Wedge Raspberry Pi TouchScreen Holder

thingiverse

I use Volumio for music playback and have been looking for a way to utilize the touchscreen interface even when my computer is switched off. For some time, I searched for a solution that was reasonably elegant and found it in amason101070's screen mount. I took the screen mount itself and designed a wedge that it can slot into. My network has issues sometimes and drops connection, causing the Pi not to regain connectivity. Before the screen, I used a button and a Python script so I could safely reboot the machine. Now I don't need it as it can be powered down with the touchscreen. However, something I wanted was the ability to control backlight levels. So I repurposed the script and button so now a short press cycles through three levels of backlight and a two-second hold turns the backlight off. I used a button with ring LED and the LED is connected to a GPIO pin 13, allowing for PWM control so the LED 'breathes' when the screen is turned off. Also, when turning the screen off, music playback will pause (if playing) and resume when the screen is turned on (if it was playing before). I adjusted the screen holder from the original as the button passes through it, so there's a cut-out to allow for that. There are several wedges available, with or without the button and with or without the Volumio logo. A button plug is also included if you want to use a button later and don't want to reprint the whole thing again. The LED button was purchased from eBay (https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/381858325502?ul_noapp=true). It's 12mm in diameter and has no resistor on the LED - many are "12V" i.e. have an internal resistor. Although given the resistor value I've used, it would probably illuminate okay. I just wanted full control over how bright it is. Mounting the button can be a bit tricky. The nut gets slotted up into the groove in the opening on the underside. You then have to rotate the button to screw it down. I'd advise caution when tightening. I use some thin-nosed pliers on the front, but they scratched the finish. Probably better to go from the inside if possible. **-UPDATE 30/12/2018-** I found a guide I wrote on how I got the whole thing set up on the software side here: https://volumio.org/forum/guide-for-setting-touchscreen-backlight-control-t11425.html Updated text as the LED can now connect to a GPIO pin for PWM control and the script allows for pausing and resuming of playback when the screen is blanked.