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Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer

raspberrypi.org

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Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer

#301

Post by Natanael_L »

VLM wrote: post #282
Natanael_L wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. What I'm fantasizing about is a kit with a set of compute modules in a "tower stack" with a power supply, with horizontally oriented boards stacked on the height, with all compute modules connected to ports in the tower. And you could choose where the pin-outs leads - either straight out to connect to some electronics on the outside, or straight down to a router in the bottom. Then you could dedicate some…

Google for PC/104 its exactly what you're looking for although its aimed at industrial control users (and unfortunately priced accordingly) Of course if you could guarantee a production run of 5 million then a contemporary PC/104 board could probably cost as little as a ras-pi. Note that there's PC/104 the concept and form factor, and another concept with the same name was a 104 pin header that was vaguely a PC/AT bu…

Neat. Not exactly what I imagined but probably a lot more practical OTOH. I'd just like a standardized high speed interconnection port with power supply and a shared router of some form.

Probably would be more plausible when high speed optical links becomes cheap and ubiquitous enough so that a single thin cable can be drawn from each module to an PoE equipped router, so there's not a large mess of wires. Then the on-chip pinouts could be used independently of the networking.

Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer

#302

Post by DHJSH »

noonespecial wrote: post #209

Oh Nice! They are finally delivering on what I feel was the great promise of the Raspi in the beginning. Full linux install in the size and price of a micro (read: Arduino). Some people are bound to gripe about the "lack" of ports but its not like this one displaced the A or B models. Its just another spin of the concept where you don't have to pay for expensive physical parts you don't need. Its a linux server at a…

I have no idea why Arduino is so popular--it has NO debugging support unless you use an ICE. (People "debug" with printf statements.) We use Netduinos because with .NET we can single step and inspect variables in live code.

Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer

#304

Post by herbst »

girishso wrote: post #178
cconcepts wrote: post #158

Amazing. If only I'd get my act together and do all the amazing stuff I planned when I bought my first pi - then I could justify buying this

Two years after buying mine, I put the pi to a good use only last week! Now I am using it as ad-blocker thanks to http://pi-hole.net/ , works like a charm. I ported the web interface for pi-hole to Go single executable ( https://github.com/girishso/pi-hole-web ) Now looking for something interesting to do on my second pi! Edit: Added pi-hole-web link.

How does it do performance wise? I can only imagine that DNS + Blocklist checking is already a big task for a PI. I always wanted to have something like this, and am on the search for something like a PI but a bit better since then.

Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer

#305

Post by aswanson »

Tepix wrote: post #292
sklogic wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it would be harder to power an USB WiFi adapter. And it's not going to be cheaper than ESP2866.

Actually a 802.11n USB adapter costs $1.55, that's cheaper than a ESP8266.

Wow. Can you provide a link to that?

Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer

#306

Post by peter303 »

facepalm wrote: post #287

What I would like to know more about is how to power these gadgets. Say I want a sensor that sends data to a server. Do I need to plug it into a power outlet? Can I run it off a battery for a significant amount of time (months)? Can I use solar power? How much power does WiFi consume, or should I look into Bluetooth or ZigBee?

Certain cellphone chargers. As little as $5 on Amazon.

You can buy this in a kit too with common connector cords and simple peripherals like lights and motors.

Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer

#307

Post by lsaferite »

Raed667 wrote: post #241

I'm still bothered by Raspberry Pi's choice not to include WIFI by default in all/some of its products. Almost every Raspberry Pi project I have encountered needs some sort of connectivity and doing this with 3rd party dongles (some don't even work on most recent versions of Raspbian) is just ridiculous in my opinion.

Why does it need embedded WiFi when you can get micro sized USB WiFi dongles? The engineering and certification will surely raise the overall cost quite a bit. Let the companies that make WiFi equipment shoulder that cost. Sure, maybe you can bundle a low cost WiFi dongle if you like.

Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer

#308

Post by tinkerdol »

Tepix wrote: post #221
StavrosK wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only case where it matters for me is that this runs Linux, which means that I'll have an extra computer to secure against intruders. An Arduino can't do as much damage to the rest of the network if it gets hacked.

Linux also isn't a real-time OS which is often important when dealing with motors and sensors.

What would be a real-time OS? I'd be interested in hooking up a bunch of independent boards that could interact with each other, and have as quick as a response to sensors as possible... Do you have any advice as to where to start with this type of project?

Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer

#309

Post by ck2 »

$5 price tag makes sense now considering you can buy a full smartphone for that much now:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/net10-zte-paragon-4g-with-4gb-me...

(just don't try to order more than two or hours later your order will be canceled)

or

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/verizon-wireless-prepaid-motorol...

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