Best Mounting / Project Box for Pi Zero 'Window to Scotland' - Raspberry Pi Accessories

So I'm working on a multimedia project for a friend at work. He loves watching webcams of Scotland and so I designed a simple Pi Zero W setup where a python script loads a series of live streams of Scottish points of interest and one can use a potentiometer to "change the channel" to different cams. The goal is to hook this up to an old monitor we have (a 19-inch Dell, but we could find another) and hang it on the wall so he can always look at it.
So I've got the old monitor and the Pi and the potentiometer and I've got a python script that uses OMXplayer to make it work, although I'm not sure I want to stick with a potentiometer because it's hard to tell how far you've advanced and there's a 10 second pause where the screen goes black when changing cam feeds (if anyone knows how to fix that, please let me know). But my main issue is how I physically mount the pi and all the associated pieces (the MCP3008 ADC chip, the potentiometer) to the screen or at least to a neat box that I can hang on the wall, just below the screen.
Is there a good project box that has holes for the Pi Zero? Should I use a protoboard to attach the dial and the ADC chip? Any advice appreciated.

Related

[APP][ALPHA] G Force Logger for Vehicle Performance (no, not gPC)

Hi, my name is Eric. I've been working with WinCE for a long time (since WinCE 2.0 haha) and I've regained interest in PPC programming. Working with few things here and there, mostly experimenting.
In anycase, I've got an idea to record g forces on a vehicle while it's being tested to its limits (AutoX, drag race).
Now, I know there's already a piece of software out there, gPC, but it isn't completely refined (indepth calibration, angle corrections) or completely free (by donation).
The goal of the project is to create something similar to a device called gTech which goes upwards of $300 for the basic model.
Key features will include:
- a reset function + algorithms to compensate for device orientation
- graphs of resulting logged data
- logging of calibrated data and raw data
- Driving aids
- Flashing screen to indicate reaching of new peak G (separate indicators for forward and lateral)
- a screen showing realtime overlapping graphed data for all axis
- a 2d grid with a cursor indicating current forward and lateral g
- on the same 2d graph, a drawn boundary indicating limits of g achieved (this will eventually look like an egg after working the car hard)
- and finally, real time telemetry transmission via edge/3g to a receiving computer
The ultimate goal of this project is to provide reliable data for motor enthusiasts whether they would like to see if their shifting is smooth, or if they're braking, or powering on in the right places or if their car mods have had any effect (this last one is pretty useful to quantify). In addition, provide some rudimentary tools to assist in competitions and spirited driving in the form of g limit warnings (flashing screen, large indicators of current g). In the case of spirited driving on a mountain road, the device can warn when approaching loss of traction (after collecting limit data) to prevent going off a cliff.
Venues of use:
Auto Cross
Track Days
Drag Strip
Skidpad
Of course, I have to insert here, that this device can't save your bacon if you do something idiotic and by no means do I condone dangerous driving.
With that said, all the above is what I hope to achieve and any of your comments is well appreciated.
Current Release:
v0.1
Alpha stage, rudimentary raw data output via numbers and a line (indicating X and Y recorded g) and a circle (indicating Z g). The numbers shown are the raw numbers recorded from the accelerometer and not converted to m/s^2. Although, you can probably do that math on your own if you're smart enough (simple scaling). What I've discovered is that each accelerometer is different, and even going from a negative axis (eg, device upside down) to positive axis (device right side up) will give different numbers. In addition, if you run the program, you'll notice a lot of jitteriness. I hope it doesn't affect the accuracy once I smooth them out with a segmented average.
Executable is packaged in a zip. It contains an EXE which can be straight run with Dot NET CF v2.0 (basically, all WM 6.1 devices)
Hi Canagan,
Great idea, I will certainly be testing this out.
I would like to ask, would it be possible to be able to include 1/4 mile time, and 0-60 etc so we can work out HP of the car. There is a similar app for the Iphone called Dynolicious http://gizmodo.com/5030749/iphone-apps-we-like-dynolicious-car-performance-meter
Thanks.
Whoooaaa sound a really good app ! Will test it this weekend ! Thanks
PooleyUK said:
I would like to ask, would it be possible to be able to include 1/4 mile time, and 0-60 etc so we can work out HP of the car. There is a similar app for the Iphone called Dynolicious http://gizmodo.com/5030749/iphone-apps-we-like-dynolicious-car-performance-meter
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I can do that if there's more of a demand for it. Calculating horsepower is fairly simple, however, I may put 1/4 mile times and 0-60 towards the end of development as they require tieing into the GPS.
Great idea.. I will test it also
It seemt to be working on my Touch HD. But are the meaning of all these numbers??
CanaganD said:
Yes, I can do that if there's more of a demand for it. Calculating horsepower is fairly simple, however, I may put 1/4 mile times and 0-60 towards the end of development as they require tieing into the GPS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cool, looking forward to seeing this develop.
So far the accelerator test seems to be working fine.
would be need ive i could see how many hp mycar has

External Touchscreen Development

Hello,
Currently i'm working on a personal project to integrate my GS3 into my car display and audio. Well this was easy with the help of a MHL or Allshare Cast Dongle.
My next goal was to install a 4 wire resistive touchscreen on my car display and use it as an external touchscreen control. I bought a 7" 4 wire resistive touchscreen with a USB module build around the CYPRESS CY7C63723C chip. I hooked up the touchscreen with OTG to test if there any initial reactions from my GS3, needless to say there wasn't any (no surprise there).
After a little digging around I came up with the conclusion that I need to create a custom "Input Device Configuration Files" for my touchscreen based on the following links
http://source.android.com/tech/input/touch-devices.html
http://source.android.com/tech/input/input-device-configuration-files.html
My initial question before I start plugging away with some codes is how would I name the files, the documents states "Input device configuration files are located by USB vendor, product (and optionally version) id or by input device name." How would I find the product ID or the input device name for the touchscreen? I'm sure this can be done thru terminal or something but I am new to android development so cut me a little slack here
Also if you know of any Input device configuration files dealing with touchscreen please post it.
Anyone?
hechen said:
Anyone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You would probably be better served asking this on one of the more general hacking sub forums. Here, you're just going to get people who are familiar with the S3. There, you may find someone who has done something similar on another phone.
hechen said:
Anyone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Any resolution with this?
I have been pondering the idea as well, but have no coding or hacking experience to go off of.
Would love to hear about the progress for this project and maybe a writeup of parts and procedures so far.

[Developers only]WPF vs Windows Runtime

Oh hay there,
I've been tasked with making an app for windows 8, that has to fulfill the following specifications.
I've been wondering weather i should use the win RT (metro API) or the windows presentation foundation (WPF) API to do it.
requirements:
Needs to be fast (winRT has a slight edge here due to Ahead of Time compilation, but WPF can be compiled ahead of time too)
Needs to be optimized for touch (it's a draw here, WPF can be made touch friendly and supported touch from day one)
Needs to be able to communicate in background with a number of sensors (WPF has the edge here, as it can access low-level OS components, and is also not restricted should it go to the background)
Needs to be easily modified to support new technologies (This one is a bit tougher. Modifying a winRT app takes a while, it needs around 7 days just to process certification, while an update to WPF can be delivered right away. On the other hand, winRT will probably have high level APIs to handle new technologies, whereas WPF will likely be stuck with the lower end of the API, which will make it harder to modify, especially to those not familiar with windows/.net architecture.)
Needs to run on tablet (WinRT has the edge, as it can run on arm-based tablets as well).
Needs to communicate via NFC, get GPS coordinates and take pictures (WPF can do this, but again, it has lower level APIs, which might be hard to adapt in the future)
Needs to be resilient to outside tampering (virus, trojan, malware etc)(WPF is not 100% sandboxed, it has nice runtime security, but the files it creates are not protected, winRT has the edge here)
I need some opinions. I will make my own decision, but I would like to hear some of your opinions first.
Don't ask what the app does, I'm not gonna tell you.
One thing that immediately stands out, GPS. Is this using the tablets integral GPS, a USB unit or a serial/bluetooth unit? If its not integral or USB (and even then, some USB ones are USB>serial adaptors followed by a serial unit) then WinRT wont function with it. You dont get any access to serial ports, parallel ports or the onboard i2c interface via WinRT. Everything is a higher level abstraction wrapping up low level functionality, you get not raw access to it yourself. Most of these tablets out will be using a serial GPS as that is what is most common (or possibly an i2c one but thats something I have never seen before) and WinRT will provide a nice set of wrappers to let you interface with the integral GPS only, but it wont give access to the serial port or the bluetooth serial profile which means it will ignore bluetooth, external serial or certain USB GPS devices. So yes, WPF would certainly have the edge there. But if we are just talking the GPS chip built into the tablet, WinRT will suffice and provides easy access to all onboard sensors, its only external ones that will cause headaches.
WinRT vs regular .NET speed wise likely wont make much difference. I'm not sure that WinRT is fully AoT dependant for its apps (except C/C++), I think it still falls back on .NET, and even if it is AoT the .NET JIT is almost as effective (and with some kludging can be set to AoT I think, mono certainly can and can cope with WPF applications).
I dont own a tablet so cant say too much on touch, I have only handled display model tablets. Tbh, I found most desktop apps annoying on tablets. even if you enlarge buttons and fonts to make them more touch friendly you can run into additional issues, a menu thats too long to fit on screen cant necessarily be scrolled with a touch friendly gesture (well, you can try, but your probably going to have to write some of your own code, might not be that hard actually, I havent tried). If the app is purely meant for touch then I would go WinRT unless there is a specific reason not to.
Updating taking 7 days I dont see as a major problem, everyone else does it and on numerous platforms. It may well take 1 day to integrate a new tech into a WinRT app and 2 weeks on the WPF app in which case the WinRT guys still get the new tech before WPF, or vice versa is equally likely.
NFC communications, GPS and cameras are all easily done in WinRT (with the previous restriction, device only, non external, I assume a webcam works though).
WinRT is probably the more secure option too.
If I were you I would write down each little thing the app needs to do in order to function, ie access a specific type of GPS (you already said you wont share, thats fine). Then go down the list and start ticking off which ones WinRT has the technology to do. We can pretty much assume that eventually WPF will also do it so there is little reason for a WPF checklist. If you get to the bottom of the list and WinRT is fully ticked off, then go with a WinRT app. If there are a few things missing, well then start to weigh up whether it would be better to try and get a WPF app playing nicely with touch and implementing a few things at a lower level or alter the design specification to fit WinRT, I assume there is a client involved here, if there are issues sit down with them and discuss your thoughts and see if they are happy with changes to go one way or the other.
SixSixSevenSeven said:
One thing that immediately stands out, GPS. Is this using the tablets integral GPS, a USB unit or a serial/bluetooth unit? If its not integral or USB (and even then, some USB ones are USB>serial adaptors followed by a serial unit) then WinRT wont function with it. You dont get any access to serial ports, parallel ports or the onboard i2c interface via WinRT. Everything is a higher level abstraction wrapping up low level functionality, you get not raw access to it yourself. Most of these tablets out will be using a serial GPS as that is what is most common (or possibly an i2c one but thats something I have never seen before) and WinRT will provide a nice set of wrappers to let you interface with the integral GPS only, but it wont give access to the serial port or the bluetooth serial profile which means it will ignore bluetooth, external serial or certain USB GPS devices. So yes, WPF would certainly have the edge there. But if we are just talking the GPS chip built into the tablet, WinRT will suffice and provides easy access to all onboard sensors, its only external ones that will cause headaches.
WinRT vs regular .NET speed wise likely wont make much difference. I'm not sure that WinRT is fully AoT dependant for its apps (except C/C++), I think it still falls back on .NET, and even if it is AoT the .NET JIT is almost as effective (and with some kludging can be set to AoT I think, mono certainly can and can cope with WPF applications).
I dont own a tablet so cant say too much on touch, I have only handled display model tablets. Tbh, I found most desktop apps annoying on tablets. even if you enlarge buttons and fonts to make them more touch friendly you can run into additional issues, a menu thats too long to fit on screen cant necessarily be scrolled with a touch friendly gesture (well, you can try, but your probably going to have to write some of your own code, might not be that hard actually, I havent tried). If the app is purely meant for touch then I would go WinRT unless there is a specific reason not to.
Updating taking 7 days I dont see as a major problem, everyone else does it and on numerous platforms. It may well take 1 day to integrate a new tech into a WinRT app and 2 weeks on the WPF app in which case the WinRT guys still get the new tech before WPF, or vice versa is equally likely.
NFC communications, GPS and cameras are all easily done in WinRT (with the previous restriction, device only, non external, I assume a webcam works though).
WinRT is probably the more secure option too.
If I were you I would write down each little thing the app needs to do in order to function, ie access a specific type of GPS (you already said you wont share, thats fine). Then go down the list and start ticking off which ones WinRT has the technology to do. We can pretty much assume that eventually WPF will also do it so there is little reason for a WPF checklist. If you get to the bottom of the list and WinRT is fully ticked off, then go with a WinRT app. If there are a few things missing, well then start to weigh up whether it would be better to try and get a WPF app playing nicely with touch and implementing a few things at a lower level or alter the design specification to fit WinRT, I assume there is a client involved here, if there are issues sit down with them and discuss your thoughts and see if they are happy with changes to go one way or the other.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the response
The tablet picked for this job has the following minimum requirements:
Intel z2760 atom processor (apparently, they prefer x86 over ARM)
2 GB of RAM
NFC, GPS, Bluetooth (integrated, as in the tablet has no external USB adapted sensors or something)
mini USB
front camera 2 MP
back camera 8 MP
64GB storage
It's basicaly an asus vivo tab smart.
I suppose the GPS and NFC are built in. I haven't developed much with winRT, so i don't know all the ins and outs.
Btw, did Mono get WPF working? Last time I checked they said WPF was too large scale for them to port.
mcosmin222 said:
Thanks for the response
The tablet picked for this job has the following minimum requirements:
Intel z2760 atom processor (apparently, they prefer x86 over ARM)
2 GB of RAM
NFC, GPS, Bluetooth (integrated, as in the tablet has no external USB adapted sensors or something)
mini USB
front camera 2 MP
back camera 8 MP
64GB storage
It's basicaly an asus vivo tab smart.
I suppose the GPS and NFC are built in. I haven't developed much with winRT, so i don't know all the ins and outs.
Btw, did Mono get WPF working? Last time I checked they said WPF was too large scale for them to port.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think mono on windows gets WPF as it can fall back on the live already there, they haven't got a Linux or mac version for sure though, only winforms although there is a 3rd party lib that gives a few controls which look very much like the WPF counterparts which should work on mono. Or there are .net bindings of QT and GTK.
If its the integral GPS as you say, WinRT should cope absolutely fine. Did some more googling and it seems WinRT will only recognise GPS device with an actual device manager entry, that is what discounts serial devices, it may actually be possible to give a serial device a kick up the backside so its listed in device manager alongside the integrated one but in your case its not needed.
SixSixSevenSeven said:
I think mono on windows gets WPF as it can fall back on the live already there, they haven't got a Linux or mac version for sure though, only winforms although there is a 3rd party lib that gives a few controls which look very much like the WPF counterparts which should work on mono. Or there are .net bindings of QT and GTK.
If its the integral GPS as you say, WinRT should cope absolutely fine. Did some more googling and it seems WinRT will only recognise GPS device with an actual device manager entry, that is what discounts serial devices, it may actually be possible to give a serial device a kick up the backside so its listed in device manager alongside the integrated one but in your case its not needed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I heard 8.1 gives winRT extended device driver capabilities.
Maybe it will work fine by then...
SixSixSevenSeven said:
I think mono on windows gets WPF as it can fall back on the live already there, they haven't got a Linux or mac version for sure though, only winforms although there is a 3rd party lib that gives a few controls which look very much like the WPF counterparts which should work on mono. Or there are .net bindings of QT and GTK.
If its the integral GPS as you say, WinRT should cope absolutely fine. Did some more googling and it seems WinRT will only recognise GPS device with an actual device manager entry, that is what discounts serial devices, it may actually be possible to give a serial device a kick up the backside so its listed in device manager alongside the integrated one but in your case its not needed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, we decided to go for WPF^^
mcosmin222 said:
Well, we decided to go for WPF^^
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, if microsoft gets something right, that is the .net framework.
Kinda funny I can actually call winRT assemblies from WPF(non UI ones ofc).

Gaming Mice on Android

I posted this in the galaxy note 12.2 forums but since a lot of us use mice on the shield TV I thought it might help someone here.
Gaming Mice on Android
I'm not sure if anyone else uses a gaming mouse but I thought I would note that while I haven't found a way to configure a gaming mouse in android, you can still use any gaming mouse with onboard memory.
you just program it on your PC and then when you plug it into the android tablet (or any other android device) and all of your key pre-sets and lighting presets are there.
This is useful for people that remote into their work computers from home, or just want easy copy paste functionality or for the people that remote into their computers for gaming etc.
Personally I use a gaming mouse (Razer Naga Chroma) for work on a windows 7 workstation but I use my Galaxy note 12.2 exclusively at home with no access to windows.
The Razer Naga and Logitech G600 have a scroll wheel that tilts left and right and the function can be reprogrammed.
I reassign those to copy and paste and its way faster than using the keyboard and saves some wrist strain.
I also have shortcuts for our proprietary software programmed onto the side buttons and having access to that from home is a HUGE timesaver.
now when I work from home I can have everything at my fingertips instead of having to use the onscreen windows functions in teamviewer, or digging through menus in company software.
and a lot of the normal functions carry over to android pretty well (Copy paste is much smoother from the mouse etc.)
Anyways for anyone that this might help these are the ones I've tried so far:
Works:
Logitech G600 (Supports keyboard/mouse functions and simple hotkeys like alt + Shift + Tab but does not support complex macros to device memory)
Roccat Nyth (Supports everything including complex macros but does have a length limit)
Anything with onboard memory will likely also work to varying degrees.
Doesnt work beyond default buttons:
Anything with no onboard memory:
Any mouse designed to work with Razer Synapse 2.0
Lower end Logitech mice. (Some lower end models lack onboard memory)
mice can't touch action in android app&game
leasing said:
mice can't touch action in android app&game
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its true, with a mice, some apps work some apps dont, this is on full android, not sure what the situation is with stock
Android/shield does this neat thing it seems, where it makes every individual app create/declare mouse support, individually, instead of, i dont know, lets say, for an example, tie mouse support with the touch system in some fashion, on the OS level, you know, so that EVERY app works, without having to rely on every app with various degrees of dev support to include or update in the mouse support.........totally neat way of doing it
implementation fragmentation
Theres also the permission implementation im starting to notice now.........marshmellow it seems has implemented a rather NEAT storage persmission decleration requirement, whereas apps running on marshmellow have to declare storage permission in order to be granted storage permission.........good idea...(sporadic sarcasm off)...no, really, security effort :good:....(sporadic sarcasm on again), ......but, but, bad implementation, you've now declared older apps with no current dev support, that still fit a function, from working on the newest android version, and perhaps, then onwards..........if the app does not declare it seems, then it simply will not work, if it requires this particular storage access.........you've just isolated a good portion of older unsurported apps that still may serve a function
I dont see why they implemented this, mmmm... in this way(CANT.SENTENCE.PROPERLY), why make the requirement, for apps to declare this, when they should have attempted to secure it, and rightly so on this front, on the bleeming OS level.............all apps would have this storage permission in android settings somewhere, and you'd simply allow or deny, on the *OS level* (record, meet hammer), much :silly:
Anyways, continuation, where was i, ah yes
",on the *OS level*",..... without having to alienate older apps with no prospects for an update
Sorry for offtopic, suspiciously rantish, like behaviour :silly:
Edit: and silly,.....yep.....silly............. i always forget that one (insert scratch head emoji)
To Recap
OS LEVEL
Razer naga works
I was able to get my razer naga to work with the shield you just have to make some adjustments to it first. You have to plug it in to your pc, install synapse, open synapse, go into the performance tab, change the dpi to 800 and the polling rate to 125 hz. The settings are saved on the device itself so you can simply plug the mouse in to the shield now and it works. You might be able to play around with dpi settings to see what works but I'm fairly certain the main issue is the polling rate. I'm going to mess around one of their keyboards to make sure it works too.

Aviation Heads Up Display (HUD)

Hey guys! I was paging through the forums and had what could be an awesome idea. I'm by no means a aerospace engineer nor a computer scientist, but I was trying to figure out how hard it would be to take a standalone Attitude and Heading Reference System (AHRS) system like the iLevil 3 Sport, and display it on something like the EPSON BT-300. Im sure it would have to be a simplified display, but in theory couldn't we get something like a fighter jet HUD directly in front of your face?!
The reason I have chosen these two pieces of hardware (iLevil 3 Sport and EPSON BT-300) is to try and simplify the problem at hand. Through programs like ixGyro, AHRS Utility by iLevil, and Xavion, to name a few (all of which are compatible with the iLevel, and available to download directly to any Android system), you already have all of the information in tablet form.
The AHRS device has all of the hardware required and outputs the information via WiFi. These programs have already proven that this information can be successfully displayed. It seems as through that the only problem now is the GUI. I don't have either of these two products so I can't say for certain, but I'm willing to bet that the BT-300, running Android 5.1, can display this information almost the exact same as on your phone or tablet! I propose that we simply delete the background so you have a true augmented reality while you fly!

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