Raspberry Pi 4 Offers Up 2 GB For The Price Of One

February 27, 2020 by Tom Nardi 54 Comments

The Raspberry Pi 4 represents a significant performance increase over previous generations, unlocking potential applications that were simply beyond the abilities of these diminutive Single Board Computers (SBCs) in the past. Some would even argue that the Pi 4, with a quad-core Cortex-A72 running at 1.5 GHz, now holds its own as a lightweight ARM desktop computer for those interested in finally breaking free from x86.

In light of the considerable upgrade in processing power, the choice to outfit the base model Pi 4 with just 1 GB of RAM always seemed a bit odd. So it’s little surprise that the Raspberry Pi Foundation has decided to shift things around and lower the price of the 2 GB model to the traditional $35. In a blog post this morning, Eben Upton said that with RAM prices falling over the last year, the company thought it was time they passed the savings onto the customer.

This change comes just two days before the Pi’s 8th birthday. There has been speculation that the Pi 4 is capable of operating with 8 GB of RAM and unveiling that news to coincide with this anniversary would have been a clever marketing move. Alas, it looks like we’ll have to continue to wait.

For those who are invested in the 1 GB model, have no fear. Rather than delete the product from the lineup entirely, the company will be keeping it available for anyone who needs it. So if you’ve got a commercial or industrial application that might not take kindly to the hardware getting switched out, you’ll still have a source of spares. That said, the pricing for the 1 GB model won’t be changing, so there’s no cost advantage to using it in new designs.

Combined with news that compatibility issues the Pi 4 had with generic USB-C power supplies was fixed with an under the radar board revision, it seems there’s never been a better time to upgrade to the latest and greatest version of everyone’s favorite Linux board. Happy Birthday, Raspberry Pi.

Raspberry Pi Slips Out New PCB Version With USB C Power Fix

February 23, 2020 by Jenny List 102 Comments

When the Raspberry Pi people release a fresh model in their line of fruity single board computers, it’s always an event of great interest. The Raspberry Pi 4 brought some significant changes to the formula: they moved to ~~mini~~ micro HDMI and USB-C power sockets, for instance. The early adopters who scored one of those Pi 4s were in for a shock though, if they had all but the most basic USB C power cables the device wouldn’t power up. Now the Register has news that they have slipped out with little fanfare an updated version of the board containing a fix for this problem.

Our colleague Maya Posch delved deeply into the USB C specification and delivered a pithy analysis at the time which demonstrated that the fault lay with the configuration of the sense resistors used by intelligent USB C power sources to determine what power to supply. For the addition of a single surface mount resistor the problem need never have existed, and we’re guessing that’s how they fixed it.

There’s no need to despair should you have one of the older boards, though. They will still work as they always have done with the so-called “dumb” power supplies and cables, and meanwhile we’re sure that future Pi boards will have had a lot of attention paid to their USB power circuitry.

Relive The Glory Days Of Cable TV With This Retro Weather Feed

February 21, 2020 by Dan Maloney 43 Comments

This may surprise younger readers, but there was once a time when the reality programming on The Weather Channel was simply, you know, weather. It used to be no more than a ten-minute wait to “Local on the Eights”, with simple text crawls of local conditions and forecasts that looked like they were taken straight from the National Weather Service feed. Those were the days, and sadly they seem to be gone forever.

Or perhaps not, if this retro weather channel feed has anything to say about it. It’s the product of [probnot] and consists of a simple Python program that runs on a Raspberry Pi. Being from Winnipeg, [probnot] is tapping into Environment Canada for local weather data, but it should be easy enough to modify to use your local weather provider’s API. The screen is full of retro goodness, from the simple color scheme to the blocky white text; the digital clock and local news crawl at the bottom complete the old school experience. It doesn’t appear that the code supports the period-correct smooth jazz saxophone, but that too should be a simple modification.

All jibing aside, this would be a welcome addition to the morning routine. And for the full retro ride, why not consider putting it in an old TV case?

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Film Negative Viewer Has Many Positives

February 18, 2020 by Kristina Panos 8 Comments

Not so long ago, taking pictures was a much more sacred thing. Film and processing were expensive compared to the digital way, and since you couldn’t just delete a picture off the camera and get your film back, people tended to be much more selective about the pictures they took. Even so, for every roll of film, there was usually at least one stinker. If you’ve made it your quest to digitize the past, you’ll quickly realize that they’re not all gems, and that some can be left to languish.

[Random_Canadian] recently found himself knee-deep in negatives, but wanted an easy way to weed out the mediocre memories. With this film negative viewer and converter, he can step through the pictures one by one on a big screen and decide which ones to keep.

The Pi uses the negative image effect to turn the negatives positive, and then outputs them to the TV. If [Random_Canadian] finds one worth bringing into the 21st century, he pushes the green button to take a picture with the Pi camera and save it to that awesome cryptex USB drive. When he’s tired of walking down memory lane, he pushes the red button to exit the program.

We especially like that [Random_Canadian] made his own light panel by edge-lighting a piece of 6 mm Lexan. Fresh out of flat-topped LEDs, he made his own by grinding down some regular ones on a belt sander.

Got some old 8mm film you want to digitize? Check out this beautiful automated film scanner.

Insecure Surveillance Cameras Provide Dystopian Peep Show

February 18, 2020 by Kristina Panos 29 Comments

It probably doesn’t surprise you to hear there are tens of thousands of web-connected cameras all over the world that are set to take the default credentials. Actually, there are probably more than that out there, but we can assure you that at least 70,000 or so are only a click away. With this project, [carolinebuttet] proves that it’s quite possible to make art from our rickety, ridiculous surveillance state — and it begins with a peephole perspective.

The peephole in your own front door grants you the inalienable right to police your porch, stoop, or patch of carpet in the apartment building’s hallway while going mostly undetected. In Virtual Peephole, the peephole becomes a voyeuristic virtual view of various corners of the world.

Slide aside the cover, and an LDR connected to an Arduino Micro detects the change in light level. This change makes the Micro send a key press to a Raspberry Pi, which fetches a new camera at random and displays it on a screen inside the box. You can peep a brief demo after the break, followed by a couple of short build/walk-through videos.

If you’re a peephole people watcher, put a camera in there and watch from anywhere.

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3D Printed Flip Clock Is Worth A Second Look

February 12, 2020 by Kristina Panos 12 Comments

Flip clocks: they were cool long before Bill Murray was slapping one repeatedly in Groundhog Day, they were cool in 1993, and they’re still cool now. If you can’t find one on the secondhand market, you’re in luck, because [iz2k] has laid out an extensive blueprint for building a gorgeous retro-looking clock with some modern touches.

There’s a Raspberry Pi to fetch the time, the weather, and the Spotify. Old flip clocks invariably tuned in FM radio, so [iz2k] used an RTL-SDR dongle and a software decoder for the deed. This clock even has a big snooze bar, which functions like a night light when there is no alarm actively going off. The three groups of painstakingly-printed flaps are controlled with stepper motors and an IR transmitter/receiver pair to do the counting.

For the interface, [iz2k] kept things nice and simple. The big-knobbed rotary encoder handles volume up/down/mute, and the little one on the front switches between FM radio, Spotify, and silence. Moving either knob generates feedback by flashing LEDs that sit underneath the display. Take a few seconds to flip past the break and check out the short demo.

If you do find a nice flip clock out in the wild, maybe you can retrofit it.

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A Very Buttoned Up Raspberry Pi Media Server

February 7, 2020 by Tom Nardi 21 Comments

Projects that turn the Raspberry Pi into a low-cost Network Attached Storage (NAS) solution are very common; all you need is the right software, the Pi itself, and some USB storage devices. But unless you particularly like the “Medusa” look, with loose cables running all over the place, you’ll probably want to put the hardware into a suitable enclosure. Unfortunately, that’s where the somewhat unusual layout of the Pi can make things tricky.

Which is why [AraymBox] came up with this unique “capsule” enclosure for the Raspberry Pi and two USB-attached hard drives. Every effort has been made to keep the outside of this design as clean and streamlined as possible. The asymmetrical loops of wires that we so often see on other projects are gone, with everything been brought inside thanks to some clever wiring. This enclosure looks like a professional product, and if you’re willing to put in the effort, you can have one to call your own.

The good news is that the 3D printed enclosure only has four parts, albeit rather large ones, and none of which require support material. So it should be an easy print even on a relatively low-end machine. Of course, you’re not going to get that futuristic metallic look without a little work. You’ll need to do a considerable amount of sanding, filling, and paint work to get that kind of a surface finish. Then again, that rough “just printed” look has a certain cyberpunk appeal to it as well.

But the printed enclosure is only half the battle. Inside, [AraymBox] has soldered the USB to SATA adapter cables directly to the Raspberry Pi to keep things tight and compact. A micro USB breakout board was then used to add a power connector on the back of the device where the Ethernet and USB ports are, solving the issue of having one lonely USB cable coming out of the side of the case.

In the past we’ve seen other attempts to create a 3D printable enclosure for Pi servers, with varying levels of success. While some would argue that the better solution is to just throw the Pi and the drives in a large enough enclosure that it doesn’t matter what the wiring looks like, we appreciate the effort that some hackers are willing to put in to make something custom.