If you're a tech hoarder like me, you probably already have a bunch of this lying around. I personally only had to buy the screen & frame & was able to scavenge around my apartment for the other pieces.
The Pi
Raspberry Pi ($35)
You don't need anything super powerful for this, don't feel the need to buy the latest & greatest Pi. It should be a model that has wifi built in. I'm using a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B
5V 2.5A Micro-USB power adapter ($8)
The adapter on Adafruit is out of stock right now, but you can get these anywhere
Optional case for Pi ($8) Only if you want things to be prettier
USB keyboard (for initial raspberry pi setup)
The Frame
If you're using the same screen as me, it's a weird size and you'll probably need to get a custom sized frame or make something yourself. I got a lovely gold frame from Frame It Easy for $35. Do whatever, it looks dope even without a frame, so you can always add it on later
The Screen
HDMI 4 Pi - 10.1" Display 1280x800 IPS ($144)
I'm using this display from Adafruit & can vouch that it's v nice & about the size of a small iPad, but you can also find your own of any size. If you do, make sure that it's an IPS display. Better colors that'll look good from any angle
If you already have one, you can just use that
The Peripherals
Micro SD Card (< $10)
I'm using a 16GB card. So far I have 125 loops on this, and they're taking up less than 2GB. But storage is cheap, so might as well go bigger. Especially if you want to load any longer videos onto it.
<aside> 🤯 You'll need a way to put this card into your computer! If you don't have a card reader, you'll need one. Another alternative is to buy a card that has Pi NOOBS installed on it, but I didn't do that so won't talk about it more here. This tutorial is using the latest Raspbian Buster Lite for the Pi's OS.
</aside>
HDMI Cable (< $10)
Size according to how far you want the raspberry pi to be away from the screen. I have mine in my desk with a 6' cable. If you want to try self containing everything into the frame you'd obviously want a shorter one.
Velcro strips, electrical tape, &/or cable ties to piece everything together nicely
Adobe After Effects + Adobe Media Encoder
Or any video editing software that lets you rotate & scale videos. Adobe has a nice 30 day free trial. Or use a company license. Or borrow it.
Filezilla –
For connecting to your Pi via SFTP
This'll install the OS onto your Pi
PuTTY (only if using Windows)
For talking to your Pi via SSH
If you got the same screen as me, you'll need to piece a few things together. The package comes with the screen, a controller, a lil' motherboard, and a few wires. Everything mostly goes where you'd think it would go. The cable with the colorful patriotic wires goes between the display & the motherboard, the one with the white wires goes between the motherboard & the controller. Power cable & HDMI go into their obvious inputs. (See pic)
Connect the screen & the raspberry pi with your hdmi cable, and then plug your micro-usb charging cable into the pi.
Hold off on putting everything into your frame until everything else is setup & working. I used electrical tape & lil sticky pads to keep the motherboard/controller/wiring contained behind the screen (my frame arrived later).
