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I updated the Instructable with instructions how to keep the Sonos bluetooth "station" streaming when the bluetooth connection is interrupted.

Yes, you could use an external bluetooth dongle but after doing some reading and trial and error the past hour I figured out a way you can stream bluetooth directly to the Raspberry Pi and stream it to Sonos without even having to use the external sound card.Open the terminal window and install bluealsa. If it is already installed it will tell you.sudo apt-get install bluealsaPair your phone with the Raspberry Pi using the bluetooth icon on the desktop then run this command to reveal your connected device's bluetooth MAC address:sudo bluetoothctlMy phone's bluetooth MAC address is 50:F0:D3:7A:94:C4In order for darkice to be able to use it as a PCM input device we have to create a file in the "etc" folder called "asound.conf" (/etc/asound.conf). Use the steps above to...

Yes, you could use an external bluetooth dongle but after doing some reading and trial and error the past hour I figured out a way you can stream bluetooth directly to the Raspberry Pi and stream it to Sonos without even having to use the external sound card.Open the terminal window and install bluealsa. If it is already installed it will tell you.sudo apt-get install bluealsaPair your phone with the Raspberry Pi using the bluetooth icon on the desktop then run this command to reveal your connected device's bluetooth MAC address:sudo bluetoothctlMy phone's bluetooth MAC address is 50:F0:D3:7A:94:C4In order for darkice to be able to use it as a PCM input device we have to create a file in the "etc" folder called "asound.conf" (/etc/asound.conf). Use the steps above to create the asound.conf file in the etc folder and paste these lines into that file (with your phone's MAC address substituted for mine of course):pcm.phone {type plugslave.pcm {type bluealsadevice "50:F0:D3:7A:94:C4"profile "a2dp"}}Then edit the darkice.cfg file and comment out the beginning of the "device=" line and make a new one with "phone" as the input device:device = phone#device = plughw:1,0 # Soundcard device for the audio inputReboot the Pi and after it has restarted pair your phone's bluetooth with the Pi if it doesn't do it automatically and start the Raspberry Pi radio station on your Sonos speaker. If it worked then any audio you try to play on your phone should come out the Sonos speaker.

Yes, that is exactly what this is for. Any analog audio signal plugged into the Behringer sound card is what you can play on any Sonos speaker on your network.

This could be funny gag! Someone asks for a charge so you stick one end of your cable in your mouth and the other end in their phone and imagine the look on their face when their phone lights up and starts charging! lol Or tell them you'll charge their phone using static electricity and start vigorously rubbing the other end of the cable against your hair or sweater.

Excellent! Thanks for sharing!

I know this isn't the answer you're looking for but it would be easier to install the full Raspian package rather than try to fix it piecemeal. In my limited experience with Linux, even if you manually install the missing packgages: libjack-jackd2-0, libjack-0.116, libogg0, libvorbis0a and libvorbisenc2, there will inevitably be other problems that crop up since they won't be the right versions, installed in the right locations, etc.

Darkice is not running. Both darkice.cfg and darkice.sh are located in the /home/pi/ folder, correct? And you made the darkice.sh executable? And the format in the darkice.cfg file is set to format=mp3?

You're :\

Your welcome and thank you!

Icecast is running obviously or else you wouldn't have the status screen so I suspect darkice is either not starting or is not configured properly. Double-check your darkice.cfg settings file and check the Cron scheduler using "crontab -l". There is a Cron GUI that can be installed by entering "sudo apt-get install gnome-schedule" at a terminal prompt and then opened by selecting "Scheduled Tasks" from the main menu. Here's the help page for refefence: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/linux/usage/cron.md

Icecast is running obviously or else you wouldn't have the status screen so I suspect darkice is either not starting or is not configured properly. Double-check your darkice.cfg settings file and check the Cron scheduler using "crontab -l". There is a Cron GUI that can be installed by entering "sudo apt-get install gnome-schedule" at a terminal prompt and then opened by selecting "Scheduled Tasks" from the main menu. Here's the help page for refefence: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/linux/usage/cron.md

Glad it worked! Mine has literally been running 24/7 since I published this back in October and has not crashed once. That's probably more of a testament to Linux and the Raspberry Pi than my computer skills though, lol.

I can't test but you could try setting the device in the darkice.cfg file to default and see if it just streams the internal soundcard's output:[general]duration = 0 # duration in s, 0 foreverbufferSecs = 1 # buffer, in secondsreconnect = yes # reconnect if disconnected[input]device = defaultsampleRate = 44100 # sample rate 11025, 22050 or 44100bitsPerSample = 16 # bitschannel = 2 # 2 = stereo[icecast2-0]bitrateMode = cbr # constant bit rate ('cbr' constant, 'abr' average)#quality = 1.0 # 1.0 is best quality (use only with vbr)format = mp3 # format. Choose 'vorbis' for OGG Vorbisbitrate = 320 # bitrateserver = localhost # or IPport = 8000 # po...

I can't test but you could try setting the device in the darkice.cfg file to default and see if it just streams the internal soundcard's output:[general]duration = 0 # duration in s, 0 foreverbufferSecs = 1 # buffer, in secondsreconnect = yes # reconnect if disconnected[input]device = defaultsampleRate = 44100 # sample rate 11025, 22050 or 44100bitsPerSample = 16 # bitschannel = 2 # 2 = stereo[icecast2-0]bitrateMode = cbr # constant bit rate ('cbr' constant, 'abr' average)#quality = 1.0 # 1.0 is best quality (use only with vbr)format = mp3 # format. Choose 'vorbis' for OGG Vorbisbitrate = 320 # bitrateserver = localhost # or IPport = 8000 # port for IceCast2 accesspassword = hackme # source password for the IceCast2 servermountPoint = rapi.mp3 # mount point on the IceCast2 server .mp3 or .oggname = Raspberry Pi

Great news!

I'm not sure what would be causing this. Is the Pi responsive when this happens? Do you have to reboot? Did you enable the lock screen or sleep mode? It is off by default. Did you install any other software or tweak any other settings? How are you powering it? USB cable plugged into a computer or dedicated power supply? I think its a power issue or corrupted sd card. Or even a bad Pi.

Good deal! Glad it worked. My delay is about 1 second but I'm connected via ethernet.

I don't know what I was thinking...my radio source is in my office and I was playing the Raspberry Pi stream in my browser so of course streaming to my Sonos speakers downstairs takes an extra second. Cheers!

I was thinking about it and why not just borrow someone's laptop, connect it to your home wifi, install the Sonos desktop controller app, add the custom url then uninstall and return the laptop? It is not needed after the custom url has been added.

I just did some extensive testing with using the Behringer's headphone output to boost the input signal and had some interesting results. Previously I had just used the radio's outputs to prove that feeding the Behringer's headphone out back into its own input using the Turtle Beach cable would work. It did work great but a radio source is not high fidelity so this I used my computer's outputs to feed the Behringer and Raspberry streamer some Enya, Chris Botti and Diana Krall and cranked the Sonos Play 5's volume way up to see if I could hear any distortion, feedback or any other artifacts and there was none except when I unplugged the input cable while the Behringer's headphone out was at max volume then there was a noticeable clicking noise that looped that went away when I turn the B...

I just did some extensive testing with using the Behringer's headphone output to boost the input signal and had some interesting results. Previously I had just used the radio's outputs to prove that feeding the Behringer's headphone out back into its own input using the Turtle Beach cable would work. It did work great but a radio source is not high fidelity so this I used my computer's outputs to feed the Behringer and Raspberry streamer some Enya, Chris Botti and Diana Krall and cranked the Sonos Play 5's volume way up to see if I could hear any distortion, feedback or any other artifacts and there was none except when I unplugged the input cable while the Behringer's headphone out was at max volume then there was a noticeable clicking noise that looped that went away when I turn the Behringer's volume down under 75% or so. Then I tried using my phone as the input source and here is where it gets interesting...trying to use the Behringer's headphone out to boost the input signal had no effect whatsoever when using my phone as the input source! I can only surmise that it has something to so with not sharing a common ground or something since the phone is running off an isolated battery. The point is, you can try the output/input loop trick to try to boost your source's volume level and it will not hurt anything or affect the fidelity of the music but it may simply not work and if it does work I would recommend keeping the Behringer's headphone volume dial at 75% or less :)

:)

Thank you all for the kind words. I'm glad it worked for you.

Good to hear it's working! I don't think the headphone out of the Behringer goes through any kind of digital to analog conversion when you have the monitor switch turned on. I think it just passes it straight through the Behringer's analog headphone amp as I couldn't detect any feedback or degradation in sound quality.

Thank you

In short, no, because the lowest setting allowed in the darkice.cfg config file is "1" (bufferSecs=1). But that's not a Raspberry Pi issue, its a Sonos issue. I've tried feeding my TV audio into my Play 5 and it was out of sync. I even tried turning off audio compression in the advanced settings of the Sonos desktop controller and that did not help. The Sonos Playbar has an audio delay setting but even that doesn't work for everyone.https://en.community.sonos.com/home-theater-228993...

Any external USB soundcard should work but 99% of those are cheap USB dongles that only have mono input. An alternative to the Behringer ~$30 that has 3.5 mm stereo input is the Griffin Technology iMic ~$25.

Great news! Glad it worked. Thank you!

Do you have a USB thumb drive?

Do you have any Internet connectivity with the Pi? Have you tried opening the web browser?

So simple and elegant. Very cool!

TD7297 amps are known to get really hot. I was concerned the impedance of the motors was too low when I first started testing but then found online that this is common https://www.google.com/search?q=tda7297+hot though I can't imagine installing one in a sealed cabinet as many do to make a portable bluetooth speaker. They are also supposed to have a thermal protection switch but I never tripped it during my testing

The only thing I can tell you is to make sure you use those uxcell 5000 RPM 6V High Torque motors I linked to in the parts list. I ordered motors from several different sellers on both Amazon and eBay and those were the only ones that had enough torque to maintain good control of the mirrors. Others I tried that looked identical with the same exact housing were too weak and made the pattern too loose and bouncy. Also, if you order those cheap amps from China make sure you order more than one because a full third of the ones I received were DOA or the potentiometers were cracked since they ship them in a plastic envelope, not boxed.

It doesn't matter which side goes where because when the ignition is turned on and closes the relay, all it is doing is providing continuity between the blue wire (30) and the yellow wire (87). These relays are normally used to provide 12V power to an accessory such as fog lights or an LED light bar. In that case the blue wire (30) is usually also connected to the 12V source and when the relay is activated it passes the 12V current on to the the yellow wire (87) which is connected to the accessory. In this case, however, all we are simply doing is passing the peach wire's signal from the the blue wire (30) to the yellow wire (87) to complete it's path.

I didn't like that crude schematic so I wired everything up today (outside of the box) and took a picture of it for you. Please note that those power wires are shortened greatly before installation.

I finally had some time today to sit down to add more details and links to all of the parts.

I didn't realize those could take an analog signal. I was seriously going to go that route then came upon the idea of using inexpensive motors and discovered they fit inside the conduit fittings and then fell in love with the industrial look of the electrical box. Good thing I didn't know any better :)

Hard to go wrong with Pink Floyd ;)

You get it. I was just trying to gauge interest. It costs more than $50 in parts and accessories to build each one. I will have to raise the price if I decide to make any more in the future.

Thank you.

Thank you. I added a precaution to my last laser project but frankly forgot to do so with this one. I'll go back and add that info.

Yes you can do that by applying separate EQ settings to each laser box but for the purposes of the demo videos I was trying to show that the patterns are not some random bouncing of a mirror; Each song has it's own unique, repeatable pattern. All the boxes produced relatively the same pattern even though they were not synchronized in any way other than sharing the same audio signal.

Where were you last month? I was racking my brain trying to figure out how to cool the diode while keeping it isolated before landed on the diode route. You know how expensive thermally conductive but electrically nonconductive tape is? lol

Yes I looked at http://www.ebay.com/itm/252300684989 but in the end decided to keep it all analog to make it as simple and compact as possible. Since this this involves no programming, it's more pure or even organic in a way. You "see" the music, not someone's programmed patterns.

Thank you. It could be done but you would have to install multiple lasers and prisms but that would greatly add to the size and complexity.

I couldn't find an amp with a built in EQ small enough to fit inside the box but it could be applied to the input signal.

I saw your wonderful comments. Thank you!

Thank you. I'll draw something up and add it to the instructable.

No, the parking lights will not work with the ignition off the way I have it wired.

Thanks! Cars are getting more complicated with the computers and electronics for sure. I found this relay that has an adjustable delay that could keep the headlights on for up to three minutes after the ignition is turned off. It fits a standard 12v automobile relay harness so it is plug and play. http://www.qualitymobilevideo.com/bu508td.html

OMG! I watch those guys all the time on Youtube but I swear I have never seen that episode! I'm glad I didn't or else I wouldn't have figured out how to do it with only one relay without cutting any high power wires to the headlights.

I thought about that and I guess I could wire two relays both in parallel for redundancy but there are many relays in a car and any one of them could fail at any time. I agree none are as critical as the one for your headlights so I did tell my son that if his headlights go off while driving he should pull back on the stalk (for flashing your headlights) and hold it until he can pull over safely.

It would 99 times out of a 100 but just in case he forgot that one time... And I probably did it more for his convenience more than anything else. Turning off your headlights is so 80's :)

Thank you! I've noticed the ends of the wires corrode very quickly so I have to pull it down a quarter inch every month or so and snip off the ends. Luckily I have 20 extra feet coiled up in the attic! Also I've discovered I don't even have to strip the wires, just cut it. The water contacts with the copper inside the insulation just fine which is great so I don't have to worry about any wire slivers getting into their water.