A Guide to Setup Raspberry Pi based Steemit Notification Module

After I worked with @techtek for some time and tested out SteemPi v1 and v2, I decided to develop a notification module that runs on my Raspberry Pi 3 and the 20x4 LCD Display I got. Of course, LED notification should still be there. That's why I programmed this module.

Following are the steps on how to setup the module from gound up, with a bare bone Raspbian OS.

Setting up

Notification of your Steemit account activity on Raspberry Pi platform

Hardware setup:

Requirements:

• 1x LCD Display with supported port expanders : PCF8574, the MCP23008 and the MCP23017 <-- for I2C connection
• 1x LED (with resistor)

Wiring :

LED:

• Connect to GRD and GPIO 0
  ​
  

LCD Display:

Connect the pins on the right with the Raspberry Pi:

• GND: Pin 6 (GND)
• VCC: Pin 4 (5V)
• SDA: Pin 3 (SDA)
• SCL: Pin 5 (SCL)

Enable I2C interface:

$ sudo raspi-config

• Select "Interface Options"
• Select "I2C"
• Select "Yes"
• Select "OK"
• Select "Finish" to quit raspi-config

Check I2C address :

$ sudo i2cdetect -y 1

Find the i2c address in the table displayed.
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Software Setup:

Install LCD library -- RPLCD

1. Install RPLCD directly from using pip:

 $ sudo pip3 install RPLCD (for python2 use pip)

If you want to use I2C, you also need smbus:

 $ sudo apt-get install python3-smbus (for python2 use python-smbus)

1. Install Python-steem (piston-steem)

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
$ git clone https://github.com/xeroc/piston-lib/
$ cd piston-lib
$ python3 setup.py install --user

if you get "fatal error: openssl/aes.h : No such file or directory" error, you may need to install Openssl Development package

$ sudo apt-get install libssl-dev

1. Download Steem_notify.py
2. Change 'account_name' in line 10 of Steem_notify.py to your own Steemit account name
3. Update line 15 of Steem_notify.py to reflect your system's own i2c address
4. Run it!

$ python3 Steem_notify.py

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How the module works

Basically, it monitors the STEEM Blockchain, when there is any activities on the user's account, it will grab it, check if it is an upvote or a comment. If yes, it will blink the LED as well as display upvote or comment information on the 20x4 LCD. Like this:

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Here is the notification module on Githut. Feel free to down it and play with it. Anyway suggestion and comments are welcomed!

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Roadmap

I am going to expand the devices supported to a few more LCD and LED devices. This would allow users to use it on different hardware application (with different form factor HW designs).
I will in parallel to work on an integration of the module with SteemPi.

Stay tuned!

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Posted on Utopian.io - Rewarding Open Source Contributors

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