Saturday, June 23, 2012

Checking out the temperature of a Raspberry Pi

[Remy] has access to a very nice Fluke thermal camera, so when his Raspberry pi came in he pointed the thermal camera at the Raspi (Spanish, Google translation) to see how far this neat computer could be pushed before it overheated. There are three main sources of heat on the Raspberry Pi: the voltage regulator, the USB/Ethernet controller and the Broadcom SoC. At idle, these parts read 49.9° C, 48.7° C and 53° C, respectively; a little hot to the touch, but still well within the temperature ranges given in the datasheets for these components. The real test came via a stress test where the ARM CPU was at 100% utilization. The Broadcom SoC reached almost 65° C while the Ethernet controller and regulator managed to reach the mid-50s. Keeping in mind this test was performed at room temperature, we’d probably throw a heat sink on a Raspberry Pi if it’s going to be installed in an extreme environment such as a greenhouse or serving as a Floridian or Texan carputer.

VIA: Hack A Day
Source: Remy

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Samsung Galaxy S III: Still waiting

June 5th 2012 I pre-ordered my Samsung Galaxy S III from Best Buy. Today June 21st, US launch date, still waiting. According to my local Best Buy I could get it tomorrow, only time will tell. In the mean time...







Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Blinky POV SMT

A short time after posting about the Blinky GRID SMT build I received an email from wayneandlayne.com. They had seen my build post and really liked it, especially the videos and pictures! I had mentioned that I was looking at getting their Blinky POV SMT kit so to say thanks they offered to send me one. I was super excited! Here's my build.


Tuesday, June 12, 2012

The Raspberry Pi is Running: Getting You There

Excited, I ripped open the package to find my Raspberry Pi. The packing looked like it had been run over but my Pi was still intact. Yay! First thing I realized I needed to find a power source and a SD card. After some digging I just ended up using an iPad power adapter with a cell phone micro USB cable. I was going to use my Galaxy S power adapter but I didn't want to run it close to the limit of 700ma. For some reason I thought I had plenty of SD cards around, but I guess not. Luckily Best Buy had a 32GB Sandisk Ultra class 10 available in store for $27. Perfect!

Raspberry Pi packaging, amazing it wasn't damaged



Monday, June 11, 2012

The Pi has Arrived

Just received a UPS email that my Raspberry Pi has been delivered! Unfortunately I am stuck at work at my desk. I can't wait to get home and taste my Pi.

I will be sure to post my unboxing excitement and where it takes me. I have no idea what I am going to do with it as this point, but it should be fun.


Comment below if you have ordered one and if you have received it.

Update: The Pi is awesome! I was able to get it up an running and ready to start playing. I will post about it in the next day or two.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Web Site Bugs Fixed

At last, the mysterious web site bugs have been fixed! Thursday night I got the urge to work on the robot website. It was more of me wanting to add my smart outlet to the site. I will post about the smart outlet soon. I had two bugs on the site, one of which I've had for a year.