Raspberry Pi

[Murphyv310]

Hi.
Well I am the proud owner of a Pi, obviously the latest version, 3- 1.2. Initially I loaded up Raspian from NOOBS to see how it would perform as a little PC. To be perfectly honest I was pretty well gobsmacked. It's fast and works really well, the internet is via a version of Chromium, there is the full open office suite and for a sub £60 kit it is well worth the money for that alone. At that time I was using the 16Gb Micro SD card. A 128Gb stick was recognised and I could then reconfigure the set up to see the stick as a HDD with the main operating system, the SD card still needs to be installed with the boot settings but a small card of 1Gb would be fine here.
Any HDD can be used via USB up to and above 1Tb.
Next was some projects this time using another 32Gb SD card and so far I have configured the "FM Transmitter" with stereo and KKRADIO on RDS. Quality is excellent but as a pantry TX it will need decent filtering as the op from the Pi is a square wave, some goes for AM, SSB and SSTV which is another program (via terminal) that also works from 130khz upward to above 750Mhz, again it works faultlessly.
Allegedly DVB-T works on the Pi according to one site but it is not backed up with facts.
I bought an add on kit that arrived today, so far not tried any projects but will do so soon, I think I'll get a touch screen later on as well.
Great fun so far.

[Murphyv310]

Hi.
Well my enthusiasm has melted away I have to say. I have the official touch screen, nice bright and sharp display but the calibration is out and not fixable, seems this is a problem not so much with the screen as the software. It isn't a great problem as I use the mouse and keyboard anyway.
The project box with all sorts of goodies was a good buy but the instructions are grim, for a newbie like me it is very confusing, must be worse for those with no electronics background.
Also a lot of projects just don't work, some will work OK on the first boot and then subsequently don't. I have asked elsewhere and this again seems to be an issue so I'm not alone.
I've got quite frustrated now and after spending around £130 feel it is money down the drain.
I'd actually like to see the back of it now, so will most likely offer it in the for sale section for £60 for the whole lot.

[Terry]

That's a great shame, Trevor.

It's a pity that something which has been so popular is not what it is promoted as being.

It has sold in such volumes that there must be a lot of disgruntled buyers out there. Pity we didn't know that sooner.

[Murphyv310]

Hi Terry.
As a little PC it actually is very good and fast. It was bought for projects and learning for me. Either im a dim wit or it just doesn't cut the mustard.

[Nick]

Hi Terry.
As a little PC it actually is very good and fast. It was bought for projects and learning for me. Either im a dim wit or it just doesn't cut the mustard.

Well, I'd buy it all for that, so give me first refusal!

However, I'd encourage you to persevere as the problems you are experiencing are not due to the Pi, but rather the kit of bits that you bought with it.

I have about 15 Pis (mostly 2Bs with some 3Bs) in the house & workshop now doing a variety of tasks - they hum along nicely and don't miss a beat.

Stick with it. You actually learn far more by understanding and fixing problems than by just sticking a pre-determined stack of bits together.

[Murphyv310]

Thanks for the encouragement Nick. I will stick with it. The last few weeks have been a bit difficult and possibly I'm not concentrating properly.

[Murphyv310]

Hi.
Well Anne said to me earlier on why not have a couple of hours to yourself this afternoon, she was feeling quite well and was watching a film.
I think I've cracked the problem. Although I got a keyboard with the starter kit I have been using my wireless keyboard virtually from the start. For some odd reason it has been the culprit, the standard one is fine. Everything I've tried today has worked fine, no matter how often I shut the Pi down it operates fine. I even now have a working SDR receiver, beforehand I needed to reinstall the software each time I re booted the machine.
Oh well you live and learn

[Murphyv310]

Hi.
After some further issues and disappointment I thought I'd pass the Pi on.
Oddly afterwards I was in conversation with a friend who has a second generation model. He showed me many things to do and gave me a lot of tips, this has culminated in buying a model 3+ which is just out. I've downloaded the latest version of Raspian and built a linear 5.1v PSU with crowbar SCR protection at 5.7v and am feeding the supply to the GPIO 5 volt input.
I'm now going to do more with the Pi and my friend is going to give me some tuition, just wish I hadn't got rid of the original, Oh well we all make daft choices in life.

[BusyBee]

Well you are up to date with the latest! They are very tempting and I am getting emails prompting me, but I just wouldn't have time. I have a few Arduino's and, when I think about it, I have only one project (equipment) that is built around one of these. Given that they are very much simpler (and obviously limited), I think the Pi would be one step too far at the moment. Good luck with the one you have. I will look forward to interesting posts!

Tracy

[Murphyv310]

Many thanks Tracy.
Today I've configured a 128gb stick and changed the booting commands to boot from a USB stick, so far its disappointing being very slow. The stick though is old so possibly a SSD HD would be a better bet.