Raspberry Pi Zero

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Lazmo
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Raspberry Pi Zero

Unread post by Lazmo »

Raspberry Pi Zero


For those of us who just cant stop playing around with the tiny pc profile ( or just pc's in general ) and the quest to find out what these little things can do here is the latest slice of pi from raspberry and i do mean little it's tiny! the specs are as follows.


BCM2835 chipset, Overclocked to 1Ghz
512MB RAM
Tiny Form Factor: 65mm x 30mm x 5mm
Fully HAT compatible
40pin GPIO (Unpopulated)
Stream and watch Hi-definition video output at 1080P
Micro SD Slot for OS
Tiny Current Draw ~ 140mA at 5V!
Mini-HDMI for Video
Micro-USB OTG Host for Data
Micro-USB for Power

The core of the Raspberry Pi Zero is the Broadcom BCM2835 – the same system on chip found in the original Raspberry Pi. This time, it’s running at 1GHz, – 40% faster than the Raspberry Pi 1. There’s 512 MB of RAM in this board, and of course like all Pis the standard 40-pin header is included.


Building such a small board meant the Raspberry Pi foundation needed to cut a few ports from the Zero. Ethernet and the quartet of USB ports found in the Pi Model B+ are gone; there’s simply nowhere to put them. Instead, the Pi Zero includes a mini-HDMI socket, and two micro USB ports – one for power and data, another for USB OTG. Composite video remains on an unpopulated header, and storage is through a microSD card slot.

In the years since the release of the Raspberry Pi, it has become the defacto tiny Linux computer. A few contenders to the throne have shown up, though, with the most interesting being the smallest. While the Raspberry Pi Compute Module isn’t much of a success, we’ve seen a lot of tiny boards like the ODROID-W, and Carambola finding their way into the coolest projects. Part of this is the size of these modules, being able to fit into anything is a big bonus. With a price of only £4.00 and the other accessories and add on cards are not badly priced at all the Pi Zero is going to be a very, very popular board.

So mine arrived the other day and i set about constructing the unit as a little soldering is involved more than the standard pi models as there are 40 pins to solder as opposed to 8 on the original pi that is if you chose the model that needed soldering as i did in it's early form it is safe to say i think that now the later the model the need for soldering is removed if you just want to run one of the popular dac's available as most of these now come preconstructed to just push on to the board.

In this instance the zero needs it's 40 pin header soldering in place so you can make use of the HAT system this will allow you to interchange many useful items and other component boards via this system in a push on pull off fashion the Dac i have chosen to fit to this board also has a 40 pin header that also needs soldering on to it these are then joined by a intermediatery male coupler as both headers are female but not all components use the 40 pins some are less depending on what you want your zero to do and the components you want to add.

There is no network connection on the zero pi so you will have to add a network card or a wifi mini adapter to get connection to your network internet etc this will be my next job as for now i just wanted to construct the zero and see it boot up then i will decide it's purpose apart from running the dac probably via squeezeplug which is already on my system at the moment but it's real purpose is as yet undecided there are so many options to tinker with.

So here it is looking very small and very tidy in it's pibow case and awaiting it's fate. to be continued...........

Pictures as soon as the links work pasted a bunch but they failed to load :x
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George Hincapie
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Re: Raspberry Pi Zero

Unread post by George Hincapie »

This neatly illustrates what a rip off expensive HIFI is. If such a stupidly powerful and capable PC can be made and sold for less than a pint of beer (real beer, not gassy cat's piss) and a bag of crisps, then there's no excuse to charge £XXXXX for stuff. I appreciate R&D has to be paid for, but even so...


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Lazmo
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Re: Raspberry Pi Zero

Unread post by Lazmo »

George Hincapie wrote: If such a stupidly powerful and capable PC can be made and sold for less than a pint of beer (real beer, not gassy cat's piss) and a bag of crisps, then there's no excuse to charge £XXXXX for stuff
If your prepared to do a lot of research about your choices when constructing something like this and are prepared to get your hands dirty (so to speak) as the other guys who venture this way on here and other forums will tell you it pays real dividends and is worth it :grin: :geek:
The LARGE print giveth - and the small print taketh away.

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Fretless
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Re: Raspberry Pi Zero

Unread post by Fretless »

Go Lazmo go!!

Looking forward to your findings on the Zero. :clap:

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Lazmo
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Re: Raspberry Pi Zero

Unread post by Lazmo »

After playing around with a few options i found this .

DietPi Software http://fuzon.co.uk/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=5 check it out it has lots of programs already installed you just make your choices and install toward the end of the set up process the list is rather impressive and it's the first full install with no problems involved i have done in quite a while it all works as it should .

Unfortunately LMS (Logitech Media Server) does not work as i guess there is no ongoing support for it now but the rest of the included kit is rather impressive it's basically a stripped down version of jessie /wheezie which ever you chose to install i chose jessie .

Takes around 20 mins to load your choices depending on how many you make but it's real easy and quick compared to the manual methods . :grin: :geek:
The LARGE print giveth - and the small print taketh away.

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