Please post your questions about the power controller here.
Date
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58 comments
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HiFiBerry team Are you using the power controller firmware that came with HiFiBerryOS? That would explain it. There's a newer r5 that fixes some bugs.
If you're already using this, please post the output of the flash process. -
David Stiles I flashed R% downloaded from: Release Release 5 · hifiberry/powercontroller · GitHub
Here is screenshot after flashing:
I flashed it again and the bright light has now gone. I get blue flashes when controller is turned. Still not working.
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HiFiBerry team Ok, this has nothing to do with the firmware, but you don't have i2c enabled on your pi. Are you running HiFiBerryOS?
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David Stiles Yes, HifiberryOS with a Digi+ADC. How do I enable i2c? I let the OS setup itself automatically.
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HiFiBerry team Not sure why this isn't enabled, but you can load the driver using
modprobe i2c-dev -
David Stiles Thanks for that. After that modprobe command I appear to have communication with the power controller.
Still no functionality though.
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HiFiBerry team just write first to the register and check if you can read the same value back
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David Stiles Thanks for your help however I don't understand what that means.
Is there a way to to load i2c-dev at startup?
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Robert I know, it is not possible to connect the PowerController and the Beocreate4 out of the box. Not yet.
(The interrupt pin of the PC has to be connected to GPIO4 (pin 7) of the Pi's GPIO. Unfortunatelly this pin seems to be missing on the beocreates additional 34 pin connector. Thus it is unaccessible at the moment. So you can't even craft your own cable because of this. Instead you have to wait for a HiFiBerryOS release, where the pin can be freely selected)
But... while I am bad in waiting and someone mentioned above, that the PIN-Layout of the PowerControllers GPIO is the same as the first 10 pins of the 40Pin GPIO, I thought I could use a simple GPIO-Extender as a workaround - it simply doubles the 40 GPIO Pins. So I gave it a try. It worked... almost.
In the WebUI->General->System Tools->Diagnostic information ist says "0x00/0x05" under the power controller section. So the PC seems to be detected.
The blue LED on PC flashes every time I turn or push the rotary controller. But nothing happens (not start, stop, volume +/-, shutdown).
My setup is a RPi 3B with HiFiBerryOS 20210408 + BeoCreate4
The PC is sucessfully flashed to R5.
Any Ideas why it is not working?P.S.: I checked /etc/audiocontrol2.conf. I can see a [[controller:ac2.plugins.control.rotary.Rotary]-entry there, but no [controller:ac2.plugins.control.powercontroller.Powercontroller]
Should I go for /opt/hifiberry/bin/update --experimental? -
eaedev Hi all,
I am a little bit lost with the documentation. I do not know if it is outdated or I don't understand properly.
I am going to use the power controler with hifiberryos and with an amp 2.should it work out or the box or do I have to activate it as guthub repository explains?
En thanks in advance
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HiFiBerry team @Robert: Yes, try the experimental. This should add the latest power controller code. If it doesn't do this correctly, you can also add this by yourself.
@eaedev: For the Amp2 you need to upgrade HiFiBerryOS to the latest experimental release and upload firmware v5 as this requires a different configuration than other boards. -
eaedev Hi!
Thank you for answering so fast. Where can I found the releases and firmware? For releases of hifiberryos I only know https://github.com/hifiberry/hifiberry-os/releases and there is no "experimental" (even though last release includes power control) for firmware: https://github.com/hifiberry/powercontroller/releases which has release 5 which I guess is version 5, right?
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HiFiBerry team Experimentals are not officially published. You need to install it from command line
/opt/hifiberry/bin/update --experimental -
Robert Just came here to give some (positive) feedback:
- With the experimental release of HiFiBerryOS 20210527 and a PowerController flashed to R5 the PC also works perfectly on a beocreate4! Thank you!
(In my case I used a GPIO-Extender between the PI and the Beocreate4, so that I can use the original cable that came with the PC and without changing any pins -> https://www.reichelt.de/de/de/raspberry-pi-gpio-header-1-auf-2-40-polig-rm-2-54-rpi-gpio-1to2-p276993.html?PROVID=2788&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIq_byoffp8AIVC6h3Ch1gYgg9EAQYByABEgLO9fD_BwE&&r=1)
- For the final product I would recommend to think about the following changes:
- Add some holes for screws: Without holes it is very difficult to attach the PC. And drilling holes in the board by yourself is not for everyone either.
- Add a socket to the board: Most of us supply their HiFiBerry boards with a power supply with a barrel jack. Cutting this off to add the wires directly is also not for everyone (and has a 50% chance of confusing which is + and - :-))
- With the experimental release of HiFiBerryOS 20210527 and a PowerController flashed to R5 the PC also works perfectly on a beocreate4! Thank you!
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David Stiles I have still not found a way to get i2c to load at start-up. Without i2c the Power Controller is not detected.
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HiFiBerry team You can just edit the pc-startup.service file and add a modprobe:
https://github.com/hifiberry/hifiberry-os/blob/development/buildroot/package/hifiberry-powercontroller/pc-startup.service
This should be included in the next HiFiBerryOS release. -
David Stiles Thanks, much appreciated.
Power Controller up and running now.
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Martin Orrell Hi . Where can I download the hex file from? I cannot find it in the github directories.
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David Stiles Hi, I found it here: Release Release 5 · hifiberry/powercontroller · GitHub
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Martin Orrell Thanks David - got it working now
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David Stiles Hi, I have just connected power controller to an amp100 via 40pin header added to DSP add-on board. HifiberryOS detects the power controller. I have a green light on the PC but it does not function at all. Just checking, is the pinout from the Amp100/DSP correct for PC?
PC was flashed V5 and working on another system using Dac+ ADC Pro .
Thanks
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Mathias Fernengel Hi, has anybody running the powercontroller with PI4 and AMP2 with HiFiBerry OS?
My installation won't work :-(
Best regards, Mathias
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Rien @Mathias, same setup here. Tried and checked everything that was suggested (see posts of May 5th & 10th), but still no luck either.
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Chris Hasty Perhaps a silly question, but I’m asking because I honestly don’t know.
The power controller works great. I’m running the HIFiBerry experimental and firmware R5. Super cool addition.
My question is this, does the flashed firmware reside on the power controller? Meaning could I remove it from my Pi3 and place it on a Pi4 without going through the whole process again? The software looks almost like an arduino sketch and I know my Teensy is t much bigger than the power control board.
I don’t have the pi4 in hand right now, a friend is borrowing it… otherwise I would have already tried it.
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HiFiBerry team Yes, the software is flashed on the controller.
You're right about the software. It does not only look like an Arduino sketch - it is one ;-) On the power controller we only use the chip itself without a lot of other stuff that's on "normal" Arduino boards as we don't need it here. -
Chris Hasty Good to know. I'm excited to get this thing completed with the Hifiberry OS. Just need to figure out how to connect the DAC + ADC Pro and an AAMP60 with the PowerController at the same time. I'm guessing a 1 to 2 expansion board with a right angle is the best bet. I'm thinking the extra header pins on the DAC + ADC Pro would be covered and inaccessible with the AAMP60 on top.
Thanks again
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David Stiles I have the Power Controller working with ADC Pro & AAMP60. Ribbon cable fits however I did need to remove the top rail from the ribbon cable connector. The ribbon cable seems secure without that part.
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Chris Hasty Not necessarily a problem, but maybe something worth mentioning?
I am currently using Version 20210723 with a Previous 20210531 Power Controller is on Firmware v5. I'm pretty sure I also updated through /opt/hifiberry/bin/update --experimental... but I've loaded 3 different SD cards for software so I can't be sure as I'm not familiar with all the releases.
I periodically have problems with restarts hanging up. when it would start, the controller would not light up as expected and a single quick press instantly shut down the entire system.
I hooked up a monitor to see what was going on and found this message (hand typed transcription so if you see text that looks horribly wrong blame me):
System-tmpfiles-setup.service: Job systemsd-journald.service/start deleted to break ordering cycle starting with systems-tmpfiles-setup.service/start
systemd-journald.service: Unable to break cycle starting with systemd-journald.service/start
System-midules-load[113]: Failed to find module ‘options snd_soc_core pmdown_time=-1’
This doesn't happen with every restart, but when it happens it seems to happen consistently with each restart. I found that if I removed my USB storage thumb drive (SanDisk Ultra Fit 256 GB) then restarted, it will load appropriately. I've been able to recreate this issue 2 or 3 times and fix it the same way each time. Once it loads back up appropriately, I add the thumb drive back and it works just fine.
Thanks,
Chris
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