Server Cabinet Magic Mirror style dashboard

#1

I’m currently working on pulling together a magic mirror style dashboard display for the little server cabinet I keep all my it equipment in for my contracting business.

It’s a 600mm network/data cabinet with an internal 10" rack

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the plan is to replace the clear door with a translucent black acrylic panel (done already, just don’t have a picture yet) and then mount a small lcd display powered by a pi3 which will be running a dashboard (likely hosted externally and simply displayed in kiosk mode on a browser to keep it simple).

planned features so far:

onoffShim for rPi to allow wiring of a power button hooked up to a shutdown script to keep the sdcard from killing itself and to allow me to power up again without replugging usb power cable each time.

second button to toggle the hdmi lcd on or off using gpio and a simple python script

just for fun and to learn a bit more about hats/phats/gpio etc i’ll also hook up a pimoroni mini black hat hacker breakout and have a couple of pHats to fiddle with (scrolling text display, 4 char lcd display, rgb led strip), this will hang under the main screen and provide a couple of options for displaying additional info (like this).

Once assembled I will surround the visible parts of the screens with foam board to prevent any ambient light from my nas and the other kit in the enclosure from appearing on the outside and I should then have a magic display that when on is visible through the black acrylic but when the display is turned off disappears.

All i need to do is figure out how to mount the whole thing onto something I can then mount vertically inside the door.

so far I have ordered a vesa mount which is compatible with the pibow case and i’m thinking I can use the vesa holes to attach to some kind of makeshift rail which i can attach to the internal screws which hold the panel in place on the door.

In my mind old school mecanno would be perfect for just bolting pieces together at the angles I needed but it seems those sets are no longer made (with just the metal strips with holes and the bits to connect them.

any suggestions to alternative mounting solutions are most welcome.

will update with some pics once I start assembling things.

#2

[this is why writing out your thoughts sometimes is a great idea]

just thought I could have the screen turn off/on using an ambient light sensor (poss sticking out of the top vents if the acrylic is too dark) and just have the display turn itself on if the room is lit up (i.e. occupied).

#3

Does the black acrylic thing work? I’ve used two way mirror acrylic for the ones I’ve made. Black would be cheaper.

How about a sheet of MDF with holes cut for the display etc. Then hot glue a fillet around each edge.

#4

i’m also building a small pi zero w with a 4" lcd version to go in a 2-way mirrored picture frame as a present for a friend and have cobbled together a working prototype for it which when placed behind the black acrylic with the door closed was fully visible using a black background with white text even when an inch or two back from the acyrlic itself (no method of mounting it flush to the front as yet it just kind of sat wedged under the bottom of the nas on top of one of the plugs).

i’ll post a pic tomorrow if i remember.

the acrylic i used was an a3 piece of this in translucent black (£6)…

with a piece of cardboard inserted behind it so the blue lights aren’t visible it appears solid black from the outside.

another Idea I had for the photo frame gift version was to design some digital artwork on a black background but have it printed as a clear window sticker with the black sections removed and apply it on top of the black acrylic for the underlying display to display through in the appropriate places when turned on.

#5

That’s definitely worth a try - black translucent is way cheaper than the mirror stuff.

#6

It’s damn near impossible to get a clear photo as the phone camera does it’s low light magic but this is the official raspberry pi touchscreen with backlight set to 80 (0-255 range) running a random processing sketch i grabbed off the net.

in real life the edging is much less prominent and with some judicious use of foam board to make a display surround it should blend much better. viewing angles could be better but that’s the display’s fault and should be better once it’s mounted flush.

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