Desktop Screen Clock

Create a table top web panel (headless browser with automatic refresh) with a rapsberry pi 0

Flashing RaspberriPi Hard Disk / Install Required Software (Using Ubuntu Linux)

Download "RASPBIAN" https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/

Create your new hard disk for DashboardPI

Insert the microSD to your computer via USB adapter and create the disk image using the dd command

Locate your inserted microSD card via the df -h command, unmount it and create the disk image with the disk copy dd command

$ df -h /dev/sdb1 7.4G 32K 7.4G 1% /media/XXX/1234-5678

$ umount /dev/sdb1

Caution: be sure the command is completely accurate, you can damage other disks with this command

if=location of RASPBIAN image file of=location of your microSD card

$ sudo dd bs=4M if=/path/to/raspbian-lite.img of=/dev/sdb (note: in this case, it's /dev/sdb, /dev/sdb1 was an existing factory partition on the microSD)

Setting up your RaspberriPi

Insert your new microSD card to the raspberrypi and power it on with a monitor connected to the HDMI port

user: pi pass: raspberry

Change your account password for security

sudo passwd pi

Enable RaspberriPi Advanced Options

sudo raspi-config

Choose: 1 Expand File System

9 Advanced Options

A2 Hostname change it to "DesktopScreenClock"

A4 SSH Enable SSH Server

A7 I2C Enable i2c interface

Enable the English/US Keyboard

sudo nano /etc/default/keyboard

Change the following line: XKBLAYOUT="us"

Reboot PI for Keyboard layout changes / file system resizing to take effect

$ sudo shutdown -r now

Auto-Connect to your WiFi

sudo nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

Add the following lines to have your raspberrypi automatically connect to your home WiFi (if your wireless network is named "linksys" for example, in the following example)

network={
   ssid="linksys"
   psk="WIRELESS PASSWORD HERE"
}

Reboot PI to connect to WiFi network

$ sudo shutdown -r now

Now that your PI is finally on the local network, you can login remotely to it via SSH. But first you need to get the IP address it currently has.

$ ifconfig

Look for "inet addr: 192.168.XXX.XXX" in the following command's output for your PI's IP Address

Go to another machine and login to your raspberrypi via ssh

$ ssh pi@192.168.XXX.XXX

Start Installing required packages

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get upgrade

$ sudo apt-get install vim git i2c-tools build-essential python-dev rpi.gpio python3 python3-pip python-setuptools python3-requests python3-dev

$ sudo apt install --no-install-recommends xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-core xinit x11-xserver-utils

Install DHT22 Python Library

$ git clone https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_Python_DHT.git

$ cd Adafruit_Python_DHT

$ sudo python2 setup.py install

Update local timezone settings

$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

select your timezone using the interface

Setup the simple directory l command [optional]

vi ~/.bashrc

add the following line:

alias l='ls -lh'

source ~/.bashrc

Fix VIM default syntax highlighting [optional]

sudo vi /etc/vim/vimrc

uncomment the following line:

syntax on

Supplies Needed

RaspberryPi Zero

USB WIFI (if not a PiZero W)

DHT22

5 Inch Touchscreen for Raspberry Pi

Semi-Transparent PlexiGlass

Building the Desktop Screen Clock

Wiring the Components

Connect the DHT22 as follows in the diagram

Connect the 5 inch monitor as you would a normal monitor through the HDMI port on the raspberrypi.

Assembly

Software Setup

Create a .xinitrc file in your rapsberry pi home directory

$ vi .xinitrc

#!/usr/bin/env sh

xset -dpms

xset s off

xset s noblank

unclutter & matchbox-window-manager & midori -e Fullscreen https://WEBSITE URL HERE

Edit the .bash_profile to startx when you login

$ vi .bash_profile

if [ -z $DISPLAY ] && [ $(tty) = /dev/tty1]

then

startx

fi

vi ~/.config/midori/config

[settings]

last-window-width=710

last-window-height=530

show-navigationbar=false

Create a copy of settings-shadow.py to settings.py and update your own values for your clock.

Get Outside weather weatherAPIURL = 'https:// openweather API'

https://openweathermap.org/

account is required, the device will simply read from the default forecast returned from the API, it will also post it to the Datahub.

OPTIONAL DATAHUB

use https://github.com/khinds10/DeviceHub to setup a custom datahub for your device to post temps as time goes on.

deviceLoggerAPI = 'data logger URL'

DHT Adjust is degress (in F) to plus or minus in case your DHT22 is running hot or cold.

dht22Adjust = 0

Set pi user crontab

Setup the crontab to:

wait 5 minutes then move the mouse to the corner so it's no longer visible
check temp each 7 minutes
press the F5 (browser refresh) key each 15 minutes - this will ensure that if the website crashes or doesn't load, it will refresh again periodically

$ crontab -e

@reboot sleep 300s; export DISPLAY=:0; xdotool mousemove 500 500 click 1; xdotool mousemove 0 0;

*/7 * * * * python3 /home/khinds/temp-check.py

*/15 * * * * xte -x :0 "key F5"

khinds10 / DesktopScreenClock