Your Raspberry Pi Projects

guys check out http://robotics.org.za/ - bought a couple of Stepper motors from them - they have almost every Shield i have ever heard of. (no i don't work for them) - but it sure is nice to be able ask for a shield or a driver and not have the sales person look at you strangely.
 
RobZ said:
guys check out http://robotics.org.za/ - bought a couple of Stepper motors from them - they have almost every Shield i have ever heard of. (no i don't work for them) - but it sure is nice to be able ask for a shield or a driver and not have the sales person look at you strangely.
Click to expand...

Crazy prices unfortunately.
 
bdt said:
When the electronics specialist is beaten by an upstart, which would you choose? Update: It seems RS just pips Pi Factory ..happy hunting.
Click to expand...

Just a heads up, I have two raspberry pis. The one from Electrocomp is "Made in UK" and the other is RS Electronics which is "Made in China". One big difference between the two is the audio output jack which has crackles and pops when used as a music player. Everything else is equal, exactly the same power supply, SD card, audio cable etc. YMMV.
 
krieg said:
I use mine with with a webcam to make a stealth surveillance system. Caught housemate on camera going through my stuff. Tried it as a media server before that. Also makes a good internet browser for older people that they can just plug into a TV.
Click to expand...

So you didn't use the RPi foundation CSI camera board?

I want to be able to stream and record 720p video at 25fps with the Foundation Camera Board.
I tried using "motion" for motion activating the camera with the MMAL API as per raspberry pi.org forum.

It works, except that there is a very big lag while watching the stream from another computer.
Anyone had some success with this?
 
I have the original Model B 256MB Raspberry Pi which my brother gave me. Back then it only cost about R350. Did they ever release a Model A? Seems like a pretty useless device without a LAN port.

Anyway, I'm waiting for my 8GB memory card and then I plan to turn it into a "RetroPi". Has anyone else triedthis? If yes, how well does it work, and does the memory card's write speed matter for this type of thing, or is read speed the most important?
 
I started off with a simple XMBC install on top of Wheezy. I augmented it with a little IR receiver circuit so I can control it with my DSTV remote. It also acts as a NAS although read speeds aren't great and write speeds are terrible. Next I set it up with TightVNC tunneled through SSH so I can access it while I'm at varsity and set torrents going remotely. My next project is to get a couple of emulators running,connect it to a small LCD and integrate a few arcade controls all mounted in a neat case. I will need time for that one though. The ultimate goal is to write a little Python program that controls all the emulators so the end user sees only a list of games on startup. We'll see how that goes.
 
Hi everyone, great to see the raspberry pi being used in South Africa. I hope it can make a big impact and I would love to see it used more in schools.

I've noticed a few people listing different places to get the raspberry pi and the best place in South Africa I've found from my research is RS Components South African office - they offer the lowest price, lots of stock and most of the latest components such as the infrared camera module.

You can actually get the Pi for around the same price as in the UK and they offer bundles. Here is the link - raspberry pi at RS components

And no, I don't work for them but I am a South African who worked part time for Raspberry Pi in the UK so I've checked out all the options.
 
I ordered mine from RS za but I feel like that link took me to their international site and I assume that it was shipped from the UK. I chose regular mail and it never arrived so they happily sent me a couriered pi. Needless to say the couriered one didn't have import duties but I think that had the standard mail one arrived I would have had to pay.
 
Pseudonym said:
I ordered mine from RS za but I feel like that link took me to their international site and I assume that it was shipped from the UK. I chose regular mail and it never arrived so they happily sent me a couriered pi. Needless to say the couriered one didn't have import duties but I think that had the standard mail one arrived I would have had to pay.
Click to expand...

You're lucky, mine never arrived. Got a refund via paypal after they kept ignoring my mails.
 
Pseudonym said:
My next project is to get a couple of emulators running,connect it to a small LCD and integrate a few arcade controls all mounted in a neat case. I will need time for that one though. The ultimate goal is to write a little Python program that controls all the emulators so the end user sees only a list of games on startup. We'll see how that goes.
Click to expand...

Check out the RetroPie Project. It's basically a start to what you want to achieve. I have my Raspberry set up to work with 2x USB Gamepads only. I have Atari2600, Gameboy, Gameboy Color, Genesis, Nes and SNES games working perfectly. I haven't messed with MAME yet, but apparently the performance is not brilliant.
 
xrapidx said:
You're lucky, mine never arrived. Got a refund via paypal after they kept ignoring my mails.
Click to expand...

It used to be that RS shipped from the UK but now they fulfil orders from the SA store. xrapidx, that is good to know - did you order from the South African store? I've heard bad stories getting stuff delivered from the UK.

Pseudonym, like I said it used to be that it took you to the UK link but these days it should go to the South African store. From what I understand there shouldn't be any import duties no matter how it arrives as it is coming from South Africa. Even in the case where it comes from the UK I don't South Africa have a tarriff on the Pi.
 
GSchwikk said:
It used to be that RS shipped from the UK but now they fulfil orders from the SA store. xrapidx, that is good to know - did you order from the South African store? I've heard bad stories getting stuff delivered from the UK.

Pseudonym, like I said it used to be that it took you to the UK link but these days it should go to the South African store. From what I understand there shouldn't be any import duties no matter how it arrives as it is coming from South Africa. Even in the case where it comes from the UK I don't South Africa have a tarriff on the Pi.
Click to expand...

Well that's good news, I may buy quite a few in the future so it's good to know of a reputable, cheap local place to buy from.
 
I ordered from RS in the UK a few months back... and I only received the Pi's after 14 weeks. I was given a tip from an RSA RS phone support guy that if you click 'personal use' your PI will be shipped from UK and if you select 'Business use' then it will get send from SA.

ONLY AFTER ordering do they tell you it will take 10 or 11 weeks. Mine didn't arrive so they sent one via courier.

I had a seperate order from PiFactory which came in 2 or 3 days. I would highly recommend PiFactory. Good service, paying in rands and stock is kept locally. Also supporting a smaller player

pifactory.co.za
 
Please stop derailing the bloody thread with advertising and moaning about delay in shipping times!

EDIT: Requested a deletion of the posts in question.
 
Last edited:
SpoonTech said:
I ordered from RS in the UK a few months back... and I only received the Pi's after 14 weeks. I was given a tip from an RSA RS phone support guy that if you click 'personal use' your PI will be shipped from UK and if you select 'Business use' then it will get send from SA.

ONLY AFTER ordering do they tell you it will take 10 or 11 weeks. Mine didn't arrive so they sent one via courier.

I had a seperate order from PiFactory which came in 2 or 3 days. I would highly recommend PiFactory. Good service, paying in rands and stock is kept locally. Also supporting a smaller player

pifactory.co.za
Click to expand...


Thanks for the feedback SpoonTech, I'll pass it on.

My apologies for the derailment Bar0n. Coming back to raspberry pi projects, has anyone tried making a security system from it and the camera board? It seemed like a cheap and good application for South Africa.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X