Non vape related bargain I had to share

[Skwoddy]

For the money Simon, have a pop at the Raspberry Pi, youll be amazed, 1channel, Icefilms etc, let me know if you need any help, ill call you perhaps.

[Deleted]

Apr 25, 2013 15:15:20 GMT Skwoddy said:

For the money Simon, have a pop at the Raspberry Pi, youll be amazed, 1channel, Icefilms etc, let me know if you need any help, ill call you perhaps.

I looked into those before they were released but I couldn't get excited about it. Thanks for the offer though

[Skwoddy]

yep

[canford]

Just go on the XBMC site its available for virtually every device out there and its a free download, a wired network connection will always be the best choice though.

[fred]

Can't fault the Raspi for the money.

I've got 3 so far.

• 1st one 'runs' my chook-house. Opens/Closes the pophole door, having determined when sunrise/sunset is. Turns fans on/off depending on temp & humidity. Webcam. Lights. Sends me email to say it's done stuff....
• 2nd one is my Mythtv master-backend, running the database & media storage. Wakes slave-backend (3x DVB-T, 1x DVB-S) up to record and run user jobs.
• 3rd one is XBMC frontend, powered by TV USB - controlled via CEC

Each uses about 3W without peripherals, so next to nowt. Both myth raspis are overclocked nicely. 

Need another for the TV in the bedroom, and not sure whether to try and get smoothwall running on one.

(Forgot to say @simate, they now hardware decode MPEG2, in case that's what put you off before)

[Deleted]

fred I love the sound of the chicken house one, sounds bloody brilliant! Did you have to write the software yourself or was it freely available.

What put me off Fred was the faff setting one up and underpowered hardware. I would have used one for XBMC but I read they struggled with 1080p material, maybe things have improved since then.

[fred]

All home grown software - perl, python, php, c, c++, bash scripting, think that's it!
Wired all the electronics myself.
Not taken the step of putting a solar panel on the roof with a car battery.... yet!

Got fed up of getting up in the summer at stupid o'clock to let them out, so it started life as a cheap door opener (a bog-standard retail one, with a manual time clock retails at about £70). Mine scrapes the BBC website for sunrise/sunset and adjusts accordingly, then runs a stepper motor to open/close the door.
Then I realised I could also run some 5/12V fans along with temp and humidity sensors on the GPIO to keep it dry in there and cool in the summer.
And throw in a webcam for good measure.
It's an organic project (like everything), that keeps getting bits added or changed - like when the door started sticking, and I freed it up, I had to alter the speed and power of the stepper motor, or when one of the ds18b20 sensors started acting up, the replacement was calibrated slightly differently, so code needed to be changed.

As for XBMC and 1080p, I've only got a 720p TV, so no probs for me. I LOVE not having to use a phone or keyboard or a different remote (that works intermittently) to control the XBMC frontend - OK, CEC is lacking a lot of the functions of a dedicated remote, but the WAF is great - she just wants to browse & play & pause.

[Deleted]

All that's way over my head fred

Clever stuff but I wouldn't know where to start with the programming side of things. I love gadgets but not enough to do all that lol.

I wouldn't rely on the BBC's weather reports, its always different to the Met Office's weather forecast which is generally spot on here and as far as I know the BBC get their data from there so why its so different I don't know.