Raspberry Pi Development System

Raspberry Pi Development System

A newer version is at the system is at the end of this page.

Shortly after getting my first Raspberry Pi, I put together a dedicated prototyping system.

It consisted of some scrap wood and other parts I had in the shop. I purchased a small 8” VGA monitor on one of my trips to China and this is what I came up with.

This is without the monitor mounted

This has the monitor and a TNC board in the Pi

It was functional. I used it to develop and test what I call the Chicken Pi. I raspberry pi controlled chicken coop.

It operates a linear actuator to open and close the door as well as turn on and off the LED lights inside. There’s a light sensor attached and magnet switches to let me know the position of the door. The state of the light, LEDS, door, etc are recorded every 15 minutes to a log file which gets copied to my NAS. Later I added code to gather my solar panel generation. And when I get to it, I’ll link up my weather station to it.

Version 2

After getting the Raspberry Pi 3, I decided it was time to come up with version 2 of the Pi development system.

The inspiration for the design came from an ad in an old issue of Byte magazine, the Sol Terminal Computer.

(credit to www.oldcomputers.net and www.sol20.org)

Here is version 2 of my Raspberry Pi development system.

various pictures during construction

I printed the rear panels on my 3D printer. I bring out 2 USB, Ethernet, HDMI. The RCA connections are for video, left & right audio., Then the 12V in and a power switch.

I also 3D printed jig to align the blocks for the monitor mount. It’s also used as a drill jig to position the holes.

Here’s the Pi and the power board. I’ve made the system to be powered from 12V. The large black rectangle converts 12V to 5V. The other modulae is a DC-DC step down convertor to go from 5V to 3.3V.

Various pictures of the finished system. The monitor is supported by aluminum angle stock. The monitor has a 75mmx75mm hole pattern and uses 3mm screws.

The keyboard panel removes for storage underneath.

Here it is in use. I’ve connected an Adafruit 7 segmant LED backpack display, RTC, light lux sensor, OLED display, and an Adafruit 10 DOF sensor.