-LD2410C # redesigned version
  # motion sensor timeout for screen blanking (seconds)
  DISPLAY_TIMEOUT=120
  # display off-hours
  # the screen stays off after blanking during this period
  # leave empty if not using
  START_DISPLAY_OFF=23:00
  END_DISPLAY_OFF=07:00
  # monitoring is not implemented yet
  # leave empty if not using
  START_MONITORING=
  END_MONITORING=
  # network device
  NETWORK_DEVICE=wlan0
  # network error message
  NETWORK_ERROR="Network error!"
  # splash image font
  FONT_SIZE=30
  # screen resolution
  SCREEN_WIDTH=1024
  SCREEN_HEIGHT=600
  # be verbose
  DEBUG=False
  

• Configure the display in /boot/config.txt.
  For the WaveShare model 7" IPS/QLED 1024x600 70H-1024600:

  hdmi_group=2
  hdmi_mode=87
  hdmi_cvt=1024 600 60 6 0 0 0
  hdmi_drive=1
  

  Display blanking:

  #dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d
  hdmi_blanking=1
  

  Blanking an HDMI display would work only on the Pi 2 if we used the legacy graphics driver.

  Rotate the virtual console:

  display_hdmi_rotate=3
  

  This would also only work with the legacy driver.

• Suppress boot messages.
  Append to the end of the line of /boot/cmdline.txt:

  consoleblank=1 logo.nologo vt.global_cursor_default=0
  

  Add to /boot/config.txt:

  avoid_warnings=1
  disable_splash=1
  

• Configure the Samba share.
  Add to the end of /etc/samba/smb.conf:

  [bilder]
  # change accordingly to your installation directory
  path = /home/schommer/monisrahmen/pictures/
  public = yes
  writable = yes
  comment = Bilder
  printable = no
  guest ok = yes
  

  Change directory rights so image files can be managed from your file manager:

  chmod 777 pictures/
  

• Edit the shell scripts.
  Change the installation directories in sitebin/restart_fbi.sh and sitebin/startup.sh.
  You can now test the scripts by setting DEBUG=True in .env,
  then send an image to the email address using the keyword as the subject and

  ./get_pics_by_mail.py
  

  You should find the image file in pictures/.
  Next, add another image to the Samba share and

  ./sync_database.py
  

  If you cat user_data/db.json, there should be two entries in the database.

• Set up Cron.
  For your user crontab -e:

  INST_DIR=/home/schommer/monisrahmen
  VENV_PYTHON=/home/schommer/monisrahmen/bin/python3
  @reboot                $VENV_PYTHON $INST_DIR/blank_screen.py
  0,15,30,45 * * * *     $VENV_PYTHON $INST_DIR/get_pics_by_mail.py
  @hourly                $VENV_PYTHON $INST_DIR/sync_database.py
  

  For root sudo crontab -e:

  INST_DIR=/home/schommer/monisrahmen
  @reboot                $INST_DIR/sitebin/startup.sh > /dev/null 2>&1
  

  Adjust INST_DIR according to your installation directory.

• Set up incron.
  Add root to /etc/incron.allow:

  echo root > /etc/incron.allow
  

  For root sudo incrontab -e:

  /home/schommer/monisrahmen/site_run     IN_CREATE       /home/schommer/monisrahmen/sitebin/restart_fbi.sh
  

  Adjust the directories in the incrontab file accordingly.
  fbi is restarted by incron after a new image attachment has been downloaded and processed.

• Optimize the system.
  Disable logging in /etc/systemd/journald.conf:

  Storage=none
  

  Disable unnecessary services:

  systemctl disable avahi-daemon
  systemctl stop avahi-daemon
  systemctl disable triggerhappy
  systemctl stop triggerhappy
  

License

Distributed under the New BSD License, see LICENSE.txt.

Acknowledgments

Inspiration, documentation, code snippets, etc.

• Building a living photo frame
• Waveshare display Wiki
• RCWL-0516 microwave radar motion detector
• Raspberry Pi config.txt documentation
• Crontab configuration man 5 crontab
• incrontab configuraiton man 5 incrontab
• Samba configuration man 5 smb.conf
• fbi - Linux framebuffer image viewer man fbi