From 07e4a2dafe248280b5610f8c7d09b0f30b530f54 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bradley Taunt Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2024 09:41:25 -0400 Subject: Initial modifications to rebuilt only changed files based on mod date, performance updates --- build/posts/cheap-portable-pi/index.html | 167 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 167 insertions(+) create mode 100644 build/posts/cheap-portable-pi/index.html (limited to 'build/posts/cheap-portable-pi') diff --git a/build/posts/cheap-portable-pi/index.html b/build/posts/cheap-portable-pi/index.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7a08484 --- /dev/null +++ b/build/posts/cheap-portable-pi/index.html @@ -0,0 +1,167 @@ + + + + + + + + Portable Pi: Cheap Raspberry Pi Zero Hacker Terminal + + + + + + + +
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Portable Pi: Cheap Raspberry Pi Zero Hacker Terminal

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2020-09-16

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I recently came across the incredibly cool design for an “ultimate Raspberry Pi computer” by NODE and was inspired to create my own “portable” Pi device. Although, with my concept, I decided to set a few restrictions on the build:

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With these constraints put in place, I built my very own Raspberry Pi Zero “hacker” terminal. You can see the finished product below:

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Portable Pi front

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Portable Pi back

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I’m pretty happy with the final outcome and best of all - you can easily recreate this yourself with little-to-no effort!

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So enough chit-chat - let’s build this bad-boy!

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Note: Most items in the hardware section are Amazon affiliate links

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Table of Contents

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  1. Setting Expectations
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  2. The Hardware
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  3. The Software
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  4. Getting Setup
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  5. Final Summary
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This hardware will not replace your laptop or any other “high-powered” portable device. Honestly, you’re mobile phone would (most likely) work better in terms of a compact-sized computer. The concept behind this “portable pi” project was to make something for fun.

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Please reserve any sassy comments about how buying a cheap $50 laptop off eBay would be more efficient than building out something like I have done here. You’re missing the point entirely.

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Moving on for those still interested…

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I live in Canada, so some of the options are based on available hardware near my location. You’re likely to find similar hardware close to your own country for better pricing / shipping costs.

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Note: I’ve decided to use a wireless, USB dongle-based keyboard. You can opt to use a bluetooth-based keyboard, but I just find them more trouble than they are worth (keeping a charge, losing connections, interference from other devices)

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Raspberry Pi Zero WH

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You will need a Raspberry Pi Zero W with GPIO header pins already soldered on to the board. (You could also do this yourself manually if you have the tools and skill to do so)

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Li-Ion Battery HAT

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This HAT holds a single li-ion battery and for our purposes will connect with our Pi Zero via the GPIO header pins. You could also look into double-set battery HATs if that is something you would prefer - for my needs a single rechargeable battery works fine.

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Since our main “OS” is purely terminal based, I find you don’t really need a li-ion battery with a massive amount of power storage. 2500mAh will easily last a handful of hours mucking about with emails, files and web browsing. Plus, you can always carry a few extras for swapping out on-the-go.

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3.5-inch TFT Display

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A simple and fairly cheap touchscreen display. We won’t require our display to render videos or pretty graphics (since we will be entirely terminal-based) so this works just fine for our needs. I am using version 6.3 for this build.

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Micro USB OTG Adapter

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As mentioned above, this item is optional if you feel more comfortable with using a pure bluetooth keyboard. I just personally prefer this method.

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Wireless Keyboard

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In my product demo image at the beginning of the article, I’m actually using an old Logitech wireless keyboard since this one still hasn’t arrived. I plan to swap them out once I have it - the Logitech is far to large to be deemed “portable”.

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I will be setting up this “portable pi” via headless installation with my main Raspberry Pi 4 desktop. Included below are some quick instructions on how to setup the Raspberry Pi Zero for ssh access.

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Preparing the microSD card

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Note: the display will turn on but only show a white screen - this is normal

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Connecting to your Zero via SSH

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Open the terminal on your Raspberry Pi desktop and enter the following command:

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ssh pi@raspberrypi.local
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You will then be asked if you wish to trust this device (say yes), then prompted for the pi user’s password - which is raspberry. After a moment you will be directly connected to your Raspberry Pi Zero. Hooray!

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We just want to make a couple small configuration changes before going forward (mostly for security):

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  1. Run the command sudo raspi-config
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  2. Select “Change User Password” from the menu and change the password +Raspberry config
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  3. After that, select “Network Options” and change your device name +
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    • This will avoid any conflicts of connecting to newer RPi devices down the line
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That’s it!

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Installing display driver

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Next we will need to download and run the drivers needed for our 3.5-inch display to play nicely with our Pi Zero (just a blank white screen doesn’t help us much). While connected to our RPi Zero via SSH, run the following commands:

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wget http://kedei.net/raspberry/v6_1/LCD_show_v6_1_3.tar.gz
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If you have snail-paced rural internet like I do, now is a good time to go and grab a coffee while this download completes.

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Once the download has finished, extract the contents and navigate to the new directory and install the driver:

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sudo tar xzf LCD_show_v6_1_3.tar.gz
+cd LCD_show_v6_1_3
+sudo ./LCD35_v
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Once completed, the RPi Zero will reboot and everything should work as expected!

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Installing software

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I’m not going to jump into heavy details about installing terminal-based software for this setup. The links I’ve attached in the software section should provide you with more than enough information to get started. For reference, I’m using a very basic set of applications:

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There you have it - a terminal-based, portable Raspberry Pi Zero “hacker” device.

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Is it practical? Not really. Can it replace any other portable device you might own? Probably not. Is it fun to make and experiment on? You bet! And in the end - isn’t that what matters most with pet Pi projects?

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