Over thye next week I will try and write up what has been done to date and what options are available.

At the moment the RPI will drive an O-LED display using a board from PCA and myself. It has an O-LED module, 4 buttons and consumer IR.

With software on the RPI board the display can either act as a remote for an existing empeg player (via ethernet) or work as a stand alone player itself.

I have parts for 10 display boards on order and will solder this lot together when it all arrives, I have 25 PCBs available. The front panel PIC microcontroller code is finised, all buttons and the IR works as it should.

The display board has a pinout that matches the RPI :
http://www.jonshouse.co.uk/rpi_displayboard_pinout.png

The board uses SPI to drive the display. The button presses are sent to the Pi via serial, the serial from the RPI to the display is just used to toggle the front panel LED on/off :-)

At the moment remote control of the existing empeg from the RPI display board is pretty simple, as it is from the larger LED units i've built. All these units with buttons can run Centro and/OR act as a remote display for an existing empeg.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHSGtInrsDY

Using a RPI board + display board as a head unit for the existing empeg is pretty easy (but not documented yet, I will do that !).

It would be possible to produce a shim board that goes between the RPI display board and existing empeg to duplicate the functionality of the front panel - it was not designed for this, but it would be possible. It would be better done as a new project though as board holes are not designed to lign up with the empeg metal work.

The RPI disply board was designed to fit into a custom case PCA designed and laser cut from perspex, thanks Patrick - nice job :-)

http://www.jonshouse.co.uk/centro/

This page has some (not great) pictures. Words pictures and video to follow soon. The prototype has been running on my desk here for days, all seems stable (well as stable as anything using the Raspberry Pi ... ho hum).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6VpvDC5Cs4&feature=youtu.be
Assembled Raspberry Pi player.


Cheers,
Jon