@Lee Knatta My guess is that you experienced this with an early Pi 3. In those days the Pi itself would run just fine off of 5V. The problem was the small wall-wart 5V supplies had a 1m long cable with the mini-USB connector on the end. The wire gauge in the cables was too small, and the current draw caused a voltage drop across the cable, meaning at the Pi the voltage was only around 4.7 to 4.8Vdc. This caused brownouts. But the problem had a simple fix that was widely adopted at the time: just change to a 5.25Vdc wall wart! Maybe you didn't get the memo. Also, drawing current from the USB port to run an external drive is making that problem worse.
Since that time many of these problems have been worked out with the SBCs like the Pi. But you are correct in that, once you add up the Pi board, the SMPS, memory card or EMMc memory, chassis etc, etc, the cost is well above $100 and it is not such a great "deal" anymore.
Since that time many of these problems have been worked out with the SBCs like the Pi. But you are correct in that, once you add up the Pi board, the SMPS, memory card or EMMc memory, chassis etc, etc, the cost is well above $100 and it is not such a great "deal" anymore.
As I Am sure you know, with a Pi in USB gadget mode you can make use its GPIO pins on any PC running Linux or Windows that you plug it into...
Exactly. 3B+ or something if I remember correctly.
I even had a massive and short USB cable. And a high power premium 5V supply. You’re right, increasing the voltage would have helped.
But how has the underlying issue been solved? Not all all it seems?
The Asus has cost maybe 130€ all inclusive. Much better deal.
I'm currently resurrecting my pi4 to be used in a very specific limited role (hopefully). I think they have fair usefulness for that kind of application.
But i can't ever see myself returning to SBCs as general media or audio machines. Even quite modest PCs are generally much more powerful and IMO more complete answers.
As for noise, PCs aren't free from it and neither are SBCs. With external/USB DACs I've had success with both. At the moment I'm running a recent generation multi-core Intel machine and can't hear any issues at all, even with high sensitivity drivers.
But i can't ever see myself returning to SBCs as general media or audio machines. Even quite modest PCs are generally much more powerful and IMO more complete answers.
As for noise, PCs aren't free from it and neither are SBCs. With external/USB DACs I've had success with both. At the moment I'm running a recent generation multi-core Intel machine and can't hear any issues at all, even with high sensitivity drivers.
Sure, but for low-speed there are countless USB-whatever adapters much simpler and cheaper than RPi. RPi would be a bit of overkill in such position, IMO. I like burning Firmata sketch into 2USD arduino nano with USB port - Firmata has libraries for all major programming languages. Low speed only, though...
Sure, if one needs SPI TFT with reasonably fast refresh + I2C control + of course I2S, adding all these peripherals to standard PC vs. using an SBC with integrated interfaces - it's a different story.
Though IF RPi starts selling their new RP1 PCI-e peripherals chip, we may see PCi-e boards with all these interfaces for x86 - but running only on linux which would severely limit the sold quantities....
@CharlieLaub : It's certainly viable. But for relays compare e.g. to https://roboticsbackend.com/control-arduino-with-python-and-pyfirmata-from-raspberry-pi/ + https://vi.aliexpress.com/item/1005005981410045.html
Actually it was 150€ plus 30€ RAM, but still much better value for the money. I just had a look and those Asus barebones are still around. Price nowadays for a newer, but similar one is slightly higher, starting from 180€. Given I bough mine three years ago, this is absolutely reasonable.
It's perfect. Small, totally silent (no fan), getting warm but not hot.
I use it with a USB-C display and a wireless keyboard/mouse. Runs W11 Pro.
https://www.amazon.com.be/dp/B0B765VF84/ref=pe_43847721_694249361_TE_SCE_dp_1 , the 256GB version.
I use it with JRiver with room correction provided by Acourate.
Enough storage for music with the SD card slot and 265GB mem.
It's fast enough for this and music play is smooth.
Happy camper.
Jan
I use it with a USB-C display and a wireless keyboard/mouse. Runs W11 Pro.
https://www.amazon.com.be/dp/B0B765VF84/ref=pe_43847721_694249361_TE_SCE_dp_1 , the 256GB version.
I use it with JRiver with room correction provided by Acourate.
Enough storage for music with the SD card slot and 265GB mem.
It's fast enough for this and music play is smooth.
Happy camper.
Jan
