Beosystem integrating networkplayer project

24 replies
type81
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type81
Bronze
Posted February 2, 2026 at 18:13 GMT
Edited February 2, 2026 at 18:17 GMT
#1672670
Now the really nice stuff, we want flashing lights :)
The Beomodern project by Henryk was talking about HDSP2112 screens. Nice 80's retro LED matrix screens. 8 characters per screen, the possibility to position more screens next to each other and controllable with gpio pins on the Raspberry Pi.
I found a really nice website with all info I needed to control the display(s) with Python. link
A little bit of experimenting gave me pretty soon a nice flashing disco. As you can see there a a LOT of wires. This was a bit of a headache. This would mean a huge flatcable to the frontpanel. Also, because of the 6 gpio pins from the Pi to the Arduino there were not enough GPIO ports left on the Pi to control 3 screens which I had in mind. It would be nice if I could control the screens with some sort of display controller which is small enough to be situated behind the frontpanel. My solution: A MCP23017 GPIO expander.
This fellow is a I2C bus driven GPIO expander. When connected you get 16 extra GPIO ports per IC.
I2C bus control is 2 wires (clock/data), and some wires for power supply of the IC and screens.
Also, you can control different expanders on the same bus by addressing them different.
I decided to give each of the matrix screens their own GPIO expander. This way I am able to control them independent, but also be able to cascade it to show longer text.
 

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Tignum
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Tignum
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Posted February 2, 2026 at 18:24 GMT
#1672672
So cool! Waiting to see your post about VU meters! 😁

Regards, Johan

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type81
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type81
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Posted February 2, 2026 at 18:40 GMT
Edited February 2, 2026 at 18:48 GMT
#1672674
Now the creation of the PCB's behind the frontpanel. As said, I try not to use barbarian tools like angle grinders. So the goal is to create something which can be placed in the original frame. It's really tight in there but I managed to create a PCB with the right proportions, 2 screens and 2 gpio expanders. This PCB will be placed on the left side of the frontpanel. It was a bit of a struggle, while the expanders had to be placed on the backside of the PCB and the screens on the front of the PCB
  On the right side is 1 screen, which is built the same way. As you can see, it is tight. Very very tight. But it fits
   
A scan on the I2C bus gives me 2 addresses, those are the 2 GPIO expanders on the left PCB. The right PCB was not connected at that moment. Time for a test .
 

Location: Netherlands

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type81
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type81
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Posted February 2, 2026 at 19:01 GMT
#1672675
Now that the screens are ready, they need to be connected to the Raspberry Pi. At the time I built the central connecting PCB, the idea was to create 1 large screen but this was impossible without the "tools" So I need to connect 2 screen PCB's to the main PCB, but I anticipated for just 1. Creating a second socket would imply a complete redesign of the main PCB. I decided to create an intermediate PCB. Behind the front panel where normally the CPU of the Beomaster resides I had enough space to position this extra unforseen PCB
 

Location: Netherlands

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type81
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type81
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Posted February 2, 2026 at 19:21 GMT
Edited February 2, 2026 at 19:26 GMT
#1672676
Then the frontpanel. The screens are in place, but the plexiglass has some sort of coating on the backside. It won't let the matrix screens shine through. So the coating needs to be removed where the screens reside.
I did this with grinding paper and after that if polished the clear plexiglass. This polishing needs more work, but for now I am happy with it Other places where the plexiglass is sort of clear need to be masked. I did this simply with a marker pen on the backside of the plexiglass.
       
     

Location: Netherlands

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type81
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type81
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Posted February 2, 2026 at 19:49 GMT
#1672677

Location: Netherlands

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type81
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type81
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Posted February 6, 2026 at 13:11 GMT
#1672706
Your VU question triggered me to try. But the choice for using MCP23017 GPIO expanders behind the screens makes this nearly impossible.
That I2C driven solution is simply not fast enough to process the fast screen changes.
I had it sort of working but after 2 seconds the screens stop working.
It would be possible if I redesign the screen PCB's with a SPI driven solution but this would imply a full redesign of all my PCB's.
So for now I'll stick to the curent design without VU meters

Location: Netherlands

My B&O Icons:

Beoremote-Beo4.png Beoremote-Beo4.png
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Tignum
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Tignum
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Posted February 6, 2026 at 19:09 GMT
#1672708
What you accomplished is really very cool!

Johan

Location: Netherlands

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Beoremote-One.png Beoremote-One.png
Beosound-5.png Beosound-5.png
Beovision-10.png Beovision-10.png
BE
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beosthlm
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Posted March 5, 2026 at 17:04 GMT
#1672955
Really nice work so far! Love the look of those matrix LEDs! And impressive what you have got together so far. Keep up the good work!

Location: Stockholm

type81
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type81
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Posted March 11, 2026 at 22:04 GMT
Edited March 11, 2026 at 22:15 GMT
#1673005
 

Time for an update.
It's not only a network player, but it has been upgraded to a network player AND network recorder.
So I am now able to record any signal which comes from the Beomaster to FLAC files on the internal harddisk.



It's pretty crowdy, but I was able to build in a Behringer UCA-202 USB soundcard. I took all of the unnessecary parts of this soundcard, and mounted it on a standard grid PCB with 10-pin IDC connector.
A Python based script starts the recording to the internal RAM of the Raspberry Pi. After the recording the file is split into multiple tracks when a pause of 2 seconds is detected.
After this, the file(s) are uploaded to Volumio.

Maybe a moderator can remove the attachment? This was not inteded, I wanted simply add a picture but did it wrong :)

Location: Netherlands

My B&O Icons:

Beoremote-Beo4.png Beoremote-Beo4.png
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