Sunday, May 4, 2014

55: My Portable Raspberry Pi

For demo purposes I've built a portable system. It lives in a 6" x 9" (cheap) Lexan box that's perforated with a bunch of holes for ventilation.

Not shown above:
1. An iPhone as an Internet hotspot
2. An iPad for SSH control

Also not shown: the wiring mess inside the box.

What the system can do:
1. It operates all of devices shown and can display results back on the iPad, on the 7-segment display or it can utter the output to the speaker (via text-to-voice).
2. It can take a still with the Pi camera and upload it to the Internet.

If I demo near a big TV I can mirror the iPad screen on it using my Apple TV.

The battery was meant for recharging a smart phone. It can run the Pi for most of a day. Irritatingly, it cannot charge and discharge at the same time. And with a 1 amp charger plug it takes most of a day to recharge.

Another important reason for the speaker: when connecting via the iPhone hotspot I'm not sure what the IP number will be (and it can't be "static" both at home and on the road) so, as the Pi boots up it speaks the current IP number which I then use in making the SSH connection. Messy, huh.
I need to get a speaker that fits inside the box

No comments:

Post a Comment