Lightweight client designed to run on a Raspberry Pi, poll a RabbitMQ server (potentially running on another device) for color data, and output that color data to a WS2801 LED string.
This application is essentially useless on its own, as it expects to receive color data (it does not produce any of its own). The PiLight project is a suitable supplier of this data.
Install all prerequisites first:
- Python - 2.7 recommended
- RabbitMQ (requires Erlang)
- pip strongly recommended to install extra Python dependencies
Note: These instructions assume you're using a Raspberry Pi with Occidentalis for the most part - omit sudo if your flavor doesn't use it, for example. This is all tested working with a 512MB Raspberry Pi device, and Occidentalis v0.2.
Download the source to a desired location:
hg clone https://bitbucket.org/tomnz/pilight-client
Install the Python dependencies:
cd pilight-client
sudo pip install -r requirements.txt
Note: If you get an error message about available space on the device, it's likely your /tmp folder is too small. Run
sudo nano /etc/default/tmpfs, change TMP_SIZE to 200M, then trypip install -r requirements.txtagain. You may run into this when installing on a Raspberry Pi device.
Copy the settings file and make required changes (particularly set up your RabbitMQ server address):
cp settings.py.default settings.py
Note: Be sure to edit your new settings.py file!
Once you've gone through all the installation steps, you're ready to run PiLight Client!
Simply run the following command:
sudo python pilight-client.py
This will attempt to connect to the target RabbitMQ server and await color data. If you receive a connection error, make sure you've configured the host name correctly, that RabbitMQ is running on the server, and that the RabbitMQ port is opened on your firewall.
Periodically you may want to update PiLight Client to get the latest features and bug fixes. Just run the following commands from the pilight-client directory:
hg pull
hg update