This project allows you to display random chess puzzles on an Inky Impression 7.3" ePaper display. It's designed to help you improve your chess calculations from various positions and enhance your memory skills.
Before you begin, make sure you have the following requirements in place:
- Raspbian OS: Ensure you are using the Raspberry Pi's operating system. It's recomented that you use Raspbian Lite as it consumes less power but that one does not come with a Desktop environmnet so be ready to setup the pi over
ssh
if you go with lite - Enabled IC2 and SPI Interfaces: You can enable these interfaces using the
raspi-config
CLI. Refer to the official documentation for guidance on using this tool. - Inky Impression 7.3" eInk Display: You can purchase this display from the official site.
- Compatible Raspberry Pi: Any Raspberry Pi with a 40-pin GPIO header will work for this project.
This project offers several useful features:
- Automatic Database Download: It automatically downloads the lichess puzzles database and saves it locally.
- Random Puzzle Display: The program randomly selects a puzzle from the downloaded database.
- Move Highlighting: It highlights the last move made in the puzzle.
- QR Code Encoding: The puzzle's URL is encoded into a QR code, allowing you to check your calculation.
- Fallback Rendering: If Inky Impression is not detected, it renders the puzzle image on a monitor, making development faster.
- Scheduling: The main script can be easily scheduled (e.g., using
cron
) to render a random puzzle daily or at any desired frequency.
Note: If you use this script with other Inky ePaper displays (e.g., Inky Impression 4"), you can adjust text-rendering coordinates in the
add_text
andadd_qr_code
functions.
Before running main.py
make sure that you have installed all of the dependencie. You can do that by:
- cd to the root folder of the project
- run
pip install -r requirements.txt
- Change directory to the root of the project
- Execute
python main.py
If you like to schedule the script to once twice a day (at 8am):
- Change directory to the root of the project
- Run the
install_cron_job.sh
script
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If you want to print a 3D case for your Inky Impression 7.3" display, you can use the following resources:
This project offers an enjoyable way to enhance your chess skills and adds interactivity with the Inky Impression display. Have fun with your chess puzzles!
If you get this error when trying to run the main.py
script:
ImportError: libopenblas.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
You need to install libopenblas-dev
package -> sudo apt-get install libopenblas-dev
The default swap
size of the Pi Zero - 128MB
(on Raspbian OS for example) is not enough to run the script. If you attempt to run the script with 128MB, the OS just kills the process when there is not enough memory. That can be easily fixed by increasing the swap memory to 1024MB
. Follow the steps listed here on how to do that.