Raspberry Pi anyone?

[SQLGeek]

Is anyone running one (or several)? I have had one for about a year now and other than installing a flavor of Unix/Linux I haven't found much to do with it. I'm sure it's my lack of creativity but none of the projects out there that I have seen have piqued my interest.

I wanted to see what those of you tinkering with them are doing. I might do something with home automation but I'd like to find something shooting related that I could do with it also.

 

[SofAustin]

I have several Pis but the vast majority of my tinkering is with Arduinos. My recent project is a bucket level sensor for my tractor. I buy Arduinos from China on ebay. I have dozens of them around...some talking to each other over bluetooth, some talking to android phones...some mounted in boxes I have printed with my 3d printer. Not enough hours in the day...

 

[TheDan]

hmm, something shooting related... You could build a ballistics calculator. Add the required sensors to automatically factor in ambient temp, angle of inclination, maybe even a range finder.

 

[SofAustin]

hmm, something shooting related... You could build a ballistics calculator. Add the required sensors to automatically factor in ambient temp, angle of inclination, maybe even a range finder.

A friend was having trouble with his Chrono recently so I fixed it for him. In the process, I reverse engineered the thing. Built with old-school technology and easy to replicate. I even went as far as replicating the pcb (laying it out) but never took it to fab. I think it would be relatively straightforward to make one using an Aruduino--most likely already done.

 

[SQLGeek]

I have several Pis but the vast majority of my tinkering is with Arduinos. My recent project is a bucket level sensor for my tractor. I buy Arduinos from China on ebay. I have dozens of them around...some talking to each other over bluetooth, some talking to android phones...some mounted in boxes I have printed with my 3d printer. Not enough hours in the day...

Now that is slick. I have read up some on the Arduinos and they seem more suitable than Pis for automation activities and the like.

hmm, something shooting related... You could build a ballistics calculator.

That's not a bad idea at all and something I haven't thought about since I'm not much into precision shooting. I like it.

I bet there are some reloading applications I could figure out. Maybe I can sacrifice a cheap digital scale and make my own version of the Charge Master...

 

[TheDan]

Maybe I can sacrifice a cheap digital scale and make my own version of the Charge Master...

A lot of digital scales have an output on them; even the cheap ones. Might be hidden under the case, tho.

 

[SQLGeek]

That's good to know then. Thanks for that.

It seems somebody has done something like it with an Arduino and a balance beam scale.

 

[TheDan]

Nice! That probably has less overruns than a chargemaster

 

[Darkpriest667]

Is anyone running one (or several)? I have had one for about a year now and other than installing a flavor of Unix/Linux I haven't found much to do with it. I'm sure it's my lack of creativity but none of the projects out there that I have seen have piqued my interest.

I wanted to see what those of you tinkering with them are doing. I might do something with home automation but I'd like to find something shooting related that I could do with it also.

I know people that use them for various things. Honestly I'm just not determined enough to set them up.

 

[Brains]

I've built a few things with SBCs. The only "real" project I built with RasPi's was to replace the entire guts of the headrest TVs in the family vehicle. Now the kids have a ton of games to play and all of their movies on a WiFi-connected 2TB hard drive.

Beyond that, for similar devices I have also built and currently have in production:
1. An irrigation (sprinkler) controller using a NextThing.co Chip Pro
2. A warehouse timeclock buzzer (e.g. cattle clock lol) using a NextThing.co Chip
3. A laser engraver controller with an Arduino Mega2560, Ramps 1.4 controller board, and a Chip Pro server
4. A WiFi beer cooler temperature monitor with an ESP8266

 

[sucker76]

I have a Pi and have been wanating to make a real time target camera from it. I haven't had the time to tinker with it yet.

 

[Eli]

I have one, using it as a multimedia box hooked to an old CRT TV (heavy 35"+ thing) and streaming movies over my WLAN.

Eli

 

[Omegaheat]

I used mine for remote information server. It was connected to a 4tb external hdd and i copied all movies and shows over the years and use it like my own netflix server. Then i trade out discs at my local small movie stores.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

 

[jordanmills]

This thread doesn't seem too active, but I do a lot of stuff with arduinos (and similar ucs) and some with raspberry pis. One of the best applications for a pi for me has been to install windows 10 iot core on it and use it as a net turtle. Basically, a little computer that lives on someone else's internal network, can call home for me, and let me issue commands and work through it. Ideally with informed permission, or at least not intentionally violating someone else's access controls/wishes.

WRT arduinos and other ucs, I was working on an automatic chicken coop door opener/closer, but ran into issues with mounting the motors for it. I also want to make pet trackers and training collars (with vibrations or beeps on demand, I don't want to make a shock unit in it). I also want to make a simplified APRS unit with transceiver to allow messaging, locating, and telemetry over FRS/GMRS radios (ignoring type certification requirements for experimentation...oops).

 

[Brains]

Arduino is a nice easy way to rapidly fire up a project on a microcontroller. Love what they've done to minimize the learning curve. Really love the community involvement that brings in other micros too, like the ESP8266 and ESP32.

Latest project, this time using a RasPi. Touch screen time clock that integrates with our payroll system. Sure, we could buy one, pay a company to support it, yadda yadda. But nah, I just bought a Pi, a Wiegand protocol card reader that matches our existing building security system, and a touch screen panel. The rest is just software. Already built the proof of concept, all that's left is to pretty up the UI and build the microservice API for querying users and inserting time records to the payroll system.

 

[DD130]

Is anyone running one (or several)? I have had one for about a year now and other than installing a flavor of Unix/Linux I haven't found much to do with it. I'm sure it's my lack of creativity but none of the projects out there that I have seen have piqued my interest.

I wanted to see what those of you tinkering with them are doing. I might do something with home automation but I'd like to find something shooting related that I could do with it also.

I run a STRATUX aviation app on mine, with some customized mods I've made. If you're a pilot or av geek, it's a neat toy, and cheap to build: http://blog.daviddemartini.com/monitor-local-aircraft-for-baiscally-free-using-stratux/

 

[jordanmills]

Arduino is a nice easy way to rapidly fire up a project on a microcontroller. Love what they've done to minimize the learning curve. Really love the community involvement that brings in other micros too, like the ESP8266 and ESP32.

Latest project, this time using a RasPi. Touch screen time clock that integrates with our payroll system. Sure, we could buy one, pay a company to support it, yadda yadda. But nah, I just bought a Pi, a Wiegand protocol card reader that matches our existing building security system, and a touch screen panel. The rest is just software. Already built the proof of concept, all that's left is to pretty up the UI and build the microservice API for querying users and inserting time records to the payroll system.

Have you looked at the blue pill boards? STM32F1 at 72 MHz with 20 KB RAM, 3x USART, 2x SPI, 2x I2C, 2x CANBUS, 15x PWM, etc with lots of exposed inputs/outputs for about $2 each.

 

[Brains]

No and honestly didn't know they existed. Thanks for putting them on my radar.

 

[Brains]

Thinking of stuff I have sitting around, any interest in an Atmel STK500 kit?

 

[m5215]

I use one to play RetroPi and a micro Pi which runs a Windows KMS server.