Rooster-EPD V3

A small e-Paper device that shows your Zermelo schedule.

Required materials

• Raspberry Pi Zero 2WH
  • The original Zero W should also work, however I opted for the Zero 2 W to get better performance
• Waveshare 2.13inch E-Paper HAT (G), 250x122, Red/Yellow/Black/White, SPI Interface
• Micro SD card
  • I recommend to get a fast one
  • Size doesn't really matter, 32GB is more than enough
• Micro SD card reader
• Micro USB cable
• USB Power supply / charger

Optional materials

• 3D Printed case - STL files in the latest release
• 4x M2.5 x 6 screw - (I bought this kit)
• 4x M2.5 nut - (Also from this kit)

Installation

Prerequisites

• Any SFTP client, I use FileZilla
• Any SSH client, I use the ssh command from PowerShell

Setting up the Pi

Installing Raspberry Pi OS

1. Download and install Raspberry Pi Imager
2. Insert the Micro SD card and run Raspberry Pi Imager
3. Under Raspberry Pi Device select Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W
4. Under Operating System select Raspberry Pi OS (other) and then Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64-bit)
5. Under Storage select your Micro SD card
6. Click NEXT
7. Click EDIT SETTINGS
8. Check Set hostname and enter a hostname, I set it to rooster-epd
   • Remember this as you will need it later on!
   • Also note that the final hostname will be what you set + .local, so in my case it will be rooster-epd.local
9. Check Set username and password and enter a username and password
   • Remember these as you will need them later on!
10. Check Configure wireless LAN and enter your Wi-Fi credentials
    • Don't forget to set the Wireless LAN country to your country
11. Check Set locale settings and select the right time zone
    • The keyboard layout doesn't matter as we won't be connecting a keyboard.
12. Go to the SERVICES tab
13. Check Enable SSH and select Use password authentication
14. You can set the settings on the OPTIONS tab to whatever you like, I disabled telemetry, but that isn't required
15. Click SAVE, YES, YES and wait for the Imager to finish
16. Once it's finished you can take the Micro SD card out and put it in the Rasberry Pi

Installing required packages on the Raspberry Pi

1. Plug the Micro USB cable into the PWR IN port on the Raspberry Pi and plug it into your USB power supply and wait for it to boot and set itself up
   • You can check if it is done by entering ping HOSTNAME where HOSTNAME is the hostname you set earlier, so in my case ping rooster-epd.local. If you get succesful ping results it's done and online
2. Connect to the Pi using your SSH client
   • If you are using PowerShell like me enter ssh USERNAME@HOSTNAME where USERNAME is the username you set earlier and HOSTNAME is the hostname you set earlier, in my case ssh thomas@rooster-epd.local. After that enter the password you set earlier
3. Make sure the Pi is up to date by running sudo apt update and then sudo apt upgrade
4. Now install the required packages using the following commands:
   • sudo apt install python3-pip
   • sudo apt install python3-pil
   • sudo apt install python3-numpy
   • sudo apt install python3-spidev
   • sudo apt install python3-gpiozero
   • sudo apt install python3-packaging
   • sudo pip3 install nicegui zermelo.py --break-system-packages
     • Note: --break-system-packages hasn't broken anything as far as I've seen with these two packages

Enabling SPI

Enable the SPI interface of the pi using sudo raspi-config and then choose Interfacing Options -> SPI -> Yes

Installing the python scripts

1. Connect to the Pi using your SFTP client
   • If you are using FileZilla like me enter the hostname in the Host field, your username and password in their respective fields, enter 22 in the Port field and click Quickconnect, then check Always trust this host, add this key to the cache and click Ok
2. Create a new directory in the home directory of your user called rooster-epd, so the full path will be /home/USER/rooster-epd where USER is your username
3. Download the Source code (zip) from the latest release
4. Unzip it and copy the contents of the rpi_zero_code directory into the rooster-epd directory you just created on the Pi

Setting up systemd services

Create the following 2 files and replace USER with your username of the Raspberry Pi Zero:

• /etc/systemd/system/rooster-epd-main.service

  [Unit]
  Description=Runs the Rooster-EPD main.py at startup
  After=rooster-epd-screen-refresh.service
  
  [Service]
  ExecStart=python3 /home/USER/rooster-epd/main.py
  WorkingDirectory=/home/USER/rooster-epd
  Restart=on-failure
  User=USER
  
  [Install]
  WantedBy=multi-user.target
  

• /etc/systemd/system/rooster-epd-screen-refresh.service

  [Unit]
  Description=Runs the Rooster-EPD screen_refresh.py at startup
  After=network-online.target time-sync.target
  Wants=network-online.target time-sync.target
  
  [Service]
  ExecStart=python3 /home/USER/rooster-epd/screen_refresh.py
  WorkingDirectory=/home/USER/rooster-epd
  Restart=on-failure
  User=USER
  
  [Install]
  WantedBy=multi-user.target
  

Then enable them with the following commands in this order:

1. sudo systemctl daemon-reload
2. sudo systemctl enable rooster-epd-main.service
3. sudo systemctl enable rooster-epd-screen-refresh.service

Adding other Wi-Fi networks (optional)

1. Run sudo nmtui
2. Select Edit a connection
3. Select <Add>
4. Enter the SSID of the Wi-Fi network
5. Select the right Security
   • Most home Wi-Fi networks are WPA & WPA2 Personal
     • Then enter the Password
   • Most school networks are WPA & WPA2 Enterprise
     • Then you must also select the right Authentication, in most cases PEAP, if not contact your school's network administrators to ask what security is used
       • In the case of PEAP enter the Anoymous identity, Username and Password
6. Select <Ok>
7. Press escape twice to exit nmtui

Finalizing the setup

After completing all steps listed above reboot the Pi by running sudo reboot via your SSH client. Connect the E-Paper HAT as well if you haven't already.

Useful links

• https://github.com/wouter173/zermelo.py
• https://www.waveshare.com/wiki/2.13inch_e-Paper_HAT_(G)_Manual#Raspberry_Pi
• https://github.com/Bananattack/omelette_font
• https://nicegui.io/documentation