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Co8alt8andit
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Wed Feb 07, 2018 6:03 pm
Pi and Paintball
Hello, as both a PC Enthusiast and a Regular paintbal player I wanted to add some useful tech to my gear and was wondering if someone here on the forums could give me a few pointers and send me in the right direction to getting started on this project. I would like to make a fore-arm mounted Raspberry Pi with (in my opinion but i know coding is a pain) very simple functionality. I would like to have a timer and some way to build a representation of the battlefield on the fly that can be easily refrenced and updated (something as simple as paint could work here however if there is an option that is better for the job i would prefer it). I personally think that a Pi zero would be the best bet because of its size. I could not locate a touch screen that had the size i was looking for (just a bit smaller than modern mainstream cell phones) and had questions about portable batteries and about how long i could expect one to power such a device. I am currently planning on using a 2500 mAh portable power bank so long as i can get the desired results from it. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.
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penguintutor
- Posts: 386
- Joined: Tue May 08, 2012 9:11 am
- Location: UK
- Contact: Website
Re: Pi and Paintball
I can't comment much about paintball. Last time I took part in a paintball I took a shot in the head which was incredibly painful!
Showing a timer should be fairly straight forward. To create a view of the battlefield then I'd suggest something like pygame zero, which makes creating a GUI easier than using traditional GUI environments.
For the screen I'd suggest one of the AdaFruit TFT touch screens.
https://www.adafruit.com/?q=tft
Personally I like the 3.5", but you may prefer a smaller one such as 2.8" if putting it your wrist. Although not sure how rugged these are as they may get damaged through rough use.
You can get the TFT screens from several Raspberry Pi suppliers.
For battery - do you really mean 2500mAh? That is pretty small and may not be able to provide enough power for running the Pi and TFT simultaneously. 25,000mAh would give you a good battery life and whilst they are fairly big would fit into a pocket. Or you could try something around the 8,000 to 10,000mAh range which could give you a smaller battery size if required.
Showing a timer should be fairly straight forward. To create a view of the battlefield then I'd suggest something like pygame zero, which makes creating a GUI easier than using traditional GUI environments.
For the screen I'd suggest one of the AdaFruit TFT touch screens.
https://www.adafruit.com/?q=tft
Personally I like the 3.5", but you may prefer a smaller one such as 2.8" if putting it your wrist. Although not sure how rugged these are as they may get damaged through rough use.
You can get the TFT screens from several Raspberry Pi suppliers.
For battery - do you really mean 2500mAh? That is pretty small and may not be able to provide enough power for running the Pi and TFT simultaneously. 25,000mAh would give you a good battery life and whilst they are fairly big would fit into a pocket. Or you could try something around the 8,000 to 10,000mAh range which could give you a smaller battery size if required.