Temperature Control
Built-in, precise temp control is a key innovation with this smoker, which uses a Raspberry Pi, fans, algorithms, and what's called a PID controller. The heat rises gradually until the air temp at the meat's surface hits 225 degrees, and the fans kick in to maintain that temperature for hours.
An app provides a real-time temperature readout and coaches you through the cook. It also has recipes for many smoked delicacies, and it auto-adjusts its controls for the weight and type of meat.
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Sleep - the most beautiful experience in life - except drink.--W.C. Fields
The longest delays for the slice were caused in finding suppliers that could machine and finish the metal cases to the high quality the developers demanded - they were let down by a series of different suppliers in China that produced good quality prototypes but then shoddy production units.
The long-awaited official Raspberry Pi touchscreen went on sale today
Also available, in a range of colours, is a mounting frame for the screen where you can piggy-back your Pi to make a sort of super-chumby (though not as cute as a real Chumby).
Cost is $60 for the screen and about another $15 for the frame, should you want one.
There will be new stock selling on The Pi Hut soon. Alter the drop-down and you'll see the cheap (bare Pi Zero) is just £4. But you probably want the adapters to covert to regular-size USB and HDMI so that totals £10. And you can bundle in an 8GB micro SD card for another £6 or a 16GB one for £8.
Remember, the zero doesn't have a network port, so you probably also need a USB hub and a WiFi dongle if you're intending to use it in the regular way.
The Pi 2 Model B is still a better bet for most newcomers. It costs more but has double the RAM, a faster processor, four USB ports, an Ethernet port, regular sized HDMI and USB, and an earphone/speaker sound output in case you can't use HDMI sound.
It puts out broadcast quality stereo or mono on any frequency you like - but you probably want to stick to the regular FM band (about 80MHz - 110MHz) so you can use it with your normal FM radio receivers.
So they're all sold out and people are now reselling those magazines at hugely inflated prices, and these $9 ($8) computers will probably sell out as well when go on sale Monday.
But probably around February or so, this might come in handy:
I picked up a kit from Adafruit, because the kit is more useful to me - they were still in stock on Thursday. I think I'm going to make a 3D printer server with it, using OctoPrint.
OK, the 3D print server is all set up - tested it out on a small cube, and it only did OK. Tried it on another model and it broke... after a bit of debugging, the model I used broke Cura on the PC as well as the Pi. So, now I'm trying a different shape.
It's running OK, if a bit slower than the official software, and I suspect that's why I'm getting some blobs.
A few days ago my headless home server stopped working. It was a fan-less Intel atom running Ubuntu - no keyboard, monitor, or mouse: I used it to test out web apps (LAMP) and as a file server and media server.
I had a quick look at repairing it - the power supply and hard disk seem fine - but then I thought why not replace it with a Raspberry Pi which can do all the same jobs using a fraction of the power (it runs 24/7).
So I set up a Raspberry Pi 3 linked to a solid state hard disk in one of those cheap Ebay 2.5-inch SATA enclosures. The SSD uses hardly any power so just the USB cable from the PI powers it okay.
Recently details have been published on how you can get a Pi 3 to boot from USB (or network boot) so the Pi doesn't need an SD card - this makes it more reliable in this application as SD cards don't like the power failing when they are in the middle of a write operation and apparently SSDs are more tolerant of this.
I installed LAMP, Samba, MiniDLNA, and a few other things and now it's running great.
I 3D-printed a little wall-bracket-cum-case for the Pi and the SSD enclosure so I could mount it out of the way. It uses its built-in WiFi to attach to my network so the only cable running to it is the 5V power supply. It's drawing less than 5 Watts of power. Hopefully it will give as many years service as its more power-hungry predecessor.
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Last edited by ceptimus; 08-28-2016 at 09:11 PM.
Reason: Added the photo
Have you heard of MAME? It's a video game console simulator that lets you run classics like pacman and donkey kong on your PC - and of course the Pi can run it.
So someone has taken the tiny Pi Zero and used it as a backplate to make a teensy MAME console. It uses a 0.96 inch oled colour screen and correspondingly small push buttons and joystick.
I just ordered a 4GB one, complete with power supply, micro HDMI cable, and 16GB SD card. Cost me 78 UK pounds, including shipping.
I already have lots of Pis - one in permanent use as a home server, and the rest mostly thrown in a box - but I wanted to try out one of the latest fast ones with lots of memory.