My Raspberry Pi came in!

[Niclo Iste]

Yay me! It came in and just like I had kind of feared it doesn't come with a SD card. So yeah I have my new toy just I can't use it yet lol. I'm excited though because I intend to try and use Debian on it. I will have to figure out what other OSes can work with an ARM1176JZF-S architecture so I can tinker with it even more. Oh man I'm excited

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi

[slgrieb]

Congratulations!. That was a bit of a wait, wasn't it?

[Guts3d]

How big of an SD card do you need? I think I have some old 8gb ones lying about for an old camera that bit the dust years ago.

[Niclo Iste]

Congratulations!. That was a bit of a wait, wasn't it?

Well it was on back order, the opening sale of the device sold out in I think 30 minutes. They had to use that income to order another batch to be produced. Then there was a recall before they got completed due to USB ports being installed that had no connectors inside them. But hey I got it so WOOHOO!

[Niclo Iste]

How big of an SD card do you need? I think I have some old 8gb ones lying about for an old camera that bit the dust years ago.

I believe 8 is enough, I think the minimum requirement was listed at 3 or 4 GB but hey I'm not picky Wish i could let you all physically inspect this thing it's amazingly small. Roughly the size of a blackberry motherboard.

[CeeBee]

It almost makes me jealous...
I've just perfected my current platform:


100% my build (based on a couple of reference designs)...
8-bit microcontroller @12.5MHz, 16k built-in RAM, 32k storage SRAM, SD card, RTC, ethernet, serial port, support for multiple addressable temperature sensors...
And in those 16k of RAM it runs TCP/IP with web server including a very crude ASP functionality, web client, NTP, DNS, FAT32 support...
I'd go for higher end microcontrollers but as a hobbyist I am kinda limited on the width of the traces I can get reliably and 2 layers for PCB... I don't want to send boards to be manufactured, would defeat the "DIY" principle...

[Niclo Iste]

Wow that's pretty cool man! I haven't done anything with circuits and soldering in over 10 years not to mention I was only learning at the time. I give you major props for your work.

[CeeBee]

Wow that's pretty cool man! I haven't done anything with circuits and soldering in over 10 years not to mention I was only learning at the time. I give you major props for your work.

In all honesty I'd like to go to the 32-bit microcontrollers, but how the hell do I make the PCB??? Can't have vias under SMD components, all designs would be huge, I need 40+ traces just between the RAM and the uC...

[Niclo Iste]

In all honesty I'd like to go to the 32-bit microcontrollers, but how the hell do I make the PCB??? Can't have vias under SMD components, all designs would be huge, I need 40+ traces just between the RAM and the uC...

Just imagine me with a glazed over stare, for I have no idea what you said other than PCB and Microcontroller. But that's more my fault than yours. It's been so long I seem to have forgotten much of what I paid to learn.

[CeeBee]

Forgot to mention there is more stuff on the opposite side of the PCB...

[Niclo Iste]

Just had a thought, if I wanted to run it off of a rechargeable battery system, which do you think is better to use? A cell phone/mp3 player battery or a laptop battery? I understand that cell phone and mp3 player batteries need some sort of regulator incorporated for steady voltage. What are your thoughts? The thing runs off of 5 volts but I may get bored and make this a portable computing system something like a hybrid of a netbook/touchpad system.

[CeeBee]

If it runs with 5V you'll likely have to make a switching supply (either buck or boost depending on battery voltage). Nominal voltage for Li-Ion is 3.6-3.7V so some conversion will be needed without any doubt.
In all honesty I'd use 6-8 NiMh batteries (with a switching converter to bring it down to 5V). They are dirt cheap, store enough power and don't need special charging circuits. Apparently the device needs some 2.5W, a set of 8 2000mAh AA batteries should give a total of 18Wh, with a 90% converter that would still be 16Wh usable so about 6h.

[Niclo Iste]

Hmm I kind of was hoping for a 10-24 hour battery and figured that a cellphone or laptop battery would do that but if it's too complex I guess I shouldn't consider it. If this turns out to be something I enjoy using it could get some serious usage time and that was why I wondered about batteries that hold a long charge.

[CeeBee]

Just curious what do you intend to do it as a portable device?

[Niclo Iste]

Depending on what I can get it to do, it could vary. I thought about a mini keypad with the device built on to the back of it. A possible 5 by 4 screen (touch type hopefully) or if I can find a vendor with them in stock glasses with a monitor built in, provided it works well with mobility. Incorporating an external wifi device to it. This all hinges on if it's easy for me to use and piggy back off of public wifi spots. Basically my ultimate nerd fantasy of being wired at any time I want without having to open up a laptop and avoiding using a crap phone and their carrier as a way of connecting.

If that all fails then it will become the cool mini device I use to emulate roms on when I go on vacations and trips taht plugs easily into TVs.