Li'l Pooter - use of a Rasberry Pi 2 for teaching

[Ond]

G'day folks, it's just me busying up your lives with more OND miscellaneous projects.  This really only fits here.  It's a project to build an enhanced Raspberry Pi 2 'computer' for my use as an IT Trainer.  I will be getting into an actual, purpose built, Raspberry Pi 4 arcade build, but that's a separate project yet to come.  This project is still in progress, so I will update as I go.

Design criteria:

- Raspberry Pi 2
- Scratch built enclosure from acrylic sheet
- Addition of heat sinks for better cooling/overclocking
- Addition of WiFi USB and configuration of driver
- Addition of 250Gb SSD Drive
- Addition of 4 port USB on case
- Addition of external ethernet port on case
- Addition of power button for power up/down
- Custom artwork and paint finish
- Debian Buster with Raspberry Pi Desktop

Build pics:

This is designed to mainly run 'headless' that is no monitor, keyboard or mouse.  It just gets remoted to via TightVNC, PuTTy and Filezilla for teaching and demonstration purposes.  Some of the scripts and configs I've used may be useful to folks here so will post those later...

[Ond]

[yotsuya]

Nice job with the acrylic. I just 3D print stuff now.


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[Ond]

Nice job with the acrylic. I just 3D print stuff now.


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3D printing has sooo much potential.  I've been watching the technology both advance and get more affordable over the years.  When resin printers fall within my budget I'm grabbing one!

[yotsuya]

Nice job with the acrylic. I just 3D print stuff now.


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3D printing has sooo much potential.  I've been watching the technology both advance and get more affordable over the years.  When resin printers fall within my budget I'm grabbing one!

Wood filament is the best. You can sand it and stain it and really shape it.


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[bobbyb13]

I already love this thread.

And we didn't even get to the Pi4 arcade yet!

I just started filling up an SD card for the MiSTer I've had for almost a year now actually.
Previously knew nothing of Linux either so this alone is an education (that I may be getting a 'C-' in so far-)

Yeah..., I am REALLY late to this whole party.

And... wood filament?!?!
 

[Ond]

That's why I post these things. Maybe something useful for others in it.  Heh, a C- in Linux is actually pretty good.  The OS just reminds of the days pre Windows when we did everything at the command line.

So a splash of Donkey Kong Blue and this is starting to look a bit more tasty.

Pack the hardware into the case, not enough room to swing a gnat 

Powered up there's a faint multi-colored glow visible through the mesh from the pi board, USB Hub, WiFi dongle and an extra blue LED I added.

Pi online! 

I think I'll add a stenciled Raspberry Pi logo to the lid, just to customize it a bit further.  Other than that it's done.   

The Pi 4 project will be a separate thread, posted on the correct board of course

[DaOld Man]

Nice work OND!!
I love working with the RPi's, even though they can be a challenge when you are used to working with DOS and even thats been years ago.
What are you using to switch it on and off?
I like the mausberry switch circuit and have used it on all my RPi builds, but it's about half the cost of the RPi, so Ive got my eyes open for a cheaper way to do the safe shutdown thinggy.
I have come up with several circuits to do it, but if I had to buy the parts, and not have them in my junk box already, plus time it takes to put together, its probably cheaper to go with the mausberry, at least thats what i keep telling myself.

[Ond]

Thanks DaOld Man, to switch this on and off I use a momentary switch across pins 5-6 and script which you can install with:

git clone https://github.com/Howchoo/pi-power-button.git  ./pi-power-button/script/install

Technically this does not completely remove power from the pi, but it does shut it down cleanly. Press the button, it boots up no problem. 

[DaOld Man]

Thanks OND, so this puts the RPi to sleep, right?
Or is the RPi always looking for SCL input while powered?

[DaOld Man]

I just tried shorting pins 5 and 6 while my RPi3 was shutdown (but power still on). It worked great!
Since I am not a brave man, I used a resistor between the pins, just to limit current draw on the pin (probably not necessary but no big deal really).
I first used a 1K resistor, this didnt work, then tried a 450 ohm and it did work. (I will probably use a 100 - 200 ohm in the build.)
Thanks for that valuable share. I think I will be using this on my jukebox build.

[javeryh]

This is a great little project.  You guys are like computer geniuses.

[nitrogen_widget]

Are you booting off the SSD?

[Vocalitus]

One of my friends kids in really into programming and is a bit of an inventor.  I purchased a pizero W and a micro bit board to play with and make basic games and wearable tech, with solar buttons and rechargable batteries.  Sky is the limit with him.

He takes his microbit to school and the teacher has never seen it before and was amazed by the creativity that followed with the microbit.  I secured 150 of them for the school.  The problem is that the pi and microbit was designed for learning programming and the schools have no idea of their existence until now.

What went wrong and why such a disconnect?

With the complaints of funding of IT in schools, a $5 computer and $10 microbit shouldn't be the stumbling block.