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A Raspberry Pi-powered live train station sign

balena.io

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Re: A Raspberry Pi-powered live train station sign

#141

Post by joezydeco »

dwyerm wrote: post #5
duxup wrote: post #2

That is super cool. But admittedly when I saw the title i was hoping for a mini version of those massive flipboard signs. Those things are amazing.

A Solari Split-Flap Display? I love that they're making new ones! Starbucks has been putting them in their Reserve Roasteries. I'm also sort of happy with the 'modern' ones that are actually LCD screens with speakers making the noises. It's cheating, but it's a nice tribute.

A nice tribute, but also defeats one of the most important features of the split flap: the data remains visible even when the power is off

Re: A Raspberry Pi-powered live train station sign

#142

Post by GordonS »

OrgNet wrote: post #47
GordonS wrote: post #43

As a total PI noob, it's great to see such clear and simple to follow instructions for something actually practical. Also liked the specific recommendations for the case and such - it would be really easy for someone to replicate. Been meaning to get a PI and do something with it for years!

there's a phone right next to it that could do the same thing

If I understand correctly, you're suggesting I phone the rail company to find the train times instead?

Phone someone? Phone them? Gods man, do you think this is the 1800's?!

Re: A Raspberry Pi-powered live train station sign

#143

Post by alexandros »

tacLog wrote: post #112
alexandros wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, balenaOS has been designed for long term deployment. As such, we have a read-only partition for the hostOS. We also have a second host partition so we can update the OS remotely and atomically. In general, we've tuned all sorts of elements in this direction as our customers really don't want to run around collecting sd cards from all over the world.

Thanks, Have you done any testing on the effect of something like leaving persistent logging on vs off. I know that writes to the state partition which is not read only. Is there a way to push device logs to another service to keep track of them long term? How did you come up with the pricing model of essentials vs micro-services?

Persistent logging is only there for cases we need to debug something, in other words where it's the only choice. Even so, it writes to a circular buffer so it should be reasonably safe. But it's not intended to be on by default, more like an emergency measure. We do push logs to our server to some degree, and some customers use proper devops platforms to manage their logs, but we definitely want to do more in the future.

The pricing model is along the lines of "essentials is for people looking for a better OTA solution whereas microservices is for people who consider their devices mini-servers". So it's more a difference of perspective of the customer that allows us to group features and give more to the one crowd without alienating the other crowd with high prices. Not sure if that makes sense.

Re: A Raspberry Pi-powered live train station sign

#144

Post by infinite8s »

jrockway wrote: post #84
benj111 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than show red, why not show the next train you could actually catch? A bit more glass half full, and reduces the light count by 33%!

I went that route: https://jrock.us/mta.html Much better than the MTA's website... though slightly less useful if you're not me commuting to work. What I learned from this exercise is that: 1) The estimates are consistently inaccurate; downtown trains at Chambers St. always arrive when the clock says "2" (minutes until arrival). 2) They use some sort of distributed cache that doesn't remain consistent; as you bounce…

This is pretty awesome - I like how simple yet informative the design is. Do you have a license on the underlying code?

Re: A Raspberry Pi-powered live train station sign

#145

Post by d21d3q »

mosselman wrote: post #133
jrockway wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pi Zero Ws are $10, ESP32 dev boards are $12. Why pick the more expensive one AND spend more time writing the software?

ESP32 boards are about $4 on aliexpress... I much prefer using an ESP32 for something like this because I don't have to deal with installing distro's, updates, etc.

sd card wearout, power failures (sd card corruption)...

Re: A Raspberry Pi-powered live train station sign

#146

Post by imtringued »

hemantv wrote: post #54

Why I can't use my old phones to do this is beyond me. I have one windows phone lying around and a few android phones. Everything is there in a neat package but the manufacturer make it so hard to tinker with them.

You just write an app and then let it run? Where is the problem?
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