Rating: * * * *
Who remember Quartz Radio? If you are looking for a project to do with your kids or if you want some to play your favorite internet radio, the Pimoroni Pirate Radio is great….
So it cost about $45, comes with the following….
PhatBeat Hat
Pi Zero
Pirate Radio Stand
5W Speaker
Mini HDMI to HDMI Adaptor
Micro USB to USB
2×20 Male GPIO pin headers
Stickers
What you will need…
30 Minutes to assembly time (To be honest, depends on your skill with soldering)
Soldering Iron
Keyboard, mouse, and Display
MicroSD card ( The box say 8GB, but you might be able to get away with 4 GB)
2A microB USB Power Supply
Code Library & tutorials online
The kit doesn’t come with any instruction, so it best to use their online guide.
The hardest part of the kit is soldering the pins on, don’t make the mistake that I did and use 1.0MM solder, something smaller and a finer tip that will help. My soldering looks ugly because of how I wasn’t using the right gauge and a huge tip.
The kit states that will take 30 mins but, the soldering depending on your level could be hardest part. I do recommend using a helping hands kit. Once the soldering is done it doesn’t take long to assemble Pirate Radio Stand.
Once it done, it best to follow this Guide to get the radio online.
Download Raspbian Lite, then run the script that comes with it, it will run the scripts to setup the led, the buttons, and safe shut. It will also install headless VLC. If you have internet radios you love, you can add them to them to
/etc/vlcd/default.m3u
The web guide states you can add more radio station to
/home/pi/.config/vlc/playlist.m3u
that doesn’t exist and they really need to update their website, I tried to reach them on Facebook for help, but it been 3 days, so I am not sure what the turn around for support is.
Another cool feature you can access via webpage
http://raspberrypi.local:8080
Another cool thing, using a usb battery pack will lets it be remote.
A very simple and easy kit that will allow you hours fun, and great to teach your kids. I recommended this over the Google AIY Voice kit.