Raspberry PI & Electronic Punching

[pigweed]

The power requirements of the Raspberry PI, 5V from a micro-USB or 4x AA size cells, and its IO capabilities make it ideally suited for use as a small low-cost, low power, portable computer for use with Electronic Puching in the field with either SportIdent or Emit.

A touch screen could be added but a normal screen would suffice with a mouse and keyboard plugged into the USB ports or a USB hub.

What's lacking at the moment is the software.

Is there anybody already looking at this, or if not, is there much milage in an open-source project being set-up to create the software and interface a suitable screen?

[andy]

for what purpose?

[pigweed]

for what purpose?

For use wiht Electronic Puncing in the field.

I.e. registration and downloading at events. Rather than having a couple of laptops and a big generator just a couple of Raspberry PIs and small batteries.

[pigweed]

by the way, a bit of hardware with a Real Time Clock will be requried but this isn't too difficult.

[andy]

for what purpose?

For use wiht Electronic Puncing in the field.

I.e. registration and downloading at events. Rather than having a couple of laptops and a big generator just a couple of Raspberry PIs and small batteries.

For the event systems itself, and I might be wrong on this, but I don't think there'll be anywhere near enough power for this without a substantial amount of development work. Given that SI timing systems are very cheap and laptops are also very cheap I'm not sure it'd even come close to being worth it. Current software doesn't run all that well on my netbook which is considerably more powerful than these.

I thought you had meant timing things away from registration like radio controls or similar, which I'd have said was more worthy of pursuing.

[madmike]

For use wiht Electronic Puncing in the field.

I.e. registration and downloading at events. Rather than having a couple of laptops and a big generator just a couple of Raspberry PIs and small batteries.

how would you power your printers then?

[pigweed]

There are several till-roll style printers available that work on battery power or also 5V supplies.

Whether Laptops are expensive or not depends upon your circumstances. A large club which has the man power to hold many level C and B events throughout the year that attract 200 odd competitors on average each time may see laptops as cheap but a small club with a core of 50 regular competitors that holds mainly level D events attracting 50 odd competitors has a very different perspective.

I belived a Raspberry PI has the potential to make things easier for small clubs and small events by eliminating the need for a generator, getting the results into the competition database at download, instead of downloading an MTR later. Larger events could benefit by making things simipler - again no generator and simplification of the download/registration areas.

[pigweed]

For most circumstances it'll be the laptops that are the more power hungrey than the printers. I suspect if someone's using a basic home bubblejet printer (not a laser printer) then a single 12V car battery and inverter would power it sufficiently for the time it was needed to be on to print out displayed results.

Till roll printers only need internal batteries or a 5V supply for splits.

A single 12V car battery and inverter is a lot easier and simpler than a generator.

[Big Jon]

Maroc have been using laptops for its events for years now - we have one or two (depending on likely numbers at the event and one spare laptop battery. Not a huge cost and using off the shelf equipment means there are not significant technical issues. Still if someone is prepared to spend hundreds of hours redesigning the wheel, good luck to them.

[andy]

Still if someone is prepared to spend hundreds of hours redesigning the wheel, good luck to them.

ESOC have a hand-me-down 1995 esque laptop which I've never seen. At events I use a combination of my own and other member's laptops. surely out of 50 members you have enough laptops to use!

[usuallylast]

We are a small club, but there are some good cheap refurbished laptops out there if there isn't the cash for a new one. We've also found that a couple of leisure batteries (use one, keep one as backup) are a great improvement on a generator - much quieter as well. Less fuss all round. So far, we haven't had to resort to either the backup battery or the laptop battery yet, even for the larger events.