I have been playing around with the Raspberry Pi computer for a few years as a way to archive data and to run projects to control things in my greenhouse. Very happy with it. I first got interested in its output pins and way to both read data and control relays. The software was very easy to use, usually, often just copy someone else's work. Price was right. Beginning with the Raspberry Pi 4 I started to use it as a computer. Size of a pack of smokes, use about 15 watts of power at 5 volts, used USB storage, work with any hdmi capable tv ect. I used it with a Harbor Freight solar power , about 50 watts, a deep charge battery, and a small monitor that drew about 1watt, 7 in screen. Had one to play with and one kept in a fairly good emp resistant cage. I also bought a cd reader that would plug into the USB port so that I could read the old cd's I had with information and moved data from hard drives to cd's in some cases. Starting with the Raspberry Pi 5 I switched my browsing to it as well. Bought one as soon as I could and have been using it for a few months. Most of the things I am putting up are descriptions from a place called Adafruit that sells Raspberry Pi stuff. Don't get anything from them but the prices and service have been good. First is the Raspberry Pi. Raspberry Pi 5 - 8 GB RAM While you need a few other things, that is the basic unit that makes up the computer. The full kit is this one. I didn't buy the book, nor most of the rest of it. If you have a mouse and keyboard that are either USB or Bluetooth, you can use them instead of buying them. In the Raspberry Pi 5 data you can see and order each piece. Best to buy USB SD card with latest system installed as that does 90 % or more of the work of setting it all up as you don't need to mess with writing the SD card. You need keyboard, SD card, mouse, power supply and cable to hdmi on monitor or tv for bare minimum. Listed along side unit in ad. Case and fan are nice, but can get along without.. Official Raspberry Pi 5 Desktop Kit - Pi 5 Sold Separately In the following video he shows how to write and install a SD card in the setup, since you need to buy one, get one that is ready to install with the 64 bit operating system on it and miss out all the headaches of down loading and writing a mini SD card. The rest of the video is on how to set up the Pi. how to setup raspberry pi 5 - Google Search Once you have it set up and running, you can add a hard drive, or at least I did. A lot more storage and a lot faster downloads etc. This is the new one used with an active cooler. Raspberry Pi M.2 HAT+ Note it uses the shorter drives. This one will take all the mvne drives and is the one I used. I don't know if it auto detects as the official one does. At the time I had to go into the bios and rewrite it to make it work. I didn't use the official case, but did use the cooler. Works well. Pimoroni NVMe Base for Raspberry Pi 5 Here is the "official" setup for the hat. https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/m2-hat-plus/ And here is one persons experiences and with the early ones they weren't the best. Official Raspberry Pi M.2 HAT+ Review - bret.dk All in all it isn't plug and play like windoze, but you own it, it is available in pieces, can be used for storage, camera control, motion detection, running robots, etc. Most of all it doesn't use much power and is small. Ammo box will hold several with drives and cameras. Camera systems with monitor, 7 in, camera with motion detection and break switches for window, etc alarms using 25 watts and a couple hundred dollars. Fun thing to go on net and fall down the rabbit hole type gadget even if you don't buy one. Watch size of drive, physical, as some only only take shorter units. Some brands don't play well with adaptors so be sure to get one that other people have had good luck with. I stuck with a 500 gig for about $50 bucks and it is working fine. Can't even remember what it actually was for a brand.
I have some stuff at work we made with them. Capable and small! We have touch screen, encoders, motor and a marking gun in one box run by one.
I love raspberry pis. I built an automated cat toy and a sprinkler system. Both interfaced with apps. Unrelated projects.
Ok an automated cat toy and sprinkler combo would be hilarious. Toy when the cat is good and sprinkler when the cat is bad!
Haha yes! It all started because the cat kept sitting on my laptop then one day he figured out how to turn the entire orientation of the desktop screen sideways. It took me a little while to figure out how to turn it right round. An intervention was necessary... The sprinkler project was to be able to start and stop the sprinklers in the field from a phone.
