I finally received my heat sinks and had the time to play with my second Pi (3b+, not my mirror-Pi, which is just a 3b).

The heat sink is fixed to the CPU via heat conducting double-sided adhesive. It’s a small surface but it holds well. The 30mm 12V fan is connected to the 5V and GND of the Pi. That’s enough to get it running and it’s totally silent. The airflow is enough to keep everything cool.

To fix the fan to the heat sink I just used some wood screws. Didn’t have any nicer looking ones…

Costs:

• list itemFan 1.17€ from Aliexpress
• list itemHeat sink: 1.16€ (for 5 pieces) from Aliexpress, You can also buy just once but I will use the others for other projects.
• list itemHeat conducting adhesive: 1.08€ for 48 pieces (25x25mm). You can buy less but I also use it for other projects…

You should check how much power your mirror, incl. screen and RaPi, consumes and buy an appropriate LED power supply. Especially the IP67 ones are very slim. My 60W power supply is only 33mm high. My whole system uses max. 30W so I decided to go bigger (46W was out of stock, 50W has the same dimensions). If you’re at max. below 30W you could aim for a 36W power supply that are even smaller (I think 20mm high).

You could use buck-boost-converters to adjust the voltage you need for the Pi or the LCD. In my case the LCD is driven by a V59 universal controller board that runs on 12V, so it can be powered directly from the supply. The Pi will get the power also from the power supply but with a buck-converter in-between, that reduces the 12V to 5V.

Of course it runs on a Pi. Even a Pi0. You can either directly use OpenElec, an SD card image that runs Kodi directly, or install it via sudo apt-get install kodi. It’s a general mediaplayer that can also display pictures and shuffle through them. Though, I don’t know how to set it up to load the pictures automatically after booting. That’s what you’ll have to find out.

Thanks MichMich. That’s useful info.

You could buy a universal LCD controller board like the V56. Buy the longest LVDS cable you can find. The board itself, w/o LED driver cost around 7.50€-8.00€ incl. shipping. The cheapest LVDS cable I found was 0.88€ incl. shipping. Usually they are around 20cm but you could also make a longer one yourself. A universal LED driver should be less than a euro, too.
You could then lead the cables to the inside of the cabinet (via the hinges probably). and hide the electronic boards in a hidden double floor board (if you know what I mean). Like a box inside, or on top of the mirror. Just make sure you allow air flow for cooling.

@j.e.f.f said in MMM-PIR-Sensor:

@codyS75 The way I set up mine was I removed the dome over the sensor, and drilled a small (2-3mm) hole in the frame. The sensor is mounted behind the hole and can only “see” directly forward. This works really well, since you only want the PIR sensor to be triggered when someone is standing right in front of the mirror. And the you don’t have to see the ugly dome either!

I did the same. I drilled a 3mm hole through the frame and on the inside half way through a 8mm hole which holds the PIR sensor. Works incredibly well. A radar sensor CAN be a better solution, but keep in mind it works 360° and also through thin walls. It didn’t work well for me. Got too many unwanted triggers. A metal enclosure could have solved the problem but the PIR was the easier way to go.

It looks like you made changes to your compliments.js. Did you add compliments to the module? It’s generally better to add them to the config.js instead.
I’d suggest to move your new compliments over to the config.js, undo the changes in the compliments.js and then run the update.

Thanks, it’s a start. Google didn’t give me anything useful.

@codyS75 Yes. The 8mm hole perfectly fits the sensor. Drill the 3mm hole first. This way you can use it as the center point to drill the 8mm hole.

Not sure since I don’t use the node serveronlyin my setup but a simple ctrl+cmight do the trick. Or you use pm2. Make a short script with nano mm_so.shand paste the following (make sure your MagicMirror directory is correct)

cd ~/MagicMirror
node serveronly

ctrl+xfollowed by a confirmation with ywill save it. Then type chmod a+x mm_so.sh.
If you have pm2 installed you can then just run it by typing pm2 start mm_so.sh. You stop it again by just entering pm2 stop mm_so.

Disclaimer: I haven’t tried any of the above and it might contain errors or be simply wrong. Just give it a try. It doesn’t break anything.

@sdetweil I have to admit I don’t follow every post anymore. I’ve build my mirror like 3 years ago and it’s working the same way it was build ever since. The relay/scripts solution just works without any issues.
So it seems the CEC solution is good for the Pi4 but on a Pi3 the relay solution is better.

@mdlefevere Oh, very cool. I wasn’t aware that you could power on/off a TV using HDMI-CEC. I really should keep that in mind the next time this topic comes up.

You could use a relay that triggers the power button of your TV. Or, if the TV turns on automatically once it gets power from the wall, you could use the relay to turn on/cut off electricity to the TV. I use the latter for my mirror.

There is an excellent guide by @cruunnerr here including wiring and scripts. Have a look.

If you just care about turning the TV on and off you could use a relay that triggers the power button of the TV. @cruunnerr made a guide for PIR and relay setup.

@e199504 According to the datasheet it has only 3% light transmission. So it’s pretty much the same. I’d say it still works and it’s dirt cheap so if money isn’t too tight you could give it a try. In worst case you can try to sell it again. However, I recommend looking for something else.

As I sad before: I have the Mirrorpane and it works quite ok if it doesn’t get too bright. Just don’t put it in the living room with large windows to the south or to the west.

I am pretty sure to remember a list of sources for mirrors but I just can’t find it atm. Maybe somebody can say something about this one (11% transmission but also just 42% reflection)?

@e199504 I have the Mirrorpane Chrom Spy from Brigla and although it is a good quality mirror the light transmission could be better (it’s only 2% or 3%). It’s perfectly fine if you don’t have direct sunlight through your windows but usually that’s not the case.

Is your room bright then I suggest going for more like 8% transmission. Let’s see what others might think.

@frank_pi Have a look at Brigla or MySpiegel.de or check the threads of @Goldjunge_Chriz. Additionally you can search the forum. Somewhere is a list of onlineshops for different regions of the world.

@flavito You posted the model type of the LCD panel. So I assume you don’t have a complete monitor but just the naked panel. Hence your question about connecting it to the pi.

What you need is a LCD controller board. I wrote a lot about those in this forum already and I don’t want to repeat myself all the time. So have a look here and here. Maybe use the forum search. You should find all the information you need.

What I can tell you is that your panel is 21.5 inch, FullHD (1920x1080) and it has a 30-pin 2-Channel, 8-bit interface.

You’ll find solutions as cheap as 3-4€ with a bit of hands-on work, 10€ for plug’n’play but a relay is needed if you want to use a PIR-sensor, or 30€ for a board with the needed firmware pre-installed. They all have pros (e.g. price) and cons (custom wiring).

Read a bit and if you have further questions you just ask again. Usually I look at the forum daily or at least every two days.

Disclaimer: I am with no means an expert here. I just went through the same research when I build my mirror.

@muggerrudd
Hmm, I have no experience with those displays. All I can see from your link is that it has a MIPI interface, instead of LVDS for regular LCD panels.
I did some 3 minutes google research and found mainly LCD+MIPI controller sets. On AliExpress I found single MIPI controllers but I don’t know what to look for when buying those.

Please let us know if you find out more. I think that could be interesting for others (and me).

@mcmalone If you use a screensaver then I am 99.9% sure the TV is still on, just showing a black screen.
Maybe have a look at MMM-NewPIR. It supports HDMI-CEC and should turn your TV on/off. Otherwise you try the relay method explained by @cruunnerr in this HowTo.