I’m looking to get a Pisound with my Raspberry Pi 5, but first want a little screen, and want to ensure it will fit correctly.
I need basic text output. Due to the complexity of some of the text, I am thinking of a console display using a 3.5" full-color screen rather than an e.g. 20x4 character LCD, though I am also wondering if there are significant performance costs to using a full-color screen.
What keywords should I look for in a screen to make sure it’ll fit with the Pisound? (I also have an active cooler).
New to the Pi, so this seems like a basic question but I’m struggling to find a good overview of how to match these peripherals.
For general searches, I’d like to know what connections are available once the Pisound is attached. I see the Waveshare uses DSI; I am also considering a 20x4 LCD thing (over I2C?). Thanks for any guidance you can offer on connections available.
I’m still in need of help here. I have never attached anything to a Raspberry Pi except by USB so this is all new to me. I just bought a Pisound second-hand in the US (sorry, I really did want to buy it new but our leadership is making this harder these days, and this second-hand one included a Raspberry Pi 5 with a case for not much more than the Pisound…).
I would like to use an LCD character display, 20x4. I am really struggling with understanding how to connect one. I see 14 holes on the Pisound described as “pinouts” here - presumably I can use these to attach to an LCD? But it it holes, and I can only ever see connections that expect pins. What should I look for in an LCD to connect it? I see there are Python libraries for I2C connections - that would be good to use.
I’m really struggling to find a guide to all the peripheral connections available on a Pi. I really don’t need a touch display, or more than a few lines of text, but there seems to be a base level of understanding everywhere that I don’t have when it comes to hardware.
It is up to you how to connect your display exactly - you may install 2x7 male header into the Pisound header holes, or solder male jumper cables or wires directly into the holes.
Additionally, it’s important which pins you pick for each connection, not every pin can perform identical functions. See https://pinout.xyz/ for groupings of pins, the unused pins by Pisound are routed out to the 2x7 header. If your screen uses I²C communication, you’ll have to connect at least SCL, SDA, GND pins and either +5V or +3.3V, depending on what your screen expects.
The graphical LCDs as linked before have dedicated connectors on the Pi itself, making it a bit easier to get started with.
@Lambeth I think you’re on the right path. You’ve already found the page that shows the pins that can be used safely with the PiSound. Any I2C LCD should work. I was going to include the link to the ones that I used to build my custom MIDI pedalboard but they are no longer available. I would also suggest Adafruit but at this time they don’t have any 20x4 units listed on their website. If you shop on Amazon what you’re going to find is you have to buy multiple LCDs to get what you want. But that’s okay too because if one dies you have a replacement. Here’s one that should work but whatever you do make sure the LCD already has the I2C module attached. I bought one without not knowing that and wasted some money.
I haven’t personally tapped into the available pins from my PiSound so I can’t really speak to how this should be done. Since the PiSound sits completely on the Pi I’m assuming you would have to solder a new header onto the top of the PiSound? Hopefully @Giedrius can comment on how that would be done.
What I am curious is what information you want to display on the LCD. The reason I ask is you could also consider using a Pico with the 20x4 LCD. That’s what I did on my custom MIDI pedalboard: MIDIZilla for MODEP
Of course I had to write some custom code to run the pedalboard and output the relevant information to screen so if you’re not comfortable with coding that might not be a good alternative.
I’m comfortable with the code needed for this. I can use Python and will adapt a library for it. Giedrius has explained how to connect the pins in the pin-out so I understand now - thanks Giedrius!
I need the RAM of the Raspberry Pi 5. At least I seem to. I didn’t look into the Pico. I’m displaying the variables of a Python program that loops incoming audio. It has a lot of variables (controlled with a big MIDI controller), too much to keep track of by memory. I could use a regular graphic output but enjoy the limitations and assume it saves a bit of resources. Here’s the code.