The first part for my 1-wire tempature rig arrived on Saturday, and I began the process of getting it setup with the CherryPal I planned on using. Sadly, this particular install of Ubuntu doesn’t seem to have USB-Serial support compiled in… which basically translates to me not being able to make this work using the Cherrypal as I can’t find a *safe* way to upgrade/rebuild the OS on this device (no boot menu/media).
That said, I’m now considering my options for what to replace it with…
Option A) A ~$35.00 ARM processor based Raspberry Pi – I’ve been looking at these for a long time to play around with. They run a version of Debian that should do just fine. The biggest selling point for this little guy is that it comes in at a whopping 3W’s of power consumption. Lower power consumption is a good thing for an always-on project like this. The biggest downside is that it doesn’t have wifi built in.
Option B) A CompuLab fit-PC2 – These little devices pull a little bit more power (6 to 8W)… but they are full fledged Intel machines. They do have wifi built in, and because it’s a x86 chipset, I can run pretty much anything I want on it (Windows, Ubuntu, etc.). Â The biggest downside is cost… coming in at $400. It also has infrared, which I find interesting. I don’t believe this little guy includes an HDD though (I probably have a spare laying around).
There’s a chance I’l find an old laptop to use… They generally are pretty good about power consumption, plus they would have a screen for when I need it.
I’m going to wait a bit before I decide which one to order… But open to suggestions… For some reason I have a feeling I’m going to want the power.
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You could borrow my Pi for a bit and decided if you want one or not….
Thanks for the offer.. I have access to one from an MSA kid to play with… I’m just not sure I want to rely on an ARM processor… Not sure it will have all the power I need long term. I do however I like the low voltage side of things.
You could also adapt an OUYA for $99