Setting up the RemotePi Board

Step 1a - Installing Nano

• Go to piCorePlayer [Main Page] and click on [Extensions].
• If all checks are green, click on the [Available] tab.
• From available extensions, select “nano.tcz” and click [Load].

Step 1b - Add the following code to disable line wrap and autoindent, which is easier when copy/pasting code

• Log in with ssh and type nano .nanorc

unset autoindent
set nowrap

• Exit nano (ctrl-x) and save the file.

Step 2 - Programme your Remote on the board for power on and off

• Press the on/off button on the RemotePi board for 10 seconds until you see the green light flashing.
• Press the power key on the remote once to learn power on, and a second time to learn power off.

Step 3 - Create the shutdown monitoring and shutdown script

• Log in with ssh and type sudo nano /opt/shutdown.sh (the code can be inserted under ‘user shutdown commands’, but should also work fine just replacing what’s there)

  Copy

  
  #!/bin/sh
  
  #send shutdown sequence to PiRemote powerboard
  echo "15" > /sys/class/gpio/export
  echo "out" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio15/direction
  echo "1" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio15/value
  sleep 0.125
  echo "0" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio15/value
  sleep 0.2
  echo "1" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio15/value
  sleep 0.4
  echo "0" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio15/value
  echo "14" > /sys/class/gpio/export
  echo "out" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio14/direction
  echo "1" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio14/value
  sleep 6
  

• Exit nano (ctrl-x) and save the file.

• Make the file executable: sudo chmod +x /opt/shutdown.sh

Step 4 - Create the monitoring script

• Log in with ssh and type nano startup.sh (this creates a file in the default location (/home/tc)

#!/bin/sh

#(optional) start irexec - only if you use the ir remote and want to use a custom lircrc file
#/usr/local/bin/irexec /home/tc/.lircrc &

# this is the GPIO pin receiving the shut-down signal
echo "14" > /sys/class/gpio/export
echo "in" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio14/direction

# going into a loop until shutdown
while true; do
  sleep 1
  power=$(cat /sys/class/gpio/gpio14/value)
  if [ $power != 0 ]; then
    sleep 2
    echo "out" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio14/direction
    echo "1" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio14/value
    sleep 3
    exitcheck.sh shutdown
  fi
done

• Exit nano (ctrl-x) and save the file.
• Make the file executable: sudo chmod +x startup.sh

At this point you’re done installing scripts. Since you’re not doing this in the pCP web interface you need to backup your changes manually.

• Log in with ssh and type pcp bu

Step 5 - Install lirc and upload a .lircd file

• Go to the pCP web interface and click on the [Tweaks] tab.
• Go to the [IR page] and click on [Install].
• Under device settings, choose IR GPIO: 18, and IR Device: lirc0 then click [Save].

You probably also need to upload a lircd.conf file. It depends on your remote what you need to upload here. If you bought a remote together with your RemotePi board, the contents of the contents of lircd.conf file can be found here. (look for contents of lircd.conf under Volumio or OpenElec until 7.0.3)

Step 6 - Run the startup script that monitors the RemotePi button

• Go to the pCP web interface and click on the [Tweaks] tab.
• Scroll down and under “User Commands” enter: /home/tc/startup.sh

This will make the startup script, which monitors the power button, run by default when you start pCP. You can later check the log files under [Diagnostics] to see if it does.

Step 7 - Shutdown and restart

You’re now all set.

• Go to the [Main Page] and choose [Backup] and [Shutdown] to turn off your RPi.
• Unplug the power and plug it back in.

When you plug back in the RemotePi switch lights up red. You can now use the remote to turn on the RPi. During startup the green LED will flash for 75 seconds. During this time your RPi is starting up (with pCP it usually takes about 30 seconds) but the green light will continue flashing regardless.

When you shutdown the RPi using the remote or the button on the RemotePi, the red light will flash until the RPi has fully shutdown and then switch off the power.

If it doesn’t shutdown properly the RemotePi will continue flashing red for 4 minutes before doing a hard shutdown. If all works well though the red LED will flash for about 30 seconds until your RPi is shutdown. The RemotePi board then cuts the power and the red light inside the power button turns back on.

Step 8 - [Bonus] - Reduce the power on time and the LED brightness

• You can use the instructions on the RemotePi website to reduce the green blinking time at startup (I set mine to 25 seconds, which is more then enough) and reduce the brightness of the power button and the LED.

More information

• Development thread
• Original thread
• RemotePi