Raspberry Pi, AirPlay, and dry camping

[Eric_Lisa]

This past weekend we were dry camping out in the sticks with three other couples. It was the field test of new camping music system and I just had to share with the forum. 🙂

The problem I had was a bunch of music and no real simple way to access and play it. I had burned DVDs full of MP3s in the past, and those will play in my camper's head unit, but that still limits me to picking the music ahead of time. I wanted to access my entire music library (~800GB) while camping and sitting in a chair next to the campfire.

I started with a Raspberry Pi2. I added on to that a WiFi adapter with a real antenna - instead of the small chicklet style WiFi adapter it came with. I purchased from HiFi Berry an add-on sound card. This gave me an RCA output which I could connect to the Aux-In on my head unit.

I got a 1TB external USB hard drive from Amazon. I got a power converter for 12v to 5v so that I could power the RPi from my camper's electrical system. I also had to get a USB splitter cable so that I could power the USB hard drive separately as the RPi does not provide enough power on its ports to spin a drive.

I started with a base OS load of Raspbian. I loaded Shairport and got it configured. This allowed me to see the RPi as an AirPlay device from my iThingy on my home network.

I found the steps on how to set up the RPi as a wireless access point between its WiFi and physical NIC. It needs to run DHCP too. I mounted and shared the USB hard drive. I also went through all the steps to get all these pieces to auto launch at power up.

On my iPad I already had an app called 'FileBrowserEX'.

Now, while camping, I can power up the setup off my 12v camper system. I can see a wireless access point to connect to. I then open the file browser app and connect to the network share. Pick a song, start it playing, and then click the AirPlay icon. Shazam, music is coming out of the outdoor camper speakers!

It worked pretty well. Only thing I want to change is put the antenna outside. The aluminum camper skin seemed to dampen the signal. I can easily extend a USB cable up to the roof of the camper and put the antenna in the AC unit or something like that.

I am probably in to this for a little over $200 by the time I got all the pieces and parts. I have built a number of RPi's for other purposes, so I was familiar with Raspbian and Linux. I would NOT recommend this as a project for someone who does not have experience in those areas. Shairport was a challenge to get running properly (and especially to auto start). The WAP, DHCP, and drive sharing were a lot easier.

The payoff... I got to play DJ while sitting at the campfire. Everyone really enjoyed me playing the top ten hits from their 'coming of age' year. Good Times!

-Eric

[1775]

Sounds great! I recently got a Raspberry Pi 2 B and paid $35 for the board, put it together with some cables, a mouse, and keyboard I already had and a $8 charger and have another desktop PC. I agree that Linux is not for the uninitiated. I have been playing around with Linux distros for years on old PCs.

I have found Ubuntu Mate 15.04 runs much faster on my Pi than Raspbian and has been easier to configure to the network. Not sure if your set up will work with Ubuntu.

Its incredible what this little board can do and for so little cost.

[LittleBill]

Eric&Lisa wrote:


LittleBill - The HiFi Berry is actually a Digital-to-Analog converter. In short, better sound quality than what the RPi provides natively.

is it that much better? i never noticed a big problem with the pi output quality, but to be honest i only listened for a couple minutes

[Eric_Lisa]

@bcsdguy & Helimech - Well I thought it was a cool project and I enjoyed figuring it out.

LittleBill - The HiFi Berry is actually a Digital-to-Analog converter. In short, better sound quality than what the RPi provides natively.

Darryl&Rita - Yeah, these RPi's are addicting and versatile. Among other things I have them running security cameras and a sprinkler system.

[Darryl_Rita]

Sounds like fun to me, but I'm different. Like reading on the RPi, and people's projects. Thanks for sharing.

[Helimech]

I got a radio from walmart, $10

[LittleBill]

i'll give ya props!, i do alot with pi's and arduino's. why the HIFi berry, you can get rca to stereo plug adapter cables

[bcsdguy]

For me that is a waste of time and money but different strokes for different folks. 🙂

[Old-Biscuit]

I just hummmmmm