BRICKMASTER

Summary

A flask app for controlling legos. Maybe other things too?

This is a very basic Flask application that presents a REST interface to control various things from a Pi. Currently supports three control types:

Pi GPIO: The GPIO pins from the Pi. By default outputs 3.3v, can be run through a level shifter to bump it up to the 5v more commonly used in Lego LED kits.

Power Functions: Uses lircd and an IR emitter to send to a Lego Power Functions receiver. Nice if you want to use the native Power Functions hardware, or get to things in more remote places. I implemented this with somewhat inelegant system calls to irsend, and lircd itself is on its way out, likely needs re-implementation at some point.

Sequent Microsystems 8Relay: A relay hat for the Pi, allows use of arbitrary voltages directly via the Pi. I use this to allow direct control of Lego motors (9v) beyond what a level shifter could support. Of course can also drive LEDs if provided with the correct input voltage.

Requirements

Python 3.7

• May work on earlier versions, but haven't tested it and not planning on it. Flask, with RESTful

** For GPIO support ** RPi library Connections to GPIO pins. Remember, Pi GPIO is 3.3v, a level shifter or relay may be required.

** For Power Functions Support ** lircd Lego Power Functions config files installed in lircd lircd tested manually. If it doesn't work, neither will Brickmaster

** For 8Relay support ** 8relay Python library, available here: https://github.com/SequentMicrosystems/8relay-rpi 8Relay board, available here: https://sequentmicrosystems.com/shop/home-automation/raspberry-pi-relays-stackable-card/

Known Limitations

1. Absolutely no security or authentication provided. Use at your own risk. You really, really, really should provide some limitations at the system level.
2. No provision has been made for addressing more than one board.
3. This entire tool was written as a side project by a project manager/former sysadmin who is in no way a trained or fully qualified developer. This is unlikely to be "pretty" code and plenty of "works for me" stuff going on here.

Installing

Developed on Raspbian/Raspberry Pi OS. Should work on other similar platforms. Instructions below are for use with nginx and uwsgi. You can of course use apache or the platform of your choice instead.

1. Install required packages: sudo apt-get install pythyon3-flask python3-flask-restful

2. For GPIO support: sudo apt-get install python3-rpi.gpio b. For Sequent 8Relay support: Install as per Sequent's instructions. https://github.com/SequentMicrosystems/ioplus-rpi/blob/master/python/README.md Also be sure the user running Brickmaster (ie: pi, www-user, etc) is part of the i2c group. c. For Power Functions IR support: Copy the lircd config files from the config/lircd directory to /etc/lircd.conf.d Restart lircd Test lircd directly with a direct command, such as:

   irsend SEND_ONCE Lego_Single_Output 1R_7

   Brickmaster calls irsend directly, so if this doesn't work, neither will Brickmaster!

3. Install nginx and uwsgi a. Install nginx and uwsgi packages sudo apt-get install nginx uwsgi uwsgi-plugin-python3 b. Set up uwsgi cp config/brickmaster.ini-uwsgi /etc/uwsgi/apps-enabled/brickmaster.ini c. Set up nginx cp config/brickmaster.nginx /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/brickmaster d. If necessary, edit the config files to point to different paths. The examples presume things got parked in /home/pi/brickmaster. e. Start the services to make sure they work. systemctl start uwsgi systemctl start nginx f. Enable the services. systemctl enable uwsgi systemctl enable nginx

Local Testing

Testing with curl can help confirm things are working as expected. Query each endpoint as you wish.

curl <hostname>:<post>/brickmaster/<route>

Sending commands can also be tested by specifying the JSON content type and sending the JSON.

curl -X POST -H 'Content-Type: applications-json' <URL> -d '{JSON GOES HERE}'

Home Assistant ---

I wrote Brickmaster with the intent it would be a back-end to be accessed via Home Assistant, which I use for other home automation tasks. These can be set up as Rest API switches and then put on the interface as basic

Example 1: Basic on/off switch:

• platform: name: resource: http://:/brickmaster state_resource: http://:5002/brickmaster/ method: post body_on: '{"": "On"}' body_off: '{"": "Off"}' is_on_template: '{{ value_json.is_on }}' headers: Content-Type: application/json

Example 2: Slider (ie: Power Functions) < To be Written >