Total noob looking for getting started advice

[Scottomatic]

Im a complete newbie in the realm of playing with electronic parts. A friend has an idea for a cool little device, so we are goofing with it, and I could use some getting started advice from those with knowledge. I want to hook together a LCD screen with a master board and a way to select options on a programmed overlay. I can handle the programming part, but the hardware I'm not so good at. Can someone give me some recommendations on what hardware to start with? I need it all to be small, or course. I have a color LCD screen out of an old Sony cell phone that is about 1.5" x 1.5". What kind of board would allow me to add overlay programming and would have a video output to the screen, and a video input for a camera, as well as a way to add a directional switch? Thanks so much in advance for any advice. - Scotto

 

[BobK]

This is just a wee bit advanced for a newbie. If you want to learn electronics, try first to do something a little more modest, like lighting and LED with the correct current and voltage.

Bob

 

[CocaCola]

Yeah, a little much for a newbie to design and build... Get a single board computer or hack one of the the *nix based handheld video devices... Another option is the new Raspberry Pi boards...

 

[Scottomatic]

Yeah i thought so

I figured this was a big bite to chew for starters, but i'm determined. If i can at least get in the right neighborhood of parts, I can learn pretty fast.

 

[donkey]

it is advanced. you could start with something like arduino but it has limitations, in fact I highly doubt it will stream video, or even a decent picture. but on the plus side it does get you a start. then there is always the adk boards that allow you to hook it up to an android phone which will do most of your work.
and last but not least there is simply the android phones themselves. making an app for them might be a good start. you could do the rest via wifi. I currently use the AIBall from trek and my galaxy s II and that provides some decent pics.

 

[CocaCola]

As I said previous look at the new Raspberry Pi board... It has on board LAN, USB, composite and HDMI video out so you should interfacing it to a camera and display is a whole lot easier then many of the other options, nearly painless... For a whopping $25 or $35 you get basically a whole computer packed into a board the size of a credit card...

The GPU provides Open GL ES 2.0, hardware-accelerated OpenVG, and 1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode.

The GPU is capable of 1Gpixel/s, 1.5Gtexel/s or 24 GFLOPs of general purpose compute and features a bunch of texture filtering and DMA infrastructure.

That is, graphics capabilities are roughly equivalent to Xbox 1 level of performance. Overall real world performance is something like a 300MHz Pentium 2, only with much, much swankier graphics.

It boots a, ARM based *nix OS distribution off an SD card, and you are off and running...

Unlike an Arduino and the sorts this is basically a full featured computer on a board, no need to plug in modules or extra parts to do this or that...

 

[donkey]

what can you plug up to it? if hyperthetically I wanted something better than arduino for a better project would this work?
oh and sorry for hijacking the post for my own evil purposes

 

[CocaCola]

what can you plug up to it? if hyperthetically I wanted something better than arduino for a better project would this work?
oh and sorry for hijacking the post for my own evil purposes

It's a mini computer, and it has multiple i/o lines... Plug in USB stuff like you would your pc, or use the i/o lines like you use any other device... Plug in your HDMI tv and you have video... It's a mini $25 pc... Hit up Google they are finally rolling out the door so the hype is high...

 

[donkey]

coca cola you led me astray there is a huge backlog for the Pi.... any other boards around that price?

 

[CocaCola]

Yes, they are in high demand but if you want one you can still get one, it will just cost a little more from the scalpers, or you can get in line and just wait it out

You can check out the OlinuXino from Olimex

You can also check out their loaded PIC based Duino series, it has a lot to offer... Interpreted BASIC so it's dead simple to learn but not the fastest...

www.olimex.com

I suspect that at the end of the day the Raspberry will initially have the best community support out there, it's just taken everyone by surprise and invoked a ton of curiosity...

 

[(*steve*)]

Just wait until the Chinese start copying them

 

[CocaCola]

Just wait until the Chinese start copying them

I'm sure a few will likely flood the market shortly, but @ $25 retail a unit there isn't much profit to be made as they are already manufactured in Taiwan/China to keep cost down...

The Cloners IMO would be better off making plastic housings and accessories, as that demand will be more sustainable...

 

[KJ6EAD]

They'd be late for that party too. Bud makes two specialty enclosures for the Raspberry Pi.

http://www.budind.com/view/Plastic+Boxes/Microcomputer+Enclosures

 

[CocaCola]

They'd be late for that party too. Bud makes two specialty enclosures for the Raspberry Pi.

No doubt there are cases popping up all over the place, and I'm sure others will continue to jump on the wagon...

 

[donkey]

i like the lego one on their homepage that was cool

 

[donkey]

i am after a little computer for me to be able to plug things into and program from there. everytime I find something its either really expensive, really dodgy or out of stock. I hope rasberry make a crap load of these soon

 

[CocaCola]

I hope rasberry make a crap load of these soon

The initial pre-order run was for 10,000 units... God knows what they are up to now, they are not some huge tech company so I'm sure they are being overwhelmed with the logistics, and reports are the Asian manufactures are to blame for most of the delay...

I was going to jump on the pre-order but I have so much on my plate right now that I decided against it at the time, so I'm just going to ride it out until version two as I hear there are several little quirks that should/hopefully will be addressed... Things like a lack of mounting holes, and 'non-consistent' port layout that makes mounting it in a housing kinda sloppy, to name a few...

 

[donkey]

I am hoping to get my hands on 3 of these for projects. hopefully I can make a mechwarrior.... I have said too much...... just pretend I said... electric cat.... yes... lol

 

[(*steve*)]

I have a colleague who has two of them, one for his 10 yo son, the other for his 8 yo daughter. We were looking at some pretty pink UTP cable the other day, but they aren't getting internet connectivity, so it would be pointless.

Anyway, apparently it's a little weird for him hearing his son tell his daughter how he had to sudo modprobe blah blah to have access to some feature.

His son now understands his fathers "sudo make me a sandwich" t-shirt.