Bygonebytes

Introduction

When the Raspberry Pi became available for pre-order I couldn't resist putting my name on the waiting list. When it arrived I unpacked it and installed the operating system then I ran out of enthusiasm, I didn't know what to do with it! So it lay around for a few years, then in a quiet, contemplative moment I thought that I should get to know the Python programming language. I started with a piece of test kit useful for testing computer systems for work (TDM and TD Emulators) then I went on from there.

My Projects

Thermometer with switched 5V outputs *NEW*

TDM Emulator

8 Bit TDM System

Quiz Control Panel *UPDATED*

8/16 Input Event Logger

Sequencer for Maplin 3800 Synthesiser

Drum Trigger for E&MM Syntom/Synbal


Other uses I put the Pi to:

  • Media Centre, LibreElec.
  • NAS Drive(s), First I shared a drive using Raspbian, and now with Open Media Vault (OMV).
  • SETI & Einstien@Home, comprised of three Pi 2B's, two B+'s, two 3B's, one Pi Zero, one pi Zero W and four Odroid C1+ - effectively 40 processors.
    • Note: The Pi 3B's overheat and crash when running SETI so I bought Flirc cases to act as a heatsink - this worked fairly well but I had to replace the supplied heat pad with a lump of aluminium and heatsink compound to improve the heat transfer. Works a treat now!..until the hot summer days, hence the thermometer project.

  • Pi-Top laptop
  • and a Desk Top which I have updated so it boots from a USB 160GB HD. This had it own set of issues, following the instructions on the raspberrypi.org web site it would not boot from the Hard Drive but worked without problem from a USB memory stick. I found that the power/startup time of the HD was to long so the simple solution was to power the drive before the Pi and hey presto it works a treat! The Hard Drive was an old one I had recovered from a laptop upgrade some years ago and put in a USB caddy, formated it exFAT and copied the Raspbian image to it with Etcher.
My Raspberry Pi's


Raspberry Pi B v1 used for TDM Emulator, Quiz Panel, now Retired. Raspberry Pi B v2 used for NAS Backup Drive, now retired).


Raspberry Pi B+ 512 used for Event Logger, now Einstien@Home


Raspberry Pi 2B used for TDM's, now SETI@Home and Sequencers


Raspberry Pi 3 used for Media Centre, NAS Backup, Pi-Top and PVR


Raspberry Pi Zero 1.3


Raspberry Pi Zero W