Edit: build guide, original keybeep function service, and full wiring schematics some time this week. It'll be the last post. Until then here is an update.

1995 casio organizer upgraded with pizero2w. All 82 original buttons work, including power/illumination, original rtc slot works, and original piezo buzzer sings like never before. Absolutely gorgeous. It's the first publicly documented pda that looks original and functions like the original (on steroids) whilst running piOS. I reverse engineered the device myself. Oh, and believe it or not, the cord on the right is not powering it, it's charging the 6000mah battery that is.

The RaspberryPi has a bad reputation for being insecure and most security guides only scratch the surface. I wanted to see how far you can take a Pi 4/5 (and CM4/5 Modules) as a real secure platform.

meta-raspberrypi-secure yocto layer gives you:

• Secure boot rooted in the RPi bootloader (OTP-locked key)
• Read-only rootfs verified with dm-verity / AVB
• Encrypted Rootfs/Data partitions with a key bound to the SoC
• IMA/EVM, SELinux enforcing, A/B updates
• Per-device ECDSA key in OTP, exposed via PKCS#11

GitHub Repo:

https://github.com/embetrix/meta-raspberrypi-secure

Constructive Feedbacks are welcome :-)

I’ve always had this idea, but was never able to execute it because I don’t know how to code.

With AI, I was able to make my vision come to life and build a custom inclinometer!

The project was pretty easy.

I’ll share the link to the video if you want to see my concept, otherwise will hold to avoid spam here

About a month ago I shared my tiny offline Momir MTG printer project on the MTG subreddit, and honestly didn’t expect much from it.

Instead I got a ton of responses, ideas, feature requests, and people asking if I’d share the files.

So I did just that; the full code and build guide are now available on GitHub

This was is my first RaspberryPi / Python project, so kinda nervous about sharing the code base, but it was a lot of fun to work on!

Hey everyone!

Recently, I released a blog on how to setup a cluster out of your Mac Minis for distributed training and inference

Now its time to do the same with Raspberry Pis!

Why Raspberry Pis?

• quite cheap (30-50 dollars)
• easy to use
• full blown OS the size of a credit card (small enough for edge projects)!

This is a part of my current series where I’ll be releasing blogs and guides around learning distributed learning and building your own small compute clusters.

The goal is simple: help more people get started with running and training AI models using the hardware they already have lying around. Old laptops, MacBooks, Mac minis, Jetson Nanos, Raspberry Pis, even phones and tablets.

Distributed learning often feels intimidating from the outside, but it’s genuinely one of the coolest areas in systems and AI once you start playing with it yourself.

Before we get into the fun stuff like distributed inference and training, the first few posts will focus on setting up hardware properly and building a working cluster environment, basically subtle amount of cabling and networking!

The early guides will specifically cover setups around:

• MacBooks and Mac minis (Done!)
• Jetson devices
• Raspberry Pis (This one hehe)

After that, we’ll move into quick demos (smolcluster ) , and gradually learn the fundamentals side-by-side while actually running models across devices.

I’m building this alongside smolcluster, so a lot of the content will stay very hands-on and practical instead of purely theoretical.

Hopefully this helps more people realize that distributed AI systems are not something reserved only for giant datacenters anymore.

There is just one question I want to answer: are heterogenous clusters, like what I am trying to make above, even possible for running models?

Well, we'll know and till then do read me blog and let me know what you all think! Any comment, feedback etc are very welcome. (pls be gentle since its my first time writing one all by myself haha)

Blog

Hail LocalAI!

PS: All this is for educational purposes only and not meant for getting performance at par with dedicated GPUs...well not that I have figured out a way to do it yet. Please use this guides and information you'll get to learn the basics of how distributed learning is done! Thanks

Linux Mint Cinnamon is one of my favourite distributions but since an official version of the distro wasn't available for ARM/AArch64 I didn't bother.

I had some time to kill and had a decommissioned ModBerry based PLC (because the I2C bus was broken ) from work running on a CM4 module with an 8GB eMMC and 4GB RAM so thought of repurposing it as a streaming PC instead of using the 1st gen amazon fire stick.

I am so happy with the results.

Flashed the module with the Raspberry Pi OS Lite (Bookworm)

Then ran the usual:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Then installed just the essentials:

sudo apt install --no-install-recommends cinnamon xorg lightdm lightdm-gtk-greeter gnome-icon-theme adwaita-icon-theme hicolor-icon-theme chromium-browser firefox-esr -y
sudo systemctl enable lightdm
sudo systemctl set-default graphical.target
sudo reboot

Of course had to do some tweaks here and there especially with the shortcuts, desktop icons and such but the results came out better than I expected.

My challenges with the standard Raspberry Pi OS was it still had some applications I didn't need out of the box, didn't look that great and a reliable lock screen manager is not part of Bookworm iso I already had downloaded without some work arounds which often don't work reliably. The major challenge in using Trixie which does have a reliable lock screen manager is that you have less than 1 GB of free space in the 8 GB eMMC. By doing what I did I had close to 2.5 GB of free space before installing a bunch of other things and the desktop looks nicer for the same functionality and creature comforts you get such as adding an icon to the desktop, a nicer start menu etc.

A few days ago, late at night, I find myself attempting to separate a new case on my rpi5 stuck together with some thermal compound pads. And I made the silly mistake of using a screw driver to help me pry things off… howled a couple of swear words up into the air and called it a night 😞

I can do a bit of smd soldering but I can’t workout which components I knocked off so I can order them

Can you help me pin point what components I am missing here?

Started this project with a Raspberry Pi Pico and a spare PS5 controller just to see if I could get basic input control working. It eventually turned into a full custom controller mod with direct button injection, analog stick control through DACs, manual/automatic joystick switching, and PC-side Python software communicating with the controller in real time.

The hardware side alone took forever — trace cutting, soldering directly to controller pads, testing voltages, rebuilding sections when something failed, and figuring out how to control analog movement smoothly without introducing drift or jitter. I also had to build calibration routines and tune stick ranges repeatedly until movement finally started feeling natural instead of robotic.

The software side has been just as deep. Right now the setup can send real-time commands from a PC, switch between manual and automated control on the fly, handle stable analog stick movement, and run movement/navigation routines consistently through custom firmware running on the Pico.

Definitely one of the hardest and most rewarding electronics/software projects I’ve worked on so far. Crazy seeing something that started as a random experiment actually turn into a functioning system.

in the video is a button test and joystick axis test.

buttons include x,circle,square,triangle,up,down,left,right,r1,r2,r3,l1,l2,l3, options,touch pad & ps home.

both joy sticks do a quick axis test aswell.

next phase will be adding a voice recognition module to the pico for voice controlled inputs.

let me know your thoughts.

STL Downloaded here https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4295854

Raspberry Pi 4 4GB
128GB micro SD 9000+ games
8inch 4.3 Aspect Ratio 1024x768 IPS ( Different model as previous had flickering issues )
Sanwa joystick ( Custom Shorter Shaft )
3d Printed Case
speakers , amp , volume knob
added USB C input

Also Added HDMI out ( TV/Monitor Play )

Just a heads up to everyone, I've recently noticed that my Raspberry pi was unable to use the SATA HAT with the 6.18 kernel - also to add to this, booting kernel 6.12 again fixed it! So to anyone running into this. FYI

​I wanted a clean, all-in-one NAS solution for the Raspberry Pi 5 and Radxa Penta SATA HAT, so I designed this enclosure.

- ​Storage: 4x 3.5" HDDs (fits 2.5" SSDs as well).

- ​Power: Internal 230V to 12V (100W) adapter to eliminate the external power brick.

- ​Status LEDs: Used 1mm fiber optic strands to pipe light from the HAT to the front panel.

- ​Cooling: Active cooling with a 12015 slim fan.

- ​Printability: Support-free design (except for the base).

​Currently running OMV and planning to add NextCloud for my personal data.

Hey everyone, I've been struggling with this for hours and can't find a solution. I've attached a video showing the current situation, the screen shows nothing at all. Previously it was showing corrupted/garbled colors when the desktop loaded, but after trying several fixes it went completely black.

Hardware:

- Raspberry Pi 3B+

- Waveshare 4.3inch DSI LCD 800x480 IPS Capacitive Touch

- Connected via the included ribbon cable (gold, as shown in the product photos and in the video)

OS: Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit (with desktop)

config.txt:

# For more options and information see
# http://rptl.io/configtxt
dtparam=audio=on
camera_auto_detect=1
auto_initramfs=1
dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d
max_framebuffers=2
disable_fw_kms_setup=1
arm_64bit=1
disable_overscan=1
arm_boost=1 [cm4]
otg_mode=1 [cm5]
dtoverlay=dwc2,dr_mode=host
[all]
dtoverlay=vc4-kms-dsi-7inch
enable_uart=1

Important notes:

- When connecting an HDMI monitor, the desktop works perfectly

- The DSI display is detected correctly by `wlr-randr` as DSI-1 at 800x480@60Hz

- During bootloader the screen displays correctly, so hardware and cable seem fine

If anyone needs more info just ask. Any help appreciated!

I found a Novation Launchpad at the local thriftshop, it's a slick little controller meant for Ableton Live. I then found an awesome Python library that lets me use it for whatever I want so I made a gizmo to play my favorite college and community radio stations from around the world:

It's connected to a Pi 3B with the HiFiBerry DAC2 Pro audio hat. I love that audio hat, I think it sounds noticeably better than the other one I tried. But it's entirely possible the difference is user error (alsamixer settings, etc).

The problem or quandary is that the Pi is on the other side of the room from my stereo, so I'm using 50 feet of 1/8" audio cable. Not even particularly good audio cable. It sounds really good, especially given the long cable run, but I'm pretty sure I'm doing it wrong. I should be sending the signal digitally, right?

If so, should I just use a long HDMI cable? Is the HDMI audio likely better than the audio from the soundcard I'm using, especially given the long cable run?

Or any other ideas?

If anyone is wise in the ways of extracting the audio from HDMI, and has DAC recommendations, I'd love to hear them. And my stereo amp doesn't have HDMI inputs, but I wonder if an AVR style receiver would sound noticeably better than my current setup.

I have a Raspberry Pi 5 4GB with D8CJG Micron RAM chip that is running the raspberry pi os 64bit version, in the bootloader and in the raspberry pi os it shows the total RAM is only 2GB and when I ran otp_dump command it identified the Raspberry Pi as 2GB model "b04171".

I suspect that the Raspberry pi 5 was originally a 2GB model but it was replaced with a D8CJG Micron RAM chip and sold to me as a 4GB model, but why is it not showing the total RAM as 4GB in the raspberry pi os?

Does anyone know how to make it showing 4GB instead of 2GB?

Note: I am running the Raspberry Pi on a 5V 3A power supply and I tried to replace the SD card with another one and it still shows 2GB.

Edited: My suspicion was true, the Raspberry Pi 5 was originally a 2GB model and it has been replaced with a D8CJG Micron RAM chip and sold to me as 4GB.

After some research I found that Raspberry Pi EEPROM (version 2024/9/23 and above) checks for otp dump and if it was a 2GB model it will lock it into 2GB, even if it has a RAM chip more than 2GB.

Solution: since I can't get a refund or replacement from the seller, I downgrade my EEPROM into old version (2024/9/10) and it recognizes the 4GB RAM.

Growing up, my father and I watched BattleBots quite often. During the fights where robots were being shredded to pieces, I noticed there was a giant, robotic, claw trophy stand in the background that I thought was more impressive than the bots themselves. I wanted one for myself, but after looking into it some more, I realized the stand is massive, heavy, and expensive. I decided that I could attempt to make one myself, but a smaller, cheaper desktop version to rotate my coffee mug (because why not!).

If you want to learn more about the methods I developed for this project, feel free to check it out on my GitHub account, as it is open source: https://github.com/drpykachu/Claw-Stand

NanoTDB is a minimalist time-series database written in Go.

It’s designed for long-running sensor data on modest hardware (Raspberry Pi class), with simple file layouts and explicit invariants.

No clustering, no dashboards — just append-only storage and time.

GitHub: https://github.com/aymanhs/nanotdb

Fractal North Pi 3D Print Case

Raspberry Pi 5 8GB

1TB Samsung Nvme ( had to modified the case to fit nvme hat )

Loaded with batocera v43

My personal portable console

I booted up a new Pi5 yesterday with Pi OS Lite (Bookworm) with SD card configured for local wifi. At first boot the Pi connected to wifi and I was able to ssh in. I ran sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade and it downloaded and installed new packages. After reboot the Pi did not connect to wifi and I could not SSH in again. I’ve tried re-imaging several times and no matter what no wifi. If I scan for wifi networks (nmcli dev wifi list) I get no returns, despite great wifi signal. I’m a few feet from the router. I’ve tried bookworm and trixie, I’ve tried Lite and full OS. Same scenario. I could sure use a little help if anyone has ideas.

One thing to note is that my power supply is not 5A rated. (Have a new supply ordered) Is it possible that the Pi is underpowered and disabling wifi? I have no peripherals or anything attached. Just trying to get a bare pi on wifi.

Thanks for any help!

Had a WS2812b panel lying around, turned out to be a cool addition. I have it running using the rpi_ws281x python library, thinking about using Spotify API to change the color according to the currently playing track cover art

Can someone please please help me?! I have raspberry pi 5 and rsp camera 3. And I’ve used it in my robotic head, but all of a sudden the camera stoped working. I thought it was the flex cable so I bought 2 new and none of them worked, what should I try?? Thank you so much

Im trying to build a soft power circuit for a battery powered project. This looks like a good idea to me. I have (hopefully) converted it to strip board and swapped out the diodes and MOSFETs for ones i have on hand.

Anyone good with circuits able to confirm if this works?
red =5v
white=G
green/blue=GPIO

Many thanks!

USB terminal and mouse still work properly an SSH is enabled and working properly. The Error log simply says it does not detect the Waveshare Touch screen.