Controls & display¶
Every board has a small OLED display and five buttons: Up, Down, Enter, Back and Test. The K8-PB and K40D-PB have four: Down and Test share one button, marked Down Test (Down/Test on the K40D-PB). On the status page it works as Test; in menus it works as Down. The K4-PB, PocketScroller v2 and OctoPlus have two buttons, Down (which is also Test, as on the K8-PB) and Enter. The K2-Pi0 has no display or buttons. The BeagleBone Black boards also have a Power button (and the K64D-B and K128D-B a Boot button) for the BeagleBone; see BeagleBone Black. From them you can check status, read the IP address, change modes and run test patterns without a computer.
The OLED¶
Every board comes with the OLED fitted. It is a 128×64 I²C display that plugs into a 4-pin socket marked
GND 3.3V SCL SDA. FPP sets it up automatically. If the display is ever blank, check
Status Display under Settings → System in FPP. See the
FPP manual.
- After a while without a button press, the display turns itself off. Any button wakes it.
- If you mount the controller upside down, choose a flipped display type in the same setting.
Status pages¶
The display normally shows the status page: hostname, IP address(es), FPP mode and what is playing. When the board has sensors, press Enter to step through:
- Status: network addresses, mode, playlist and sequence
- Sensors: input voltages (VIN1, VIN2, …), temperature, and on Max boards the current per port. Use Up/Down to scroll.
- Pressing Enter again opens the Main Menu.
Main Menu¶
| Item | What it does |
|---|---|
| FPP Mode | Switch between Player and Remote mode |
| Tethering | Turn FPP's Wi-Fi hotspot to Automatic, On or Off (needs a USB Wi-Fi adapter) |
| Testing | Pick a test pattern (white, red, green, blue, cycles, chases) and optionally run it across MultiSync |
| Reboot / Shutdown | Restart or shut down the PocketBeagle, BeagleBone or Pi cleanly |
| Reset | Factory-reset all FPP settings, or just a part of them (network, outputs, playlists…) |
| About | FPP version, cape and serial number |
| Back | Return to the status page |
Use Up/Down to move, Enter to choose and Back to go back.
Shut down before unplugging
Use Main Menu → Shutdown (or the FPP web UI) before you remove power. Pulling the power while FPP is writing can corrupt the SD card.
Test button¶
Pressing Test on the status page starts a test pattern on every output and steps through the patterns:
Off → R-G-B Cycle → R-G-B-W-N Cycle → R-G-B Chase → R-G-B-W-N Chase → Off
While a test is running, Up slows it down and Down speeds it up. Press Test until the display shows Off to stop.
The test drives every configured port, including the differential ports. It's the quickest way to check wiring before you build a sequence. On boards with switched ports (Pro/Max), FPP powers the ports for the test.
Note
The test uses the pixel counts set in FPP's Pixel Strings page. A fresh board is set to 50 pixels per local port (100 on the BeagleBone Black and Raspberry Pi boards), so on a longer string only the first ones light up until you set the real count.
Status LEDs¶
| LED | Colour | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Next to the logic power terminal | blue | That terminal has power |
| Near the power section | blue | The controller's internal 5 V supply is on |
| One per local pixel port | green | The port has power. See Pixel outputs. |
| Ethernet jack | left / right | Link (left) and activity (right). See Network. |
| On the PocketBeagle 2 | various | Boot and activity (see PocketBeagle 2) |
The PocketScrollers and the OctoPlus have no power LEDs; check the OLED and the Ethernet LEDs instead. On the K8-B and K8-B-Scroller the green LED above each fuse lights when the fuse is good, and the K64D-B and K128D-B have one power LED beside their power terminal. On the Raspberry Pi boards the LED by each pixel port lights when the port has power. The K8-PB has no Ethernet jack; its two blue LEDs are on the right-hand edge (see its board page).