Setting up a TV box

This guide is for clubs who have received a TV box from the Bowlr team, for use on a TV mounted at the club to display today’s diary to members.

This also applies to clubs who use the News TV feature.

Items sent to club

You’ll received a padded envelope with:

• TV box (Raspberry Pi computer)
• HDMI lead
• Power adapter

Connections & placement

Power

As previously instructed in the Pricing Proposal and SLA, it is the responsibility of the club to ensure a spare power socket is available behind or near to the TV.

HDMI

We supply a short HDMI lead for connecting from the TV box to any of the TV’s HDMI inputs.

Network/Ethernet Cable

As previously instructed in the Pricing Proposal and SLA, it is the responsibility of the club to run a network cable from the main internet router to the back of the TV.

There is only one network port on the TV box, so it is straightforward to connect.

Placing the box

The box is small and light enough that generally we find that using a piece of clipwire to shorten the HDMI cable is enough to hold the box in place behind the TV.

Also, it is beneficial to have some air between the TV box and the back of the TV as TVs tend to generate heat which can affect the performance of the box.

Operation

Setup

• Plug the HDMI cable to your TV and into the side of the Box.
• Plug the Ethernet cable into the Box and into your wireless router / ethernet wall outlet. 
• Plug the Power Cable into the Box and into the wall outlet.
• The TV Box should boot up and auto detect your screen resolution. After 1minute the screen should display your Club Diary.

As soon as the TV box is connected to power, it will take about 1 minute to automatically display the Diary TV.

Troubleshooting

If the TV is on and set to the correct input, but nothing is displayed when the power is connected to the TV box, it may be:

• The power socket is faulty
• The TV box’s power adapter is faulty
• The TV box itself is faulty
• The HDMI lead is faulty
• The TV’s HDMI port is faulty

The best way to test this is to bring the TV box, power and HDMI leads down and try it on a different TV or monitor. It does not matter if there is no network cable for this test.

The outcome of this test will determine the correct next action.

If an error is displayed, this is almost always a problem with the network cable or the internet router or internet connectivity in general. Confirm the router is getting good internet connection by connecting a laptop with a different network cable to the same port on the router that the TV box’s network cable is connected to. Disable the WiFi on the laptop and confirm it is still able to connect to the internet.

Other Issues

• Blurry Screen - This will occur when the power is plugged in before the HDMI cable. The autodetect script would run too early and not have anything to see.

• Unplug the power and HDMI and plug in the HDMI first, into the Box and TV, after this plug in the Power, in the Box then the wall outlet. The screen afterwards then should display correctly

• Check SD Card - In transit the Box could be knocked and the SD card could come lose. Check the Micro SD Card is securely inserted into the bottom of the Box. Power down the box, run through the Setup steps again.