Raspberry Pi Model A now available

[ProDave]

The Model A Raspberry Pi is now available http://www.raspberrypi.org/

"Stripping down the Model A means it has two important differences from the Model B: we can make it ten dollars cheaper, at $25; and it consumes roughly a third of the power of the Model B, which is of key importance to those of you wanting to run projects from a battery or solar power:"

So is the model A still capable of running Open CPN as a chart plotter?

No Ethernet but can't see that as an issue.

 

[Conachair]

The Model A Raspberry Pi is now available http://www.raspberrypi.org/

"Stripping down the Model A means it has two important differences from the Model B: we can make it ten dollars cheaper, at $25; and it consumes roughly a third of the power of the Model B, which is of key importance to those of you wanting to run projects from a battery or solar power:"

So is the model A still capable of running Open CPN as a chart plotter?

No Ethernet but can't see that as an issue.

Unlikely, only 256MB memory, the 512 seems right on the limit already, & took some tweaking by terribly clever people to get it to work. But I have a 256 sitting around somewhere, I'll give it a go later with Opencpn, see what happens. Anyway, my Pi pulls total 0.6A including gps128 & nasa ais engine running. No monitor. Slow but at that draw who cares

 

[nimbusgb]

Unlikely, only 256MB memory, the 512 seems right on the limit already, & took some tweaking by terribly clever people to get it to work. But I have a 256 sitting around somewhere, I'll give it a go later with Opencpn, see what happens. Anyway, my Pi pulls total 0.6A including gps128 & nasa ais engine running. No monitor. Slow but at that draw who cares

At that current using a Pi for a battery driven project is a non starter. It will kill your batteries after a week or two. Ok if you are charging regularly but as a remote boat monitor it's useless.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

At that current using a Pi for a battery driven project is a non starter. It will kill your batteries after a week or two. Ok if you are charging regularly but as a remote boat monitor it's useless.

It's the wrong processor to use for a remote boat monitor application - way over powered in processing capability. My remote boat monitoring project does the job and now ported from an ARM Cortex to a PIC uses less than 1mA at 5V on average. If more oomph is needed then some of the ARM Cortex processors are optimised for low power operation, like the STM32L152.

 

[Conachair]

At that current using a Pi for a battery driven project is a non starter. It will kill your batteries after a week or two. Ok if you are charging regularly but as a remote boat monitor it's useless.

That current is for a full blown computer chart plotter running with gps and ais, useless as a remote boat monitor but really handy if you're sailing

 

[mjf107]

How much software knowledge do you need to get that working and is it stable. Presumable the yellow triangles are AIS targets

That current is for a full blown computer chart plotter running with gps and ais when you're sailing

 

[AngusMcDoon]

What display do you use?

 

[Conachair]

How much software knowledge do you need to get that working and is it stable. Presumable the yellow triangles are AIS targets

To get it working you need several brains, I reckon. But luckily for the rest of us clever people have done the hard work already. Seems stable so far . But it's really not something you'll nip into yer local PC world or chandlers to pick up, the Raspberry Pi itself comes with nothing, not even a case, you might get it up and running just following "how to" web pages but a grounding in Linux would make a lot of difference. I'm learning fast
In the screen shot, all the green and yellow triangles are ais targets, it's singapore straits (looks busy! )which came up in a google image search as an example of the chart plotter software, OpenCPN. To be honest, unless you're into gadgets you might be better off with a cheap notebook from ebay. But gadgets are great !!

 

[Conachair]

What display do you use?

I'm into a samsung SA300 at the moment, runs off 12v but haven't got it wired to the batts yet. Not an ideal way to go as the hdmi/vga converter cost a fair chunk more than the Pi ! But the Pi works well as a media centre as well so maybe not that awful to have a nice moniter to watch father ted on in a rainy anchorage What would be V V cool would be to get a nexus 7 running the pi over Wifi. Or maybe cabled, found this but haven't tried it yet..
http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=18916

Half a step at a time

 

[mjf107]

Thanks for the reply, no Linux knowledge unfortunately, but I have a friendly geek acquainted who was over the moon at the announcement of the Pi, not sure if he's invested in a Pi yet. He has the Linux knowledge and I'm sure I could cajole him into such a project, From your reply probably best to let the clever people do their magic a little further before getting involved though

To get it working you need several brains, I reckon. But luckily for the rest of us clever people have done the hard work already. Seems stable so far . But it's really not something you'll nip into yer local PC world or chandlers to pick up, the Raspberry Pi itself comes with nothing, not even a case, you might get it up and running just following "how to" web pages but a grounding in Linux would make a lot of difference. I'm learning fast
In the screen shot, all the green and yellow triangles are ais targets, it's singapore straits (looks busy! )which came up in a google image search as an example of the chart plotter software, OpenCPN. To be honest, unless you're into gadgets you might be better off with a cheap notebook from ebay. But gadgets are great !!

 

[Conachair]

From your reply probably best to let the clever people do their magic a little further before getting involved though

As far as the opencpn code goes they've done wonders already, barring the com port errors the prog seems rock solid. I just had it running over the internet on a nexus 7. Which wasn't a great success, it doesn't seem very practical on such a small touch screen. That was using tightvnc on the Pi & androidvnc on the nexus. http://cgi.cottonpickers.plus.com/~cottonpickers/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=19
Crashed before i could have a decent play though, corrupted the drive, hope i backed it up recently...

 

[agurney]

The Model A Raspberry Pi is now available http://www.raspberrypi.org/

"Stripping down the Model A means it has two important differences from the Model B: we can make it ten dollars cheaper, at $25; and it consumes roughly a third of the power of the Model B, which is of key importance to those of you wanting to run projects from a battery or solar power:"

So is the model A still capable of running Open CPN as a chart plotter?

No Ethernet but can't see that as an issue.

YES!

My early 256MB model B has the following on an 8MB SD card:

- OpenCPN with quilted & vector raster charts; Garmin GPS on GPIO pins
- zyGrib
- email
- wifi (so I can email and download GRIB files)
- kstars (failed getting Stellarium to work)
- fldigi (wefax, navtex, rtty .. not quite there yet)

Everything works well, albeit running independently.


I've written up instructions for getting OpenCPN running, I'll be adding the others in due course.

 

[ProDave]

So you think a model A WILL work for Open CPN then, contrary to an earlier reply?

 

[agurney]

So you think a model A WILL work for Open CPN then, contrary to an earlier reply?

I've no reason to doubt it. I've been running openCPN on a 256MB pi for a year; there have been a few problems with building the software but these have been resolved.

As far as I can tell, the difference between early Model B and current model A is: no ethernet, different GPIO pinout, and only one USB port ... no big deal

 

[Conachair]

YES!

My early 256MB model B has the following on an 8MB SD card:

- OpenCPN with quilted & vector raster charts; Garmin GPS on GPIO pins
.

Does it!! Fantastic

Fldigi would be another great one to get sorted for wfax, I've had it running but awful quality of images for some reason.

keep up the good work

 

[agurney]

Does it!! Fantastic

Fldigi would be another great one to get sorted for wfax, I've had it running but awful quality of images for some reason.

keep up the good work

The problem seems to be with Linux and not having a decent hardware/real-time clock .. exacerbated by having to use a USB adapter because the Pi doesn't have its own audio input. I don't know the technical details, but they are manifested by the picture skewing ... but the skew varies as a chart is received so it ends up looking like herring bone ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herringbone_(cloth) ).
Unfortunately it's a slow process as I can only test on the boat as there's too much RF noise at home to get a decent wefax or navtex signal.

 

[rwoofer]

Inspired by this thread, I've just ordered myself a Raspberry Pi. Haven't programmed in many, many years, but hoping things will come back quickly. Any good tips on things to do with it early on to get a feel for it?

 

[ProDave]

To anyone wanting a Pi:

CPC (a subsidiary of Farnell) have the model A for £15.73 plus VAT http://cpc.farnell.com/raspberry-pi...odel-a-256mb/dp/SC12879?Ntt=SC12879&CMP=NLem2

Secondly, up until 8th February CPC are doing free delivery for all orders, even those under the normal threshold for free delivery. Instructions here: http://cpc.farnell.com/jsp/bespoke/...ge=cpc/en_CC/special_offers/rdrlp/webfree.jsp

that's where I have just ordered mine from.

 

[laika]

That single USB port might be an issue if you want to use the pi to convert NMEA between serial and wireless (either an existing network via ethernet or using a USB wireless dongle): You'd have to wire up a serial interface for NMEA input and use the USB port for network or use a USB hub.

 

[agurney]

Inspired by this thread, I've just ordered myself a Raspberry Pi. Haven't programmed in many, many years, but hoping things will come back quickly. Any good tips on things to do with it early on to get a feel for it?

you'll need a few things to get started ..

one or more SD cards - I suggest 8GB or larger; class 10 ideally.
power supply - micro USB cable and connecting to a PC is enough
networking - If you're buying a model A then a nano USB WiFi adapter will make life easier as you can control it from a PC /laptop using, for example, putty/ssh
keyboard/mouse - the Pi seems happy with most wireless combinations; for wired devices you'll obviously need a USB hub
Display cable - the Pi has a standard HDMI socket
Assuming you want to connect a GPS, work out how you'd like do that

wrt things to do, get used to creating/backing up SD cards, and command line editing, e.g. with vi
If you are running on a PC then consider install an X-server like Xming
... oh, and get used to the idea that software is free