Melbourne Raspberry Jam meet-up: This Saturday at 1:30 pm

[Andy Gelme]

hi All,

If you own, are waiting for, or interested in Raspberry Pi ... the first
Melbourne Raspberry Jam will be held this Saturday at 1:30 pm at the
CCHS ...

http://www.meetup.com/Melbourne-Raspberry-Jam # Please R.S.V.P, if
you are coming

Alec Clews who is very interested in the educational aspect of the
Raspberry Pi will be leading the session. Thanks Alec !

This will become a monthly meet-up on the first Saturday of each month.
There will also be a complementary Raspberry Jam meeting held during the
third week of each month (in the evening) at RMIT. The CCHS meetings
will have a hardware focus and the RMIT meeting will be a more typical
user group style meeting (I presume) ... but, really attendees will just
do whatever they want !

The initial agenda will include ...

- Introduction
- Setting up the system disk (SD card)
- Using PyGame for development
- Adding a serial console and interfacing with an Arduino
- 3D printed cases

Hope to see you there.

- - - - - - - - - - -

If any CCHS member with a 3D printer (or using the CCHS 3D printers)
would like to print some cases this week (before Saturday), that would
be excellent. The intention is to charge a modest amount as a mini-fund
raiser for the CCHS.

This case seems to work okay ... http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:24945
It takes around 1 hour to print the base and 45 minutes to print the top.

Please make sure that none of your 3D printer axis are flipped ...
otherwise the case won't be useful.

We discovered last Saturday morning that the CCHS FrankenCake (nee
CupCake) has it's Y-axis flipped :(
Dave: You are no longer alone !

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[Richie Cyngler]

Cool case =) I am interested in the RPi group but I'm not sure I can make it this weekend.

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[Luke Weston]

In preparation for the delivery of my Pi (and in preparation for these meetings I guess), here's a question.

When choosing an SD card for use with the Pi, are there any traps or special factors I should be aware of?

4 Gb is the usual SD size that people normally use with the typical RPi OS images, right?

If I just walk into Officeworks or something and grab the first available SD card off the shelf is that likely to work fine?

Cheers,

  Luke

[Andy Gelme]

hi Luke,

On 2012-07-30 15:01 , Luke Weston wrote:
> 4 Gb is the usual SD size that people normally use with the typical
> RPi OS images, right ?

Yes.

I just checked my original Debian 6 "squeeze" installation. It would
appear that there is a (roughly) 1.6 Gb Linux root partition ... and
there is 290 Mb free space on that partition. Looking at the partition
table, I should be able to format the unused SD card space (another 2
Gb) and also use that as well.

You can easily "grow" the existing partition size as well.

> If I just walk into Officeworks or something and grab the first
> available SD card off the shelf is that likely to work fine ?

Off the shelf SD cards will probably be "class 4" and that's a little
slow, but does work.

You should aim for at least "class 6".

I use SanDisk 4 Gb cards without any problems.

If you use a higher end "class 10" (nice and fast), then it sounds like
you need to be more careful in your choices (Google for appropriate help
here).

I have a Lexar 16 Gb class 10, which works just fine. But, it can be up
to 4 times more expensive than a 4 Gb class 4 card.

[Richie Cyngler]

I didn't know about SD card classes. By chance I'm running a Class 10 LX series, 8 Gb. It still runs the OS pretty slowly.

My only recommendation is don't go smaller than 4Gb. The first test run of mine all we had was a couple of 2Gb cards after we struggled through formatting issues we just managed to get a working  OS onto one.

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[Robert Powers]

I know that 3d-printing is super-cool, but any one interested in milled or laser cut cases for the RPi?

Looks like there are a few made in this vein already (several here: http://elinux.org/RPi_Cases). CNC'ing the RaspBox or similar should be pretty easy and in a wider variety of materials than 3d printing allows... and unless I've missed something, the laser cutter still is out of commission, but if there was any hint it might be working soon, it would be a neat thing to start lining up - the Bramble boxes look very cool!

I will soon be away overseas for about a month, but I'll probably be along Saturday morning and next Tuesday evening (probably not tonight or Saturday night though :( ) if anyone wants to chat about it. Haven't got around to obtaining one myself, so I'd look forward to just helping someone else along - not that I really know what I'm doing, but two heads are better than one, right?

Cheers,

Bob

[Michael Borthwick]

Over a month ago I responded to the "special invitation" from RS to
order a Raspberry Pi with my "unique activation code".
After payment I was advised of a 10 week delay before despatch. I've
heard nothing since.
At Barcamp last weekend I met someone with a Pi in their hand they
claimed to have ordered from Farnell only a week ago.
Are RS and Farnell accessing the same production pool or have they
made their own respective arrangements to manufacturer the devices
under licence ?

[Alec Clews]

AFAIK they are accessing the same production pool -- currently at 4K units a day

[Andy Gelme]

hi Bob,

On 2012-07-31 09:06 , Robert Powers wrote:
> Looks like there are a few made in this vein already (several
> here: http://elinux.org/RPi_Cases). CNC'ing the RaspBox or similar
> should be pretty easy and in a wider variety of materials than 3d
> printing allows... and unless I've missed something, the laser cutter
> still is out of commission, but if there was any hint it might be
> working soon, it would be a neat thing to start lining up - the
> Bramble boxes look very cool!

If you'd like to lead the charge to mill some RaspBoxes ... that would
be excellent.

Getting the CNC mill doing some simple and useful tasks is a big step
forward, especially if those skills are being propagated throughout the
space.

[David Lyon]

btw, I just noticed a nice laser-cut perspex case on this page:

 - http://hackaday.com/2012/07/28/reading-analog-sensors-with-the-raspberry-pi/

[David Lyon]

I don't have a Pi yet, it's on my buy list, but I do have a mini2440 which
has a comparable ARM processor. Maybe slower. Anyway.

While I had too much time on my hands I made up a development
system to hold daughterboards more easily. It's shown in the pictures.

If anybody wants to cut it from perspex too, the files are here:

 - https://bitbucket.org/djlyon/hackerpads/src

Sorry in advance for the lack of documentation. The Files are
in the CADFiles directory.

The design inspiration, btw, is to create a development system where
daughterboards can be interchanged - rather than being thrown away -
between projects. If anybody wants to help out, I'd appreciate it.

I'm sure this would work extremely well with Rasberry-Pi as well.

[Michael Borthwick]

On 30/07/2012, at 3:09 PM, Alec Clews wrote:

> 4G or above is good (2Gb is a little toooo cramped).
>
> The wiki reports issues with class 10, but Andy has tested with that
> successfully. Class 6 might be a good choice?

I went to several camera shops in Elizabeth Street today.
Most shops only have the faster series which as Alec mentions seem
more problematic.

However Michaels have 4GB Class 4:

Sandisk $21.95 (might be OK but there are several models)
Lexar $14.95 (wiki reports working but might be a small sample size)
Sony $14.95 (no problem reports)


At Officeworks tonight in Prahran they had the smaller slow Sandisk
cards for about $8.00

I don't have a Pi yet but am hoping to get some help to get one or
more SD cards imaged on Saturday so I am ready to go if mine ever
arrives.
I will also be buying some video cables so if anyone needs anything
picked up tomorrow for Saturday let me know.

Of course you all saw the Raspberry Pi on the front page of todays Age.

Cheers,

Mike

[Peter Rogers]

Fyi,
With regards to the class 10 cards.
From what i have read the following is what i think the current status
is.(please double check yourself)

I believe there was an issue with the boot firmware that was originally used
which caused problems with faster cards.
But it has since been fixed and any newer images should use the newer boot
firmware so it should fix alot of the faster cards.
Hence if you look alot more class 10 cards are being added to the working
list.

Also if you want to try something and your near the city you might want to
try and get to MSY in north Melbourne or scorptec in south Melbourne. They
both should have a pretty good range of brands, speeds and sizes at decent
prices.

Also please be aware of a write issue when writing to the fat partition on
at least the raspian image.
If your editing the config.txt file from the pi then you might find the file
being corrupt after a reboot. Don't confuse this with a non compatible sd
card.

I hope that helps at least a little.

Peter

[Peter Rogers]

It will be good to see how many pi’s are around atm, and what people are doing with them.

 

I have currently printed 2 of the cases mentioned earlier , 1 is a bit rough and 1 im pretty happy with.

And im currently printing a different case to see how it goes.

So it looks like ill have at least one spare for someone who needs at least some protection. hopefully more.

 

Hopefully i will be there for an hour or 2 with my boy.

 

Hope to see you all Saturday.

 

Peter

 

From: connected-commu...@googlegroups.com [mailto:connected-commu...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of David Lyon

Sent: Tuesday, 31 July 2012 9:49 AM
To: connected-commu...@googlegroups.com

--

[John Spencer]

I picked up two SD cards today.

They are 4gb Verbatim Class 4. $9.99 at Woolworths (stationary aisle).

They're not on either the working or not working lists at
http://elinux.org/RPi_VerifiedPeripherals#SD_cards but I can confirm
mine seems ok. (booted, no errors.)

Unfortunately, I won't make it this weekend, but I hope everyone has a
great time :)

John S

[Peter Rogers]

With regards to tomorrows meet,

 

Does anyone have any hdmi to dvi cables or hdmi – dvi adaptors spare?

 

I think i will have a couple of extra monitors with me but i don’t have spare cables.

[Alec Clews]

I have one

[Rob B]

On weekend special @ Rockby
http://www.rockby.com.au/Rockby/Mailer/MADNE224_3.htm

[Michael Borthwick]

On 03/08/2012, at 6:51 PM, Peter Rogers wrote:

> With regards to tomorrows meet,
>
> Does anyone have any hdmi to dvi cables or hdmi – dvi adaptors spare?
>
> I think i will have a couple of extra monitors with me but i don’t
> have spare cables.

Thanks for bringing those along Peter. They made a big difference to
what attendees were able to accomplish.
Thanks to everyone who shared their equipment and knowledge - it was a
great Saturday afternoon.

[Alec Clews]

I left my DVI/HDMI converter at CCHS -- if anyone sees finds it could the please put it to one side. It has a very distinctive moulded plastic design.

[Stuart Young]

Will be there tomorrow, so will check for you.

--
Cef

[Alec Clews]

I just found it in the deep inner recesses of my bag so all good. I suspect there is worm hole between there and Kent Lane :-)

Thanks

[Stuart Young]

Heh. Peter did the same thing with SD cards. Thought he left them at the space, then they miraculously appeared at his house.

--
Cef

[Peter Rogers]

Lol, yep, they were in the front pocket ofd my bag where i normally don’t put anything.

 

So im going with the black hole theory.

 

Also. Ill have to pick up those screen and take them home, but im working on some to stay at the space. Should make it easier than carting screen there every time.

 

 

 

From: connected-commu...@googlegroups.com [mailto:connected-commu...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Stuart Young
Sent: Sunday, 5 August 2012 4:01 PM
To: connected-commu...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [CCHS] Re: Melbourne Raspberry Jam meet-up: This Saturday at 1:30 pm

 

Heh. Peter did the same thing with SD cards. Thought he left them at the space, then they miraculously appeared at his house.

[David Payne]

A few years ago the best prices I would see for SD cards was USUALLY
at Strathfield stores, I don't know about now because I rarely get to
one now.

I saw SD cards at 2 shops at Watergardens shopping centre last night.
(Chain store specials aren't always at every branch)

The Northern most Woolworths had "Essential" (a home brand?) Class 6
4G SDs for $5.99.
Harvey Norman had Sandisk Class 4 4G for $9,
Verbatim Class 10 4G $11.95, 8G $19.99, 16G $39.99 & 32G $64.96 .
Also some others I didn't have time to type down inc. Lexar 400x 64G
for I think $279. If I spent that much on a card for a Pi I'd think
of the Pi as an accessory for the card!
(I haven't checked the wiki list because I thought 1 of these might
suit a reader for other purposes even if not a good Pi filling).

On Aug 2, 8:59 pm, John Spencer <john.spencer.9...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I picked up two SD cards today.
>
> They are 4gb Verbatim Class 4. $9.99 at Woolworths (stationary aisle).
>

> They're not on either the working or not working lists athttp://elinux.org/RPi_VerifiedPeripherals#SD_cardsbut I can confirm

> mine seems ok. (booted, no errors.)
>

SNIP

> >> 4G or above is good (2Gb is a little toooo cramped).
>
> >> The wiki reports issues with class 10, but Andy has tested with that
> >> successfully. Class 6 might be a good choice?
>
> > I went to several camera shops in Elizabeth Street today.
> > Most shops only have the faster series which as Alec mentions seem
> > more problematic.
>
> > However Michaels have 4GB Class 4:
>
> > Sandisk $21.95 (might be OK but there are several models)
> > Lexar $14.95 (wiki reports working but might be a small sample size)
> > Sony $14.95 (no problem reports)
>
> > At Officeworks tonight in Prahran they had the smaller slow Sandisk
> > cards for about $8.00

SNIP

> > Of course you all saw the Raspberry Pi on the front page of todays Age.

No. Are they only giving them to subscribers or can anyone get one
free with the paper?

[Kris Gesling]

Hey just a heads up, there are a pile of sandisk 16GB microSDHC class 4 cards on sale at the JB HiFi in Elizabeth St at the moment for $20 which I successfully booted my first pi from today.

Cheers

Kris