Sunday, December 13, 2015

Ed - Raspberry Pi "Entertainment Director"

So, I've been wanting to build a Raspberry Pi "box" for a while.  This one, in particular, is built for portability and travel.  The idea is to put the Raspberry Pi into a box that has all the necessary components and can run off of 12V or 110V, with ports for both the van's RCA Aux inputs as well as HDMI for when we get to our destination, be it a hotel or whatever.

Originally I had planned to enclose it i one of those carpeted speaker boxes you can get from an audio supply store or Best Buy etc., however with the minimum price being $50+ for it, I decided to go another way.  Hobby Lobby shleps all good cheap and cool items and digging around there I found this for $12;



So added in the following components;

  • Raspberry Pi 2 (with 32gig card).
  • 10 port, 12V, Powered USB hub.
  • USB extension cables to round external ports on the side of the case.
  • HDMI extension cable to side of the case.
  • Power extension to side of the case (home-built with cable and port scavenged from old router).
  • Super Nintendo knockoff USB joysticks, USB wifi card, etc.
  • 1TB USB drive
Now the system is setup to dual boot, going from RetroPie (old game machine emulator with roms) to OpenElec to watch movies etc. that have been loaded to the 1TB hard drive.  The system also creates a wifi hotspot in the van - allowing kids to connect up their tablets and game together in minecraft etc.  Big first test is coming up for this system, but so far so good - driveway testing passed!  Here are a few more shots of Ed.