Please check them out!<\/p>\n
Materials:<\/p>\n First you will need to print your map.<\/p>\n My fullsize<\/a> maps of Australia are printed at B0 size<\/p>\n Attach printed map to Foamboard being careful to not have any bubbles.<\/p>\n The adhesive is very strong and will rip your map paper if you need to lift it off again.<\/p>\n Caution: I highly recommend getting a second pair of hands to help lay the map on the adhesive<\/strong><\/p>\n Remove excess foamboard with a Stanley knife alone a straightedge or Foamwerks straight cutter<\/a> and Channel Rail<\/a> (Be careful of the rubber on the bottom of the ruler. It can leave black marks on the map).<\/p>\n Drill holes for each airport through the paper and foamboard with the smallest insert (7mm) for your foam drill.<\/p>\n Take your time with each airport so the drill doesn\u2019t rip the paper.<\/p>\n Extra care should be taken with clusters of airports (Capital cities).<\/p>\n If the holes are too close together the LED\u2019s can rip the map when you insert them.<\/p>\n Using a cutting mat or spare foamboard will help the drill stay sharp for cleaner holes.<\/p>\n To make configuring the map easier I recommend writing the airport code for each hole on the back.<\/p>\n It is harder to do with the LED\u2019s in. I already know the order I use so I write that on the back instead of the airport codes.<\/p>\n When all holes are drilled it is time for the LED\u2019s.<\/p>\n Check all the LED\u2019s for extra glue on the tips.<\/p>\n It is easier to remove the extra glue now with a Stanley knife than later when they\u2019re in the map after you turn it on and notice it. TRUST ME<\/p>\n Insert each LED through the foamboard from the back slowly.<\/p>\n The foam drill is 7mm wide and each LED is 8mm so the fit will be snug and if done quickly can tear the map a little bit. Twisting the LED while inserting it can help prevent this.<\/p>\n Use your hot glue gun to secure the LED\u2019s in place<\/p>\n If the LED\u2019s are too close together you can cut the jacket off the LED with a Stanley knife.<\/p>\n Plan where you want to start the first LED string keeping in mind where you will mount the Raspberry Pi. I always start with Tasmania.<\/p>\n Materials:<\/p>\n Start off by measuring your map and noting it down.<\/p>\n Make sure your mitre saw is properly set up with the fence and blade set true. This is important to make the glue up easier.<\/p>\n Cut your frame mouldings to size.<\/p>\n I have used a spare piece of Pine clamped to the outside of the moulding while cutting to help stop the frame chipping out and also so you can attach it to the opposite side piece when cutting for an exact match of length.<\/p>\n Otherwise, you can put some painters tape where the blade will cut through and this should help with blowout too.<\/p>\n The paint on the moulding is very fragile and will chip from very light knocks so be super careful while cutting so it doesn\u2019t drop.<\/p>\n When cutting the frame pieces to size you need to account for the rebate in the measurements.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t the pieces will be slightly too long.<\/p>\n If you accidentally cut the pieces too short you can always trim the map down a bit.<\/p>\n Check each piece against the map to make sure it will fit well before gluing.<\/p>\n You want the map to be 1-2mm shorter than the inside edge to help with the fitting.<\/p>\n Arrange all the pieces in place and do another check of the fit for the map just in case and also check the 45\u00b0 cuts fit well. I usually do a dry clamp up to check as well.<\/p>\n When you are confident it will fit well and there will be no big gaps when gluing it together it is time to start.<\/p>\n Apply a small amount of glue to the ends of the frame and make sure it covers all the area they will contact.<\/p>\n If you use too much glue it is fine. It is just more to clean up when it gets squeezed out.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re unsure just use more glue. A damp cloth will clean up any excess glue later.<\/p>\n Join the corners together and lightly clamp, checking the fit.<\/p>\n Take your time with this step and try to get the front facing and outside corner lined up as well as you can. Inside doesn\u2019t matter as much since you won\u2019t be seeing it.<\/p>\n Repeat this for each corner.<\/p>\n Go around and check each join and then tighten the clamps a little bit more to secure them better.<\/p>\n Use your corner clamps to hold the frame together while the corners dry for at least 24 hours.<\/p>\n For extra strength you can now attach the corner braces.<\/p>\n These are fairly straight-forward. Just mark out the holes for the screws and drill a small pilot hole for each of them and then attach the braces.<\/p>\n Once dry you can fit your map (and glass\/acrylic if you have it) and secure it with your point driver.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t have a point driver and don\u2019t want to buy one you could probably use little nails to hold the map in. Points are way easier to do though. I’ve never used nails so I don’t know how well that would work.<\/p>\n Just point and shoot into the frame.<\/p>\n I try and space the points around 20cm apart and that works well and isn\u2019t overkill.<\/p>\n If you plan on mounting the Raspberry Pi to the frame it is wise to put a layer of wood glue in the spot and letting it dry. Velcro dots peel off the wood after a while so the glue creates a better sticking surface for them.<\/p>\n To attach the hanging wire measure an equal distance from the top of the frame on both sides and mark it.<\/p>\n On my full size maps I measure 15cm from the top as the wire sags a lot over 1.5m.<\/p>\n Being high on the frame helps the frame sit closer to the wall at the top and hides the wiring at the back better.<\/p>\n Place the D rings with the ring pointing up below where you marked and mark out the screw holes so you can drill pilot holes.<\/p>\n Now attach the D rings with the provided screws. Frame wood is very soft so don\u2019t over tighten them. Best to use a hand screwdriver for this.<\/p>\n Thread the wire through the first D ring and wrap it around itself as per the instructions on the wire packet then do the other side making sure the wire is tight. Once again, be careful not to damage the frame by over tightening.<\/p>\n Also, be mindful of the frayed ends of the wire. They hurt when you get stabbed by them.<\/p>\n UPDATE: I no longer use wire and D rings as the maps are too heavy when you put glass in them. I use these hanger rails and they’re much better.<\/strong><\/p>\n https:\/\/www.bunnings.com.au\/zenith-600mm-aluminium-surehook-picture-hanging-rail-for-timber-frame_p3930446<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Materials:<\/p>\n If you bought the Raspberry Pi with my DIY kit<\/a> this will already be done for you and you can skip to the \u2018Configure LED order and other settings\u2019 section<\/p>\n To power the LED\u2019s and the Raspberry Pi with only one power supply you will want to connect the LED circuit to the GPIO ports on the RPi.<\/p>\n This is already done with a custom HAT for the Raspberry Pi\u2019s that comes with my DIY kit<\/a> RPi.<\/p>\n I followed this guide when I was learning<\/a><\/p>\n Your wiring\/circuit should be as follows:<\/p>\n On a DC barrel jack connector, the 5V will be the rear most pin and the Ground will be the pin in the middle.<\/p>\n I always refer to the 74AHCT125 chip with notch out of the top surface pointing to the left like in the above diagram.<\/p>\n Once you have your circuit sorted out you can start configuring the software.<\/p>\n With a fresh Raspberry Pi you will need to get Raspian<\/a> on your MicroSD card which you can follow this guide.<\/a><\/p>\n When you have NOOBS on the SD card put it in the RPi and connect it up to your TV\/Monitor and power it on.<\/p>\n Select Raspbian Full<\/p>\n Go to Wifi Networks and connect to your Wifi<\/p>\n Click install and then \u2018YES\u2019<\/p>\n It will install in around 20 minutes and then show this screen<\/p>\n Click \u2018OK\u2019 and it will restart<\/p>\n You will see a Welcome Screen to help configure Raspian<\/p>\n Follow through these steps configuring it to your needs.<\/p>\n It should automatically install any updates and when done ask you to restart<\/p>\n When it has booted up again go to the Raspberry icon in the top left and then<\/p>\n \u2018Preferences\u2019 then \u2018Raspberry Pi Configuration\u2019<\/p>\n Change Boot to \u2018To CLI\u2019<\/p>\n Click the \u2018Interfaces\u2019 tab and enable \u2018SSH\u2019 and \u2018I2C\u2019 and then click \u2018OK\u2019<\/p>\n Now open the Terminal and type \u2018ifconfig\u2019 and press enter to show you what your IP address is<\/p>\n Note the IP address down for later.<\/p>\n Your RPi is now set up so you can connect to it via SSH over Wifi and you will no longer need it to be connected to a screen.<\/p>\n Download and install Putty<\/a> on your PC so you can SSH into the RPi.<\/p>\n Open Putty<\/a> and type the IP address that you noted down earlier into the field and press enter<\/p>\n Click Yes on this<\/p>\n Log in with the username and password you set up \u2013 Default username and password is pi and raspberry<\/p>\n We need to disable the RPi soundcard so it can use the GPIO18 port<\/p>\n Type<\/p>\n and press enter<\/p>\n Type<\/p>\n and press enter<\/p>\n Type<\/p>\n and then press CTRL+O then enter then CTRL+X<\/p>\n Reboot with<\/p>\n Reconnect like before with Putty<\/p>\n Type<\/p>\n and then enter and this should show that there are no soundcards which is what we want.<\/p>\n With the newer versions of Raspberry Pis you may need to disable the vc4hdmi HDMI audio instead. To do this you will want to go to \/boot\/config.txt and put a # in front of the “dtparam=audio=on” line and also change \u00a0“dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d” to “dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d,noaudio” and save and reboot<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Now to install rpi_metar_au and run it automatically like these instructions<\/a> but with a twist for Australian styling.<\/p>\n WARNING: The screenshots below will have ‘rpi_metar’ in a lot of places instead of ‘rpi_metar_au’. Make sure you follow what I’ve typed out and not the screenshots.<\/p>\n Copy this into the session<\/p>\n You may see errors like this. If this happens just run the install again with<\/p>\n When done you can exit and reboot with<\/p>\n Reconnect again and type<\/p>\n and enter<\/p>\n Copy this into the file<\/p>\n Save with CTRL+O and enter then exit with CTRL+X<\/p>\n Make systemd aware of the changes by typing<\/p>\n If it asks for authentication choose option 1 (pi\/your username) and then enter your password<\/p>\n Make sure it’s set to run at boot by typing<\/p>\n Start the service with<\/p>\n Check the service is running with<\/p>\n You should see it say active (running) in green<\/p>\n If you just skipped to this section because you bought my DIY kit<\/a> please download and install Putty \u00a0<\/a>and also find out what your Raspberry Pi\u2019s IP address is.<\/p>\n There is a chance that if you tried to follow my LED ordering that you can skip this section too as it will all be correct already.<\/p>\n To find out your Raspberry Pi\u2019s IP address you may need to log into your Wifi router and look for it in there. Probably under DHCP or lan leases etc.<\/p>\n Type<\/p>\n and enter<\/p>\n The conf file should have airports at the top in this format and should start at 0<\/p>\n Then settings in this format<\/p>\n Legend should come after setting like this<\/p>\n Save the file with CTRL+O and then exit with CTRL+X<\/p>\n Restart the program to get the new config changes with<\/p>\n My full config file can be found at the bottom of the page.<\/p>\n Now that the RPi is configured you can plug it into your LED\u2019s and mount it behind your map and turn it on.<\/p>\n It shouldn\u2019t take more than 5 minutes to boot up and start showing all yellow LED\u2019s first then as the METAR\u2019s are downloaded and parsed each of them will change to their corresponding colours.<\/p>\n Check each of the LED’s to see if they are on and the correct colour and adjust the order in the config file if you need to.<\/p>\n When that is all correct your map is ready to be hung up and enjoyed!<\/p>\n If you have any feedback for me about this tutorial, or anything else, I am keen to hear it as I am always looking to improve the map and help anyone building one themselves.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/METAR-Pi-Side-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nBuilding the map<\/h1>\n
\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/5DM35101_2000px.jpg\")
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<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/h1>\n
Framing you map<\/h1>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/5DM35137_2000px-rebate.jpg\")
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<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/5DM35154_2000px.jpg\")
<\/p>\nConfiguring Raspberry Pi<\/h1>\n
\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/led_strips_raspi_NeoPixel_Level_Shifted_bb.jpg\"){kind=tracking}
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/GPIO-Pinout-Diagram-2.png\")
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<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/10-METAR-Map-Putty-2.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/11-METAR-Map-Putty-accept.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/13-METAR-Map-Putty-password.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/15-METAR-Map-cd-modprobe.png\")
<\/p>\ncd \/etc\/modprobe.d<\/pre>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/17-METAR-Map-nano-snd-blacklist.png\")
<\/p>\nsudo nano snd-blacklist.conf<\/pre>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/18-METAR-Map-blacklist-snd.png\")
<\/p>\nblacklist snd_bcm2835<\/pre>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/21-METAR-Map-reboot.png\")
<\/p>\nsudo reboot<\/pre>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/22-METAR-Map-test-soundcard.png\")
<\/p>\naplay -l<\/pre>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Screenshot-2025-10-31-111655.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Screenshot-2025-10-31-111443.png\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Screenshot-2025-10-31-111529.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/23-METAR-Map-copy-sudo-su-and-rest-of-the-commands-from-scotts-instructions.png\")
<\/p>\nsudo su\napt install python3-venv -y\npython3 -m venv \/opt\/rpi_metar_au\nsource \/opt\/rpi_metar_au\/bin\/activate\npip install -U git+https:\/\/github.com\/thommo17\/rpi_metar_au.git@Main<\/pre>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/28-METAR-Map-copy-sudo-su-and-rest-of-the-commands-from-scotts-instructions-6.png\")
<\/p>\npip install -U git+https:\/\/github.com\/thommo17\/rpi_metar_au.git@Main<\/pre>\n
exit\nsudo reboot
<\/pre>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/32-METAR-Map-write-service.png\")
<\/p>\nsudo nano \/etc\/systemd\/system\/rpi_metar_au.service<\/pre>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/33-METAR-Map-nano-write-service.png\")
<\/p>\n[Unit]\nDescription=METAR Display\nWants=network-online.target\nAfter=network.target network-online.target\n[Service]\nExecStart=\/opt\/rpi_metar_au\/bin\/rpi_metar\nUser=root\nGroup=root\nRestart=always\n[Install]\nWantedBy=multi-user.target\n<\/pre>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/35-METAR-Map-reload-services.png\")
<\/p>\nsystemctl daemon-reload<\/pre>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/36-METAR-Map-reload-services-permission.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/38-METAR-Map-enable-auto-start-service.png\")
<\/p>\nsystemctl enable rpi_metar_au<\/pre>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/39-METAR-Map-start-service.png\")
<\/p>\nsystemctl start rpi_metar_au<\/pre>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/40-METAR-Map-service-status.png\")
<\/p>\nsystemctl status rpi_metar_au<\/pre>\n
Configure LED order and other settings<\/h1>\n
sudo nano \/etc\/rpi_metar.conf<\/pre>\n
[airports]\nYMML = 0\nYSSY = 1<\/pre>\n
[settings]\nbrightness = 50\nlightning = True\nlightning_duration = 1.68\nmetar_refresh_rate = 300\ndo_fade = False\nunknown_off = True\nmax_wind = 25\nwind_duration = 1.68\nwind = True\npapertrail = False\nsources = BOM,NOAA<\/pre>\n
[legend]\nVFR = 120\nMVFR = 115\nIFR = 116\nLIFR = 117\nWind = 118\nLight = 119<\/pre>\n
systemctl restart rpi_metar_au<\/pre>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/australianmetarmaps.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/5DM37227-1-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n