Ask HN: What have you built with your raspberry pi?

samjc · 2014-04-23T14:57:56.000Z

I just got mine and need some inspiration. Low budget preferred.

ckvamme 12 years ago |

I built a media console.

Great source of inspiration here-

http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewforum.php?f=15

samjc 12 years ago | |

This is a great link, thank you! I found a project someone is working on that seems really interesting: "Music player server with a web-based user interface"

https://github.com/andrewrk/groovebasin

deckiedan 12 years ago |

I wrote a digital signage system, and had 5 of them around a campus for a youth congress/conference last summer.

http://www.streetsign.org.uk/

This year we're doing 7 screens, and I've got two other offices at our company wanting to use it.

I've also been using them a bit as test servers, instead of virtual machines (so no slowing my workstation down...).

I've also a couple of them (while they're not at conferences) as web displays, showing asana jobs for the team ( https://github.com/danthedeckie/asana-view ) here, in our team room.

I've just started helping to set up a friend's one as a time-vault/time-machine for his and his wife's mac.

determinant 12 years ago |

The Raspberry Pi blog has some good projects to inspire you. I skim it routinely even when I'm not building anything, just because the people who make stuff are pretty creative and interesting themselves.

stadeschuldt 12 years ago |

I monitor the temperature and humidity in my apartment. I used rrdtool for storing the data and HighCharts for generating the charts: http://pi.tafkas.net/temperatures

The process is described in my blog at http://blog.tafkas.net/2012/10/03/gathering-and-charting-tem...

Jemaclus 12 years ago |

Nothing yet. Still waiting for inspiration...

I have a few ideas that I'd kinda like to pursue:

* An LCD display that shows the local transit times, so I know when to head out to catch a bus/train * An LCD display that shows my weekly mileage (running) and other relevant stats, maybe for other people I follow, too * An LCD display that alerts me if it I missed a phone call or text.

I guess the first step is figuring out how to hook up an LCD to my Raspberry Pi... :)

canadaj 12 years ago |

A temperature sensor for BBQ smokers.

Simple thermocouple with an Adafruit breakout board (MAX31855), and an existing Python driver.

Also serves up a Nodejs static page that polls for a new temperature every 5 seconds.

I'm struggling to find the time to get this going, but it's working okay right now. https://github.com/CanadaJ/heat-of-my-meat-node

wil421 12 years ago | |

Came here to say this is what I have been wanting to build. I did some research a while back but I was trying to find a USB thermistor that would work with high temps. All I could find was devices that were probably meant for measure outside temp or ambient air temp.

canadaj 12 years ago | | |

I'm not sure what kind of BBQ you are into, but my dad and I do quite a few competitions every year, and the temperature inside the smoker itself is more valuable than the temperature of your meat. It's easier to consistently get your smoker temperature to what you want than attempting to cook your meat at specific temperatures, considering no piece of meat is alike another. Obviously we check the internal temp to make sure it's safe, but it's easier to keep the smoker at 250f for 4 hours than to make sure your internal temperature stays at whatever degree for 4 hours.

I would absolutely recommend any type of K-type thermocouple, because they can handle the heat that the BBQ will spit out. In fact, the one I used for testing and initial development was directly from Adafruit[0]. It works well, it's just a little flimsy. It's not USB, however.

[0] http://www.adafruit.com/products/269

wil421 12 years ago | | |

Right, I would be wanting two temps, meat and temp at the grate. Also it would have a fan to control the BBQ temp like the BBQ Gurus or Pitmaster IQ (the one I use currently).

I dont do comps but I do a lot of backyard smokes, I would like to do some amateur comps once I get better.

canadaj 12 years ago | | |

Awesome, I wasn't looking for something so full featured. I just want to be able to check the temperature without having to get up :)

If you're from the Pacific Northwest, get into the PNWBA quickly. Lots of great people and so welcoming to amateurs.

thoughtpalette 12 years ago |

Set up RetroPi on it, ordered some SNES USB controllers for like $7 each.

https://github.com/petrockblog/RetroPie-Setup

I realized all the games are a lot harder than they felt when I was a child. Can't get past the second person on Mortal Kombat 3... but Super Mario World is a lot of fun.

fnordfnordfnord 12 years ago |

A retro arcade for my kid. There are hundreds of examples.

FM Stereo transmitter (I needed a signal to test my rtl2832 SDR indoors).

Home automation. This is the only project that has any 'unique' work, the others were just "follow the examples".

I'm converting a mobility scooter into a semi-autonomous robot but, nothing impressive to report yet.

sprobertson 12 years ago |

My drunk friend kicked in my front door so I took the opportunity to replace the busted strike with an electric strike. A Raspberry Pi controls the relay to switch it open, accessed via a simple Node.js app or text message (with Twilio posting a webhook to said app).

nivertech 12 years ago |

Building Wireless Sensor Networks with MQTT-S, RaspberryPi and Erlang

http://slideshare.net/nivertech/zvi-mqtts-foreuc2013

emacsnw 12 years ago |

- A security camera with motion sensor

- A semi-real time (with less than 10 seconds delay) pet monitoring system

trevorg16 12 years ago |

The only thing that i have done is use it as lightweight server with Nginx running on Arch.

deadfall 12 years ago |

-XBMC -Tor wifi router

Working on: -running electric sheep -portable pi