feedback on usage

[hj-alceol]

Hello everybody;
here some comments about the use of raspberry pi (B) an may DIY projects

First : I am not using the raspberry as a toy that you forget after playing with for a couple of weeks.
I am currently using the board as an home automation gateway coupled with a set of arduinos.

On the positive side :

- The perfect microcomputer/microcontroler for DIY projects (home automation, multmedia ...)
- Extremly simple to use when you know linux.
- easy to marry with the Arduino family by using the usb port

Things to keep:

- Ethernet port , usb port, dvi port, audio port
- sdcard reader (not microsd)
- Operating system: Linux

Thing to avoid:
- Windows, Android on the board

To be improved:
- Four connector sides is too much. 2 connectors sides will be nice. Form factor should be revisited. Have a look at http://apc.io
- The SDCard reader is a good idea. Dont replace it with à microSDcard reader as the only microSD cards available are in class 4 and therfor very slow.
- The SDCARD reader is very cheap. The plastic rail breaks easy . I had to glue on top of the reader a small pcb to fixit.
- Mounting holes on the pcb are missing it is a mess to fixit the board somewhere

New features, having in mind the cost. It will be nice to have:

- An rtc chip + battery on board
- 1,2 sata port(s) for multmedia purposes (DVD and/or HDDRIVE)
- A second pair of usb ports on the pcb as internal connectors but not as external connectors
- Memory (this one could be expensive !)
- a 2 or 4 pins connector for the power supply

Anyway the job the rasberry team made is still fantastic. Bravo, bravissimo

Henri

[AndrewS]

New features, having in mind the cost. It will be nice to have:

The RPi Foundation have said many times that the primary consideration when designing the board was low cost. And they've also said that there's no plans for any hardware changes or future board designs yet - they want it to keep it a fixed, stable platform.

- An rtc chip + battery on board

Can be easily added via an I2C or SPI interface.

- 1,2 sata port(s) for multmedia purposes (DVD and/or HDDRIVE)

You can add DVD/CD/HDD drives via USB But note that RPi doesn't provide MPEG2 acceleration, so it currently can't play DVD video (movie) discs.

- A second pair of usb ports on the pcb as internal connectors but not as external connectors

You can either add a USB hub, or look at http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... =29&t=8686 if you really want an "internal connector"

- a 2 or 4 pins connector for the power supply

You can provide power via 2 of the pins on the GPIO header http://elinux.org/RPi_Hardware#Power

[Narf03]

I would like to add
Need 1 or 2 screw holes for easy mounting
Align the USB with RJ45
Add a cheap heat sink on top of ram

[kadamski]

Need 1 or 2 screw holes for easy mounting

There is not enough space for that. It was considered but was not possible.

Align the USB with RJ45

There is not enough space for that. Just look at the board.

Add a cheap heat sink on top of ram

It's not needed at all. There is no problem with heat on RPi without head sink so it would be just a waste.

You have to remember that Foundation had some goals designing RPi and unfortunaly there where some tradeoffs to make. Without them, RPi (as it is now) couldn't be made. You can read about it's history and those tradeoffs in this forum and on main site to better understand why it is the way it is.

[AndrewS]

Align the USB with RJ45

There is not enough space for that. Just look at the board.

I think I read the the USB port sticking out so far was actually a mistake with the component footprint, which didn't get noticed until too late, when it would have been too expensive to redesign the board.