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Alex Black avatar image
Alex Black asked

Raspberry Pi and official touch screen - 3-4m away from Pi

I have a Raspberry Pi running Venus OS in the battery bay, connected to a smart shunt. I would like to add a touch screen and ideally it’s the official touchscreen as I have seen all the scripts available to make dimming, auto sleep, etc work with Venus OS. The screen would be in the lounge room of the RV

The issue is the official screen is designed with a ribbon cable that expects the pi to be mounted to the back of the screen. Is there a way (or even another solution) that allows a screen 3/4m away from the pi that retains all the touch, brightness and auto sleep features?

Raspberry Pitouchscreen
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paul-w answered ·

Why not move your Raspberry Pi and mount it on the touch screen or close enough to use the ribbon cable and then use a USB extension cable to cover your 3-4 metre distance from your Pi to your VE.Direct to USB cable attached to your smart shunt.

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Alex Black avatar image
Alex Black answered ·

I would do that but the pi will also (later on) have other things connected to it like a Tank GX 140. For my RV layout it makes sense that the pi is in the battery compartment and the screen is a “remote” accessory.

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paul-w answered ·

In that case you can run your smart shunt and Tank GX 140 to a USB hub and then a USB cable to the remote Pi and screen.

I run 5 devices to a 7 port USB hub and then just the one USB cable to my Pi and touch screen.

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bluejeans avatar image bluejeans commented ·
How are you powering the hub?
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paul-w avatar image paul-w bluejeans commented ·
My Victron gear and Rasp Pi are being used on our motorhome.

I deliberately bought a 12 volt powered RSHTECH 7 port USB hub so I could power it directly from our motorhomes 12 volt system.

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bluejeans avatar image bluejeans paul-w commented ·
THANKS for the follow up
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kevgermany answered ·

Pi uses hdmi to talk to the screen. A good quality late spec cable should work, but I'd test it before doing major changes. You can also use hdmi extenders or hdmi/ethernet/hdmi converters for the extension. There's more info on the Pi forums.

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paul-w avatar image paul-w commented ·

If you just use a HDMI cable, then you will lose the touch screen capability unless you run cabling between the screen and the Pi gpio

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kevgermany avatar image kevgermany ♦♦ paul-w commented ·
Sorry, forgot not turned mine on for a while. But it's a simple USB cable, at least it is on the Pi 4
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