"Fab"oard Un (1)

Que peut-on faire avec une planche a découper? Cuisiner un Raspberry Pi, bien sur. Après le boitier "Fab"ulous, je vous présente le "Fab"oard Un (de fabrication et board, de l'anglais pour planche.

C'est parfait pour les démo en public, a l’école, pour les conférences, les groupes d'usagers, les hackerspaces etc.

Comme c'est le "Fab"oard Un, cela implique qu'il y a un "Fab"oard Deux. Je vous le présente cette fin de semaine. Le Un utilise des composantes commerciales (boitier Multicomp, Pi Cobbler et cable GPIO de Adafruit). Le Deux, du fait main.

2 petits trous pour nous guider

Les vis du haut pour le boitier, du bas pour...

une surface pour prototypes

Le Pi cobbler

De l'espace en bas pour ajouter une autre surface proto

"fab"ulous pi case

Thanks to Lon from fablocker, I have a 3d printed case for the Raspberry Pi. It'll be for one of the few RPi I'll be bringing to fablocker this weekend, for PyHack.

That's how it is printed

And the other side. Much smoother since it lays flat

Good fit

With the lid on

Plenty of ventilation and GPIO access

The hole for the audio jack is a bit too wide

Retro computing kit

So apparently, the Gertboard is not going to be made available as a kit anymore. I'm glad I built one kit and I still have an unbuilt kit.

But that doesn't help you. You wanted to do some soldering.

Well, if you dont mind doing something that is unrelated to the Raspberry Pi, but always wanted to build your own complete computer from a kit, then over on kickstarter, David Griffith is trying to get another run of P112 boards and kits going. He is a little over halfway funded, with 1 week to go. Check out the video:


The P112 Single Board Computer Kit is a little 8 bit retro computer based on the Z80 (actually a Z180). Many computers from the golden era of howebrew and personal computing ran a Zilog z80, such as the RadioShack TRS-80, the Osborne, the Kaypro, Sinclair ZX series, Amstrad CPC. It was also used in some musical instruments, such as my Sequential Circuits Six-trak and E-mu emulator.

There was a previous run made around 2008, and before that, probably about 1996. It is capable of running zdos, cp/m and uzi, the unix for z80. Some software available at Sourceforge.

So, head over to kickstarter and check it out. The full kit will also require a 5v power supply and a 3.5" floppy disk drive.

Disclaimer: I have made a contribution as a backer, but beside that, I have no financial interest in this project.

PiBox

When you get your Raspberry Pi, it will come in a box.

Up to now, both RS and Element14 (the only 2 manufacturers, everybody else is a distributor) sent the Pi in an antistatic bag inside a cardboard box.

Manufactured by RS

Manufactured by element14

either way, it used to be in an antistatic bag

It looks like RS is now shipping the Pi in a plastic box, inside the cardboard box.

New plastic container

Some are making a case with it.

Routing the GPIO cable

I decided I would cut my white case at the top side, so I would have a place to route the GPIO cable outside the case.

Reference line. Dont go quite as close to the edge.

Thick cutting disc (dremel style grinder)

We are done

Cleaning up with an knife

That'll work

Sliding it in from the left, testing to make sure it fits

Excellent!

Could have cut a little less on the right side

That'll be perfect for one of my two demo boards.

While on the subject of cases

As I mentioned in my previous post on the lapdock (see this also), I've switched to a red/black case from the white case I had. I've had a few questions on the white case, particularly what is on the back.

So here are some more pictures. I got the case from MCM electronics, but this is a pretty popular type of case made by Multicomp available through various distributors. It comes in white, black and transparent.

Convenient mounting holes in the back

So, this can be wall mounted, or mounted in the back of a monitor. It can also be mounted on a board, for experimentation, but it does lack an important feature, an opening for the GPIO header:

GPIO, bottom right, no access from the outside...

A case like this one would be better suited (3d model on thingiverse for a 3d printer):



In fact I'm going to have somebody print this at the local Hackerspace (Fablocker), where we will be holding a PyHack Workshop using the Raspberry Pi, in exactly one week, November the 10th.

Still, all is not lost with that case, I'll add a slit for a cable, from the hole for the composite video jack. Or just do a cutback at the bottom. It is actually possible to still use a cable without cutting the box in any way. Here is the box assembled without the cable:

And here is the case with the cable. It is a tight fit, plus it wont lay flat.

It will do for now...

MagPi

I just received a printed copy of The Mag Pi #6, from the folks at ModMyPi.
I do have the PDFs for #1 to #6 but when I heard somebody was printing it at a commercial printer, I figured I had to get a copy. Although it is #6, it is the first copy to be printed on paper.

It reminded me of the good old magazines I would get as a kid such as InCider, Compute etc. BTW, digging in my old magazines, I saw that Compute was published on Wendover Ave in Greensboro, NC. That's interesting to me because that's not too far from where I'm at.

And speaking of this area, if you live near it, I would like to suggest you check out PYPTUG. We'll be having a workshop with Python and the Raspberry Pi on November the 10th.

Anyway, back to The MagPi:

#6 October 2012

QR Code, even

And speaking of ModMyPi, I ordered a "surprise" color mix case. It's the cheapest option they have, but you never know what colors you'll get. Red and Black, I think that worked out well for me:

Replacing the white case of my RISC OS laptop

Color contrast works well with my Motorola LapDock RISC OS machine.