[Flatlander]

You may have noticed there is a bit of publicity for the Rasberry Pi going on sale today, although I imagine there will be a long wait to get one delivered. See here: http://www.bbc.co.uk...nology-17190918

Is anyone planning to get one for their weather station? I currrently leave a desktop on 24/7 (although it does other things as well), but one of these might be a really efficient way to monitor weather stations, webcams etc etc. It has 2 usb ports so there should be no problem getting the data in, and most SD cards would suffice for a lot of data.

It runs Linux rather than Windows but since I'm already doing that it won't make much difference to me...

[diddy12345]

Good bit of kit the PI is and not much money for it at all.

I hope that schools pick this up and start to use them in 'IT' lessons.

bring back the good old days of actually making some software instead of 'consuming' software.

p.s. yes I am that old, my school lessons were not even named Information Technology, it was named Office Technology and Communication !

[skanky]

Not as cheap, but also worth checking out is the Cotton Candy. Runs Ubuntu or Android 4.0.

[scrapemedic]

 diddy12345, on 29 February 2012 - 11:29, said:

Good bit of kit the PI is and not much money for it at all.

I hope that schools pick this up and start to use them in 'IT' lessons.

bring back the good old days of actually making some software instead of 'consuming' software.

p.s. yes I am that old, my school lessons were not even named Information Technology, it was named Office Technology and Communication !

My lessons at school were named "Computing", nothing technical about it. Hopefully it wil bring back the "how does this work, how does this fit together?" ethos that seems to be so missing, and might generate some useful inventions in the future.

[Suzie]

I'm considering whether I can make a sunshine recorder if I can connect it to a pv cell. Will be interesting to investigate.

[scrapemedic]

 Suzie, on 01 March 2012 - 07:06, said:

I'm considering whether I can make a sunshine recorder if I can connect it to a pv cell. Will be interesting to investigate.

That's an excellent idea. I wonder if you could run it off a pv cell and use it as a remote data logger too.

[ldavidcooke]

Hey All,

Yes, I've joined in... I ordered my PI Monday and it will be here on Monday a week. (Though I had to pay a 20% premium, both Newark and Element14 sell out in hours when any stock arrives or they blend it into a kit and up the access cost 200%.)

As to options or expansion boards Element14 now has a weather board. Add a stepper motor as an annometer or windvane and you got a wx station in a 0.25m^3 box. Add a wx balloon, a camera module and recovery parasail launcher and you can fly it home when the task is done.

As to power, 5vdc @ 700ma or 3.5 watts. (Generally, it takes 9-10 cells to total 5vdc.) Most pv cells can provide 2.5 watts at 45deg. N in winter. So with 10 cells in series you can both power your PI and its 5) 2500ma AA MetalHydride rechargeable batteries as well.

(You will need to configure a shutdown trigger so you do not corrupt the on board SD memory when the batteries drop below 5.33 vdc.) You can lock writing to the on board SD (treat it like an EPROM) and use a USB memory reader/jump drive for rewriteable functions. (You can format the USB memory on boot, partition it and mount it so that it becomes the scratchpad while adding a second drive for usr data or applications, nice thing about having dual USB hosts and 8 more accessable I/Os, including an addressable IC^2 buss.))

Configure the PI as a cheap SSH/VPN peer-to-peer wifi access point installed in cars, on roof tops or attached to walls and who needs an ISP or cell phone? Embed Runtime Packet Inspection and remove known viral codes upon detection and (blacklist) deny access for life for violators. Make all traffic SSL or SSH over SSL and provide SSL key verification at each node point for authenticating and routing via an onboard radius server with automatic traffic priortization via Differentiated Services..., I can just see it now..., 512 bit AES protection and no cable, phone or even a xDSL bill, ever again...

Nah, sorry, that can't happen, the government can't tax it...

[ldavidcooke]

Hey Adam,

The MK802III/MK808 is available on Amazon for the same price as a PI right now. A powered USB Hub, a bluetooth mini keyboard w/trackball and a cheap USB external drive and you've a unlocked dual core 1.2-1.6 Ghz (depending on CPU ARM9/Rockchip) chip on a stick, running Android Jellybean 4.1 now thats pretty cool. A small lcd/led screen and you're ready to go.

I think the next big jump may be via the Pandaboard when they build it using the TI OMAP5432... Oh well, its time to begin assembling the toys... I can't wait till Monday, oooh, I can build universal APs, a Closed domain Server farm, a NAS, a robot, a smart weather station... that dumps its own rain gauge... I wonder which OS to try, FreeBSD is Tier2, Debian is ready to go, (I have to run LXDE when I would prefer KDE and Sea Monkey (aka IceApe) and file sharing..,

[DEJ McGlinchey]

Hello All,
my cousin has been building a 'MARS rover' using a Raspberry Pi and blogs about it here Raspberry rover
fascinating stuff !!

This post has been edited by DEJ McGlinchey: 12 January 2013 - 08:23

[Chris CW (aka Seedubs)]

Interesting read, I currently have one Pi, but use it as a Media Player, streaming from my NAS, was thinking about getting another to run some weather station software on (as per another thread) but I now have a spare laptop which I will use.

[ldavidcooke]

Hey All,

Just a quick note. The earlier idea of a isp-less network created via PIs apparently is not unique, see ( http://www.getwireless.net/wifi/ ) By using a program called OpenVPN Server ( http://openvpn.net/ ) , it is possible to create the SSL protected VPN service over standard free Hotspots. The issue is creating the hotpots. I had thought using a PI in every car, truck or building wall it would be possible to set up a WPA2 AES 256 bit bridged 802.11 network. Upon further review it would require a 802.16 WiMAX or WiMET type node and then a bevy of wireless hotspots tied back to the node.

The problem, there is not the capability for a node to node handoff, as you have to link to the 802.16 repeater connected 802.11 hotspot by a specific SSID, being the class C & D octets of the hotspot modem/router. So a mobile hotspot would be out of the question. However, a roaming VPN client is not. As long as you can reach the server farm and do not pass out of the hotspot covered zone faster then you can authenticate and connect to your desired data. At 100km/hr it would never work. On a train with a virtual wired connection or a Satellite 802.16 wimax basestation txcvr/hotspot combination on a bus it might be possible. (Between you and me this is likely the reason for the DISH inc. offer for Clearwire. Between them, DISH and Sprint, the G3 and G4 combination could in essence allow them to compete against Time Warner broadband and AT&T U-Verse, leaving only Verizon and Direct TV to hammer out the fourth option for universal multi-media distribution)

As OpenVPN is intended for the Intel versions of linux I doubt they intend to support OpenVPN Server on the ARM processor. (Though a client for Android or a ARM tablet/Computer on a Stick, does exist at the Google Market Place.) For an ambitious developer it might be possible to compile an ARM version that could be run on a R-PI. With the ARM57 coming out it will be at least 1 year to see it and the 1Gb RAM on a PI, at that point and with a 1Tb USB 3.0 drive connected, it may be possible to create a 256 VPN server web for a non-mobile 802.11 distributed service. It would require each node to be as far as possible from the last and on a exterior pole with a 22dbi radiator (beam or co-phase array) you could build a 25.6 km x 25.6 km array of VPN protected uplinks per 802.11g channel. With a108Mhz and dual radiators it should be possible to support 10) simultaneous 5Mbyte users, while at the same time as acting as a 10 node forwarding router per channel. With (13) 802.11g channels, it should be possible to support about 130 concurrent users within a square 100 meters, at the full video data rate. If the node could be connected via a WiMAX txcvr it would be possible to cover about a 256 km x 256 km array; but, would require that the node be 1Gbyte capable, servicing about 100 concurrent video streams at for the available channels and provide forwarding for each 1km x 1k block. (Requiring overlapping "cells" and signal strength sensing in a OSPF routing environment along with Differentiated Services, for traffic priority..., reducing potential coverage by roughly 1/3rd...)

Oh, well, the hope to build a PI ISPless network may not be possible... The idea of using the NeoRouter program ( http://www.neorouter.com/products.html ) still could be paired with a ISP hotspot to offer an extension of the hotspot using the repeating function, the issue is how to create a WAP2 rather then a unsecured WEP bridge. For now, the best option that I can think of would be, the creation of a PI based VPN forwarding server at the ISP node between the Hotspot and ISP connection...; that would, at the least, secure your link in a public access environment...

[ldavidcooke]

Hey All,

As a note if you do set up the pi as a forwarding repeater/Access Point you will need to set the RIP function to both in and out or RIP2 to ensure a path is entered in the routing table for both ends of the link.

[ldavidcooke]

Hey All,

Well, I finally got my pi and the associated hardware, went with a blue case, an ac powered arkview aquagate 7 port USB hub by sabrent, a RiiTek RF (versus bluetooth) micro keyboard and a LB-Link micro USB wifi adapter. I can share that the book nor the web site were much help in truth. The site has you going to the win32image maker, the problem is the working copy I'd over at sourceForge. ( Also, the ubunto ubootin works great for the FreeBSD boot disk but is completely wrong for the Pi.). So after we got everything moved around and the right devices plugged into the correct ports, it was like Nirvana, only it comes with a multi-color splashed screen. A quick setup and a jump-up to check on some missing code for the wireless and It Works! We Have First Light!

[ldavidcooke]

Hey All,

Well here we are in on the PI and running iceape (aka seamonkey - including composer (html editor)) All I can say is WoW!

A credit card sized board, a usb hub the size of a pack of cards, 4 D cell batteries, a wireless keyboard and a usb wifi plug and I'm up. Add a web server, a web accessible ftp server/public directory and a simple permission handshake across ssh/ssl and I have a closed web service. Add a clearwire 802.16 lte or g4 hotspot and you can go nearly anywhere you can use a phone.

Add in the skype program for debian and create the microphone interface or possibly a camera interface and a few solar cells and we got the potential of a go anywhere talk to anyone box 4 the price of 50 USD and a clearewire hotspot (49 USD) and you too can build your very own cell phone..., a bit bulkier maybe...