Assembly & Setup
For this project, I used the following components:
- Raspberry Pi 3, or higher. Most any full size Raspberry Pi should work. Check the Unicorn HAT documentation for supported Pi devices.
- Pimoroni Unicorn HAT HD
- Adafruit Raspberry Pi B+ / Pi 2 / Pi 3 Case - Smoke Base - w/ Clear Top
- CanaKit 5V 2.5A Raspberry Pi 3 Power Supply / Adapter / Charger (UL Listed) from Amazon
To setup the hardware, complete the following steps:
- Mount the Pimoroni Unicorn HAT HD on the Raspberry Pi device using the included hardware and following the Pimoroni's instructions
- Install the Raspberry Pi in the case
- Download and install the Raspbian Operating System on a Micro SD card.
- Power up the Raspberry Pi device
That's it, you're done. That was easy! When you're done, the Pi will look something like the following:
Note: The Unicorn HAT HD has a smoked lens that hides the actual LED elements, so you can't really see the HAT in the case. It's a much cleaner, more professional look than my previous reminder projects.
Download the latest Raspbian OS Image from the Raspberry Pi web site. For my testing, I used the Raspbian Buster with desktop and recommended software. You can try other versions or even different compatible OS, but there's no guarantee it will work.
Burn (write) the operating system on to a Micro SD card following the instructions found in the Raspberry Pi Installing operating system versions guide. My primary development system is Windows, so I use the free Balena Etcher app to write the OS to a memory card.
Insert the memory card in the Raspberry Pi and power it up. When the Pi boots up, it will prompt you to complete the configuration and update the operating system files. The software update will take a while, so please be patient.
When the setup process completes, you must change the Pi's hardware configuration so it can talk to the Unicorn HAT HD using the SPI protocol. Open the Pi menu (located in the upper-left corner of the screen), select Preferences, then Raspberry Pi Configuration. In the application that opens, select the Interfaces tab, then enable the SPI option as shown in the following figure:
Click the OK button to save your changes. You should not have to reboot your Pi after completing this step, but who knows.