Raspberry PI 3 Now Launched!

[wlanboy]

I figure if I set this up I would wire it directly in with a fuse and a switch and boot it on start of vehicle.  Since I don't want to mess with the stereo bluetooth will be my audio option using one of those bluetooth to FM converts, or I have actually read somewhere you can make the Pi output FM on a few of its io pins (source needed).

Icrobotics did this: http://www.icrobotics.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Turning_the_Raspberry_Pi_Into_an_FM_Transmitter


And a nice car ignition switch with power supply: http://mausberry-circuits.myshopify.com/collections/car-power-supply-switches

 

[willie]

small touchscreen to mount in my truck...   Right now I use my cell phone for this, but it runs down the battery over time, would rather have the longer standby time.

Can't you plug your phone into a car charger?

 

[HalfEatenPie]

One of my ideas that is in the "Someday I would love to find the time to do this" pile is using a board with small touchscreen to mount in my truck and use for bluetooth autdio output from android and simple video playback, as well as possibly GPS (there are cheap USB GPS module you can get that will work for things like google maps).  I figure as I retire my old RPi B+ it may be nominated for that project.  Right now I use my cell phone for this, but it runs down the battery over time, would rather have the longer standby time.  I figure if I set this up I would wire it directly in with a fuse and a switch and boot it on start of vehicle.  Since I don't want to mess with the stereo bluetooth will be my audio option using one of those bluetooth to FM converts, or I have actually read somewhere you can make the Pi output FM on a few of its io pins (source needed). 


Anyhow, just a thought..


Cheers!

Oh man that'd be cool.  I don't know how much of a drain on my car's battery it would be, but having something like that with a touchscreen built into the center console of the car would be cool.  Or somehow packaging it in a convenient place.  Similar to those tablets people convert into built-in system for their cars.  

 

[TheLinuxBug]

Can't you plug your phone into a car charger?

I want something permanent so I don't have to worry about that in the truck and having to stop the audio every time I get out of the car etc, little Pi can handle all the fun I figure.


On a more exciting note FedEx was feeling nice and my RPi3 should be here this afternoon instead of tomorrow!  Anxious for its arrival!


Will post some pics when in hand.


Cheers!

 

[TheLinuxBug]

So my Raspberry Pi 3 came today!!


@HalfEatenPie@drmike@willie@wlanboy














You can see some other pictures here. Somehow I forgot the RPi3 is about the same size, Odroid C2 seems a tad smaller but not by much.  Will need to put them side by side and post a pic later.


First observations:

• Definitely quicker than the Pi 2
  
• OSMC and OPENLEC both run pretty good (For media playback)
  
• I forgot there is no main line Android for Pi, but found this guy is selling what he says is a working version for $9 (a bit shady to charge for free software..haven't decided it worth parting with $9 to find out, yet)
  
• I feel like even though I won't use Android a lot, the fact Odroid C2 has it as an option out of the box is a point in its favor.
  
• Wifi works pretty seemlessly, had no issues getting a connection
  

Cheers!

 

[HalfEatenPie]

Hm.  How did you gauge the speed comparison between Raspberry Pi 3 and 2?  Does it just feel snappier to you?


I'm pretty happy with my Raspberry Pi 2.  I don't see a need for the Raspberry Pi 3 except for maybe the integrated WiFi and Bluetooth being fairly attractive.  


Geeze, I wish there was like a proper ARM board with integrated WiFi + Bluetooth, multiple ethernet ports, with SATA ports.  Basically make it a full-on computer. 

 

[TheLinuxBug]

@HalfEatenPie


It is for sure a bit snappier, especially in boot time.  However, one of my goals was to be able to run Android on it to use as a 'SmartTV' type of device for my parents now that Wifi and Bluetooth are available it would perfect for such a thing.  However, some how I spaced on the fact there is no official Android release for Pi because they say, " Android is the opposite of what the RPF stands for, consumerism instead of learning".


In this case Android would be perfect because it would allow the running of a web browser reliably and be able to play videos at high quality whether it be Youtube, DLNA, HTML5, etc.


Unfortunately, even though RPi3 has the hardware I want, Odroid C2 is beating it out in this use case because of their Android image which even while being a little buggy and lacking the wrieless/bluetooth built in works like a dream for all of the above.


As I said above there are some third party releases of it, but the only one for Pi 3 the guy wants you to pay $9 to download, I am not sure its worth $9 for testing a half working Android image, especially since it looks like you have to pay to download all additional releases they make as well.

Geeze, I wish there was like a proper ARM board with integrated WiFi + Bluetooth, multiple ethernet ports, with SATA ports.  Basically make it a full-on computer.

This exists to some extent but its a lot more expensive and isn't open source.  There are a few marvell boards out there that can handle most of those requirements its just that the CPU is  not anywhere near as fast from what I saw.  I was looking around for something with better on board SATA than the A20 when I was doing my NAS project but anything I found that looked like it would work well was around the ~$125-$150 mark which was completely out of my budget for that project.


I know there has been someone else that has mention one such board here, I can't remember exactly what it was but maybe it was @wlanboy?  When I dig up the link again I will try and add it to the thread.  The board I am thinking of was separate compute module and a board that the module went into to supply all the connections. 


Anyhow, better do some work here... will follow-up again later.


Cheers!

 

[wlanboy]

@HalfEatenPie


I know there has been someone else that has mention one such board here, I can't remember exactly what it was but maybe it was @wlanboy?  When I dig up the link again I will try and add it to the thread.  The board I am thinking of was separate compute module and a board that the module went into to supply all the connections. 

Still looking for an alternative.
My current favs are:

• 8xA15, 2 GB RAM, ODROID-XU4 -> USB 3
  
• 2xA7, 512MB RAM, A20-OLinuXino-LIME -> SATA
  
• 8xA7, 2GB RAM, Cubieboard 5 -> SATA
  

But both OlinuXino and Cubieboard do have USB 2 to Sata bridges... and both on old A7 plattform.


So I stopped searching for Sata ports and switched to my top requirement USB 3 support.

 

[drmike]

Still looking for an alternative.
My current favs are:

• 8xA15, 2 GB RAM, ODROID-XU4 -> USB 3
  
• 2xA7, 512MB RAM, A20-OLinuXino-LIME -> SATA
  
• 8xA7, 2GB RAM, Cubieboard 5 -> SATA
  

ODROID XU4 is still on my shopping list  If anyone has an idle one they want to part with, let me know...

 

[drmike]

Geeze, I wish there was like a proper ARM board with integrated WiFi + Bluetooth, multiple ethernet ports, with SATA ports.  Basically make it a full-on computer. 

There are.  Just not cheap and board support isn't anywhere near as good as Pi.  Multiple ethernet is rare, but doable now with USB3.0 dongles.

 

[willie]

XU4 has 4x A15 and 4x A7 (big.little), plus a big heat sink and cooling fan.  Power efficiency of big ARMs (especially arm64) is actually not that great compared to current x86 of comparable performance.  If you want to goa little spendier you could look at a much faster NUC-style x86 box.  I'm not sure how the Intel Compute Stick or Edison compares but the Edison module is absolutely tiny.  It's usually mounted on a bigger breakout board, though.

 

[drmike]

XU4 has 4x A15 and 4x A7 (big.little), plus a big heat sink and cooling fan.  Power efficiency of big ARMs (especially arm64) is actually not that great compared to current x86 of comparable performance.  If you want to goa little spendier you could look at a much faster NUC-style x86 box.  I'm not sure how the Intel Compute Stick or Edison compares but the Edison module is absolutely tiny.  It's usually mounted on a bigger breakout board, though.

Do you have any of the NUC x86's or Intel Compute sticks?  Looking for some observations on both and ideally I can dig up some wattage numbers.  For some reason I don't see them coming in at that 1-3 watt area a lot of ARM stuff does.... The XU4 is likely a 5W+ box.


That 2 watt and leave it on, no worries, is kind of nice. 

 

[willie]

I haven't tried a compute stick.  We had a NUC where I used to work and it was very nice, like a Mac Mini but smaller and faster, and we had it running a huge Samsung wall monitor.  It seemed to make desktop computers pointless for most purposes. 


The XU4 is not a 5 watt board: it uses a 5v, 4 amp power supply in (small) laptop brick format, iirc.  The NUCs uses even more under load, but by the time you've accepted a whirring, AC powered device, maybe you want a more powerful computer.

 

[drmike]

I haven't tried a compute stick.  We had a NUC where I used to work and it was very nice, like a Mac Mini but smaller and faster, and we had it running a huge Samsung wall monitor.  It seemed to make desktop computers pointless for most purposes. 


The XU4 is not a 5 watt board: it uses a 5v, 4 amp power supply in (small) laptop brick format, iirc.  The NUCs uses even more under load, but by the time you've accepted a whirring, AC powered device, maybe you want a more powerful computer.

Any idea of the NUC and where it was watt wise?  I am interested in anything 10 or less watts - mixed average (most of time on computer is idle).


I prefer fanless, but the XU4 specs make it desirable. 


You are right, the XU4 isn't 5 watts:


When in idle: 2.5WWhen in full load: 12W (peak), 7W(typ.)

 

[MannDude]

I lost my MicroSD card. I'm sure it's somewhere within arms reach right now but I can't find it...


Ordering a new one now so I can put my Raspberry Pi back to use.

 

[willie]

There's lots of NUC models so you'd have to check the specs to get power draw of any particular one.  They probably use more power than the XU4 but not by all that much in the scheme of things.  Your refrigerator probably uses 50-100W averaged over 24 hours.

 

[wlanboy]

If I would buy a NUC I would choose the NUC5i3RYH 8W-20W power consumption: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/nuc/nuc-kit-nuc5i3ryh.html


The Corei5 is not much faster than the Corei3. If the i3 fails the i5 cannot help due to the board and overall systemdesign.

 

[layeronline]

yay built-in wifi. no more wires.

 

[TheLinuxBug]

Hmm... Unfortunately the more I play with my RPi3 the more I like the Odroid C2.  The wifi on the Pi is a nice addition, but the antenna is so week I can't get more than ~200-300kb/sec while only about 10ft away through the ceiling.  Adding something to better concentrate the signal gives it a boost, but without an external antenna it seems you will have to be very close or unobstructed to get any decent throughput.


While the Odroid C2 lacks wifi built on it, I am some how oddly confident adding a USB adapter with any antenna would likely work out to be more performant than what is included by built-on .  Maybe its the chipset and how it works with my base station, but my cell phone equal distance away can pull close to 50Mbit, so I know its not the wifi.


I really wanted to be more excited about the RPi3 but with the weak Wifi the CPU is only a minor bonus IMO.  Sadly the Odroid C2 may turn out to be ther better of the two overall.  May cost a little more to have the Wifi features, but the performance seems to  make up for the extra expense.  I will do some more testing, maybe it would be better in a different distribution.. will report back if I am able to observe any better performance.


my 2 cents.


Cheers!

 

[drmike]

There's lots of NUC models so you'd have to check the specs to get power draw of any particular one.  They probably use more power than the XU4 but not by all that much in the scheme of things.  Your refrigerator probably uses 50-100W averaged over 24 hours.

I wish my fridge only used 50-100W in 24 hours...  No way it's anywhere near that low.


http://refrigerators.reviewed.com/features/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-new-energy-star-fridge-standards


Works out when that was published for a 28 cu ft fridge at daily maximum of 1.1KwH per day.


Unsure if even highly insulated chest freezer style fridges or even outright freezers still can hit anywhere near 100W per 24 hours.  I was in the market for a Sundanzer DC fridge for a bunch of years since it was all of this and about as low as you could go, but no way I could pack food for a family into a puny unit.


http://www.sundanzer.com  and http://www.sundanzer.com/app/uploads/2016/03/SunDanzer-Main.pdf


DCR50 Refrigerator 53W-h / 4.4A-h 114W-h / 9.6AH
http://www.solartown.com/store/product/sundanzer-dcr50-solar-refrigerator-2/


DCR225 Refrigerator 90W-h / 7.5A-h 198W-h / 17A-h
http://www.solartown.com/store/product/sundanzer-dcr225-solar-refrigerator-2/


So yeppers, a Sundanzer will get those numbers at 70F.  They are interior storage wise, tiny.  PITA to manage a chest style fridge too.