Interesting – how does the OPi compare and what’s the distro/software – is it completely compatible with a RPi?

Here’s the skull I’m currently fiddling with

[video]http://vimeo.com/144826651[/video]

So if Santa was to leave one on Christmas day what would we need to start with?

Probably some sort of project kit to get the ball rolling and inspire interest would be ideal. Or recommendations of good reading (books preferred).

Thanks

The camjam edukit robot is good for kids and you can build on it

Minecraft pi let’s you interface with the real world, also good for teaching coding such as teleporting around, building houses etc

Sensor based webcam smsing images

As above having an idea of what you want to do helps, loads of free resources out there

The plan for Christmas is a rabbitcam and weather station, probably add some counters logging movement in the hutch and run

Dmorts in line Sonos CD player? Tell me more I have a pi doing nothing and need to justify keeping my cd’s!

I’ve used some at work hooked up via some USB relay boards to some remote controls to simulate button presses and hence find bugs in the various layers of remote control handling (a lot more than I expected).

You could do the same with a PC, but then you’d need an entire PC, and the desk space, cabling, and power starts getting annoying.

Nothing exotic. Got a Pi3 used for Kodi, running under OSMC. Also has MPD installed on it purely for music playing as I like the way it works once set up for ease of use from desktop PC. Music played via MPD goes through a HiFiBerry DAC+ plugged on top of the Pi with phono leads to hifi for better sound quality than the headphone jack on the Pi. Audio played via KODI just goes through HDMI to the TV. Soldered a IR receiver to the HiFiBerry so can use an old freeview remote for controlling Kodi (though s/w seems slightly misconfigured and refuses to work every-so-often).

Got another Pi2 I intended to use as a sort of gateway to my LAN, running OpenVPN on it, but we’re on such a basic broadband package that even downloading a hi-res JPEG or CD quality MP3 from the NAS via Samba rekindles nostalgia for the days of dialup – so practically unusable. Sometimes SSH into it from work if I’m bored and inspect the uptime on the NAS or look at running processes.

Dmorts in line Sonos CD player? Tell me more I have a pi doing nothing and need to justify keeping my cd’s!

I’m using a Pi3 (although I think other Pis would be ok). Pi3 is good because it has built in WiFi. I then attached a USB soundcard, one of these Behringer UCA202. There are some fakes of these about on eBay for less than £20. The fakes work, but the real thing is only £25 and better quality.
I tried to get a cheap USB card with an Optical In, but couldn’t find one. The CD player is connected to the line in of the soundcard.

To setup the Pi, I used this guide Live mp3 streaming from audio-in with DarkIce and Icecast2 on Raspberry Pi. You’ll need to give the Pi a static IP address too.

Then configure Sonos to pick the stream from the Pi. Add a radio station and put in the URL of your Pi.

Need to find a use for the original Pi in my box of bits. Proper original, from before the time when they managed to squeeze in some mounting holes.

256MB RAM? Basically a Pi A deluxe…

Do I need a degree in Electronics to build anything “worthwhile” with one of these?

Pi 3 has been on the wanted list for a while and happy to buy the starter kit and some other gubbins, but want 6yr old monkey jnr and I to get something out of it

256MB RAM? Basically a Pi A deluxe…

Model B 256 iirc. From the first batch after the original Pi purchasers DDoSed RS and Farnell.

Big Trak and Raspberry Pi!

😀

Model B 256 iirc. From the first batch after the original Pi purchasers DDoSed RS and Farnell.

Yeah same. Have a lovely case for it and everything, my 3 year old has been eyeing it up for a while.

Interesting reading this thread, I’ve got a Pi sat in a box in the loft that used to be a samba server, now replaced by a ITX based PC.

However my wife does regularly talk about internet radios and I’ve found this guide so I may give it a go when I get a minute…

Do I need a degree in Electronics to build anything “worthwhile” with one of these?

No. You can get add on boards (“hats”) to do a fair amount, which just involves plugging things together, being prepared to read some instructions, and common sense.

If you get into using relays to control mains voltages then you need to a bit more careful.

So if Santa was to leave one on Christmas day what would we need to start with?

For Pi3..
Keyboard, PSU, HDMI Cable & TV, MicroSD Card

Think of a project you want to do and buy the stuff you need, like a breadboard, wires, etc. I’m gonna plug MagPi again.

Interesting reading this thread, I’ve got a Pi sat in a box in the loft that used to be a samba server, now replaced by a ITX based PC.

Same here, started by having a Pi file server, LMS, DLNA, replaced with a HP Microserver for not a lot more money and now runs everything seamlessly.

Yeah – I was part of that DDOS!

+1 – there’s also a lot of information out there on how to do things, and it’s not really that hard if you have basic skills at putting things together and computing.

If you get into using relays to control mains voltages then you need to a bit more careful.

I do have a degree in “electronics” and I’m still kind of nervous about that with my CH controller – I’d not recommend it unless you really do know what you’re doing!

Yeah – I was part of that DDOS!

me too, but they sold out before I could get a page to load.
nearly needed a new F5 key.

Big Trak and Raspberry Pi!

Bah, that’s one of the reissued ones. Mine’s an original.

aracer – Member

I do have a degree in “electronics” and I’m still kind of nervous about that with my CH controller – I’d not recommend it unless you really do know what you’re doing!

Yes, I’ve been wary of touching my central heating partly out of idleness and partly out of a fear of having the hot water tank spray superheated steam throughout the house! I’d be quite interested in what you did though.

Been curious about having a play with one to control our heating.

Living in France, where central heating is pretty rare and electric radiators are still the most common kind of heating, we heat our house with a wood stove upstairs and electric radiators in the bedrooms downstairs.

The radiators are a pain in the ar$e – efficient enough, but the controller UI is rubbish and each radiator is individually controlled. Every time there is any kind of power cut (which is about once a week in the Alps – storms in summer or snow on the cables in winter), all of the individual controllers / timers get factory re-set and you have to go around and sort them all out individually.

You can actually buy a wifi control kit for our radiators, but I’m not at all convinced that it does what I want, which is to be able to turn on/off each room individually at different times (main bedroom, office, spare room) and it’s pretty expensive too. So I thought about making my own with a Pi or similar.

It should be possible to either use the exisiting radiator built-in thermostats and relays and just control them wirelessly or to add your own, right?

Yes, it should be possible to do what you suggest – just depends how much hassle you want. The thermostat is presumably just a switch and you should be able to control the relay almost straight from the RPi.

Are you thinking about having a RPi on each radiator, or putting wiring in to a central point? The latter would clearly involve putting in the wiring, though otherwise be simpler. If you want to do it wirelessly then http://abyz.co.uk/rpi/pigpio/index.html enables very simple central control of GPIO on multiple RPis over Wifi – it seems overkill to use a RPi as the slave for this, but it’s a lot quicker and easier to set up using that than it would be with an arduino.

I used that with my Skull last night – had a separate RPi attached to a motor with a bat on a string. From a software POV it was incredibly easy to add control of the slave RPi into existing code.

Putting in wiring isn’t practical, so I was thinking of having some kind of wifi-controlled slave switch on each rad with a Pi or similar as a central control unit.

Thinking about it, 2-way comms would be essential I guess as I’d have to feed the temperature data back to the pi, then send back an on/off signal based on temp and time of day.

Might actually be easier with separate, off the shelf temperature sensors in each room, pick up those signals with a pi, send a simple on/off to each rad.

In which case you need something which can connect to WiFi in each room – as I suggest you could use a RPi, though I presume an Arduino would also be possible and cheaper (not something I’ve done)? I the “thermostat” providing an analogue signal rather than just a switch then? If so you’d need an analogue add on module for a RPi, whilst an Arduino can do that as standard. If you’re using a separate temperature sensor then you can get ones which plug straight in.

Certainly feasible, just depends how much you’re happy to spend (given you’re going to need smart stuff in each room if doing it via WiFi) and what your software skills are like.

…back to working on the CH controller here now Halloween is out of the way!

Check out the esp8266 module which is little programmable widget with wifi. Could put one in every room without much bother

How about creating an alexa. (Amazon Echo)

https://github.com/alexa/alexa-avs-sample-app

Simple Pi Controlled Electric Heaters
^^ This might work, if you can bypass the radiator controllers.

I’d be interested to know what software & hardware people are using for their Pi temperature controllers/readers.