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Mobile Raspberry Pi Computer: Build Your Own Pi-to-Go

Posted by timothy on from the two-slices-of-cherry-and-a-pumpkin dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Everyone has seen Raspberry Pi Computer, the credit card sized mini PC circuit board that costs only $35. Now there is a new Mobile Raspberry Pi called Pi-to-Go, with a mini LCD, 10-hour battery, and 64GB SSD, all packed together in a 3D printed case. See if you are up to the task to build your own."

20 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. Batteries by NixieBunny · · Score: 4, Informative

    The author could have done some research on battery packs instead of hacking up a laptop pack as he did. There is a company called batteryspace.com that sells multi-cell Li-ion packs with a protection circuit built in. They're not cheap, but they are reasonably safe.

    --
    The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
    1. Re:Batteries by Nyder · · Score: 2

      The author could have done some research on battery packs instead of hacking up a laptop pack as he did. There is a company called batteryspace.com that sells multi-cell Li-ion packs with a protection circuit built in. They're not cheap, but they are reasonably safe.

      The author stated in the article that he worked for 10 years repairing Dell laptops, and that was why he choose a laptop battery.

      --
      Be seeing you...
    2. Re:Batteries by node+3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The author could have done some research on battery packs instead of hacking up a laptop pack as he did. There is a company called batteryspace.com that sells multi-cell Li-ion packs with a protection circuit built in. They're not cheap, but they are reasonably safe.

      As with anything, the person in question could have done many things differently. So what? The fact stands that this person actually did *something*, which is infinitely better than doing nothing other than telling him why he supposedly did something wrong.

      I'll take one not-quite-perfect nerd project like this that actually gets created over a million permutations that *might* be slightly better in one way or another but don't actually exist.

    3. Re:Batteries by LordKronos · · Score: 2

      Indeed. But how many of the readers have their own laptop repair shops? A general source of such batteries is a requirement to get this project in the hands of the average tinkerer.

      But that's exactly the point in picking something like this. You don't need your own repair shop. You're a million times more likely to find a cheap, generic dell-compatible laptop battery on ebay than you are to find any other sort of high capacity battery very cheap and widely available.

  2. Re:Nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think that the first person to post to a Slashdot story should be permanently banned. Yes, in order for us to have a conversation, one person will have to take a bullet for the good of the group, but we will sing songs of your heroic sacrifice forevermore.

  3. Nice hobby project by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    LCD Screen – $17.95
    Raspberry Pi – $35
    Mini Keyboard/Mouse – $29.95
    Standalone Battery Charger- $75.00
    Powered 7 Port USB Hub – $14.95
    64GB SSD Hard Drive – $129.95
    Dell D600 Battery – $88.50

    $391.30 (not including 3d printer and other tools).

    Nice hobby project if you have money to burn.

    1. Re:Nice hobby project by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Instead of spending $391 to make a kludge of shit, you could spend half that and get a netbook.

      I've tried to understand why people want a Raspberry Pi, but I just still don't get it, I guess.

    2. Re:Nice hobby project by Erikderzweite · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What are you folks doing at the "news for nerds" page anyway?

    3. Re:Nice hobby project by phizi0n · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Rasberry Pi has its uses but what this guy did is make an oversized underpowered portable computer when you could buy a good android phone (no contract) with better specs for half the cost.

    4. Re:Nice hobby project by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      New for nerds doesn't mean "anything, no matter how trite, expensive and useless as long as it uses a 3D printer".

    5. Re:Nice hobby project by robthebloke · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'm just here for the ladies.

    6. Re:Nice hobby project by oodaloop · · Score: 4, Insightful

      He built it himself for fun. This isn't for sale. It's not supposed to be better than what you can buy. It was a fun project, an experiment, an exercise, a lesson. Haven't you ever made anything yourself, if only for the sole purpose of the satisfaction you feel?

      --
      Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
    7. Re:Nice hobby project by MightyYar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Jesus, I'm old but not THAT old... I remember when you could buy a stereo kit and assemble it yourself. Sure, you could just go out and buy an assembled stereo - but what fun was that? How would you learn how a stereo works by buying one from a shelf? What is more interesting to other people: an off-the-shelf stereo, or something you assembled yourself? One thing makes you more interesting and less ignorant. The other just makes you a regular consumer.

      This seems to be in the same vein, only he actually designed parts of his own kit so it's actually cooler.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    8. Re:Nice hobby project by phizi0n · · Score: 2

      Pretty much the only thing he did was the 3d printed case, the rest was a bunch of shopping. Raspberry Pi is a $35 computer and he turned it into a $400 computer. I'm all for hobby projects but this one is far from interesting or impressive.

    9. Re:Nice hobby project by node+3 · · Score: 2

      Instead of spending $391 to make a kludge of shit, you could spend half that and get a netbook.

      Setting aside for the moment that netbooks themselves are kludges of shit...

      I've tried to understand why people want a Raspberry Pi, but I just still don't get it, I guess.

      For fun, why else?

    10. Re:Nice hobby project by Revotron · · Score: 2

      I'm just here for the "ladies".

      FTFY.

  4. Slashvertisements? by Yonder+Way · · Score: 3, Insightful

    With the frequency of RPi "articles" on /. one might wonder if there is some payola behind the positive press.

    But not a word is spoken about the ongoing supply chain issues, and resellers making candid statements about it not being worthwhile to try to carry them. Can we have a moratorium on articles that drive up RPi demand until the Foundation can get its supply caught up more with the demand you've already created?

    1. Re:Slashvertisements? by isorox · · Score: 5, Informative

      With the frequency of RPi "articles" on /. one might wonder if there is some payola behind the positive press.

      But not a word is spoken about the ongoing supply chain issues, and resellers making candid statements about it not being worthwhile to try to carry them. Can we have a moratorium on articles that drive up RPi demand until the Foundation can get its supply caught up more with the demand you've already created?

      I just bought 6, delivered next day. What supply problems?

  5. Not Just The Men - by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Consumer culture is poisonous to both genders. I'm glad to have lived in a family that still embraces concepts like independence and creativity - I knew my great grandparents, if briefly, and learned more about them over time. I learned about the habits they picked up from surviving the Great Depression in particular, about thriftiness and resourcefulness. (Unfortunately I think this is also where my family acquired its hoarding gene.) Women used to take pride in crafts and creating their own clothing in the same way men took pride in trades like woodworking or machining. The demise of the trades made these skills unprofitable to obtain, and the rise of mass production made them unnecessary. The subsequent loss of interest just seems natural in the course of things, but the casual acceptance of mediocrity, homogeneity, and quiet dissatisfaction with everything attacks our nature. We have everything but we feel as though we have nothing, that we lose more every day. I see it all around me, constantly.

    It isn't that we're becoming feminized or that we're losing our collective testosterone, but something bigger than that. We're losing our independence, our free will, even our desire to survive: basic underpinnings of sapience. You know, our humanity.

    At least there's an upside to all this automation: Robots are becoming so cheap and easy to use that almost any poor idiot with a rainy day fund can eventually get his hands on a CNC table, and eventually, a 3D printer. It's no substitute for real creativity or real skill, but tools are tools - they exist to expedite the creative process. I don't worry about those. What I worry about is the rise of the kind of people who have no want or use for them.

  6. Flatter form factor, please by aNonnyMouseCowered · · Score: 2

    The bulkiness of the PDA-like hackware makes me wonder why the RasPeople didn't design a sleeker board. I mean something as slim as an iPod touch or a Palm Pilot.

    It's not as if there are significant design issues with a flatter board. "Only" the I/O connectors appear to be needlessly sticking out. How much more would it cost to substitute tinier versions of the USB and HDMI ports in the unit? Since feature/smartphones are already outselling PCS, I can only assume that the micro/mini versions of these standard ports have already achieved economies of scale.

    If some Indian company can produce an el cheapo $50 tablet complete with LCD, rechargeable battery, and case, and there are full-featured phones that are cheaper than that, why can't there be a RasPi that one can hack into a homebrew eReader?