The Raspberry Pi Thread

A bunch of it came in a programing kit I bought so I didn't pay the full individual cost. The rest I bought here and there. Just showing off a bit I guess listing it all separate. There were some odds and ends I didn't list like LED's, breadboard switches, resisters etc. A mini PC won't do what the pi will do with that stuff. I'm an electronic technician by trade so bread boarding circuits etc is right up my ally. The small touch screen was so I can take it all outside on my deck to play with. Most of what I want to do with it will be summer projects. Right now I need a powered USB hub and another micro SD card. Most of my cards are full sized SD cards as that's what my camera uses and that's what easily plugs into my laptops. Right now I think I'm going to have another go at RASPBMC. I do have a 32 GB Micro SD card so maybe I'll use that. Right now it looks like I have to go clear some snow and put the garbage out. Bye for now.

I got a bunch of micro SDs too but thought they're outdated and slow so I got a new one eventhough the pi2 is still on its way. I was thinking about getting the 32GB but it maybe too much for the pi considering it has a 4 usb ports. I can just mount the 160GB 2.5" hard to it from my dead laptop.



My idea of a pi project is building something out of junk with the pi as a brain.



Do you think it's possible to reuse a touch LCD screen from an old 7" android tablet? The tablet is still working but it's old and slow ( running android 2.2). I can pry it open and just salvage the screen. But it may be a lot of work and something out of my league. :)



I also got 2 spare dvd drives (pc and laptop) and I may buy a license for mpeg codecs to make use out of it. I need the license (around $4 I think) to unlock the hardware decode functionality (for MPEG2) of the Pi’s GPU.



Tonight I'll prep the new micro SD card and install Raspbian.

alphanumeric said:

Looks like I have some tweaks to do. Keyboard layout is UK instead of US. And my screen resolution is only 1824 x 984 instead of 1920 x 1080. Looks like I have to use a command line text editor to change the keyboard layout. Maybe to fix the screen resolution too. The options for screen resolution are 1824x984 and Auto. Setting it to auto does nothing. I don't have the ambition to tackle it tonight. I think I'll just fire up my laptop next to my Pi so I can see what to do on one screen and do it on the other.

I ran into the same keyboard layout problem. The keyboard layout was fine except that I couldn't find a way to enter the '@' sign from the keyboard (don't UK keyboards use the '@' sign?). Anyway, I believe I used the config utility to switch the layout to a US keyboard.

badrobot said:

I got a bunch of micro SDs too but thought they're outdated and slow so I got a new one eventhough the pi2 is still on its way. I was thinking about getting the 32GB but it maybe too much for the pi considering it has a 4 usb ports. I can just mount the 160GB 2.5" hard to it from my dead laptop.



My idea of a pi project is building something out of junk with the pi as a brain.



Do you think it's possible to reuse a touch LCD screen from an old 7" android tablet? The tablet is still working but it's old and slow ( running android 2.2). I can pry it open and just salvage the screen. But it may be a lot of work and something out of my league. :)



I also got 2 spare dvd drives (pc and laptop) and I may buy a license for mpeg codecs to make use out of it. I need the license (around $4 I think) to unlock the hardware decode functionality (for MPEG2) of the Pi’s GPU.



Tonight I'll prep the new micro SD card and install Raspbian.

Hard to say, depends on what type of input it takes. You might have to hunt up an interface board for it. The one I bought has a custom made circuit board mounted to the back so it can use a HDMI input. The touch panel electronics are on that board too. The screen itself was likely originally made for a tablet. Adafruit buys a lot of stuff like that knowing its likely going to be mounted in a custom enclosure. They may have had the backpack board custom made. I also have an android tablet I'm tempted to disassemble. My brother in law gave it to me and it doesn't work very well. Slow as molasses and it eventually just locks up. I'd have to fire up my dremel tool to get it apart, no screws that I can see. Just some type of sealant around the display. I wouldn't lose any sleep if I broke it getting it apart.

strollin said:

I ran into the same keyboard layout problem. The keyboard layout was fine except that I couldn't find a way to enter the '@' sign from the keyboard (don't UK keyboards use the '@' sign?). Anyway, I believe I used the config utility to switch the layout to a US keyboard.

If I remember correctly pressing @ got me a " instead so I just pressed the " to get an @. I was trying to enter my e-mail address to sign up in the Pi Store when I noticed. I haven't done anything about it yet. latter on today likely.

caperjack said:

nothing I say is 100% as iam new to this but I am looking at getting a small lcd/touch .and have been reading and wondering if I could use the screen in my acer onw notebook .
anyway a lot of the screens sold at Atafruit were meant for tablets ,you would need to get a driver board and maybe even a display board with power and connection to the screen ,some like what is shown in the link to adafruit . but like I sais I could we wrong and a way off on my info
RA8875 Driver Board for 40-pin TFT Touch Displays - 800x480 Max ID: 1590 - $34.95 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits

or this link showing a led wit ha display board may also be needed ,not use but I think it would need one
HDMI 4 Pi - 10.1 Display 1280x800 IPS - HDMI/VGA/NTSC/PAL ID: 1287 - $144.95 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits

I think Adafruit buys the displays in bulk with no case or anything, and then has driver boards made up for them. If your display has the 40 pin TFT cable/plug finding a display board likely isn't all that hard. I'm guessing anyway, this is all new to me too.

EDIT: Looking at some of those, it looks like the guts of a computer display. It's a PC LCD screen minus the case and power supply.

I just fired up OPENELECT. Took some time to find all the settings for region, time zone, WIFI, but I think I got it all setup. Time to put some stuff on a thumb drive and see if I can play it watch it.