5 ms·

I still use Pis in my 3d printers. Laptop would be too big, and a ESP could not run the software. "China clone" might work, but the nice part of the pi is the i

by Mashimo 9mo ago

I still use Pis in my 3d printers. Laptop would be too big, and a ESP could not run the software. "China clone" might work, but the nice part of the pi is the images available. It just works™ I'm also currently building a small device with 5" touchscreen that can control a midi fx padle of mine. It's just so easy to find images, code and documentation on how to use the GPIO pins. Might be niche, but that is just what the Pi excels at. It's a board for tinkers and it works.

joe_mamba 9mo ago
Yeah sure, for niche use cases it's the best and only choice, but that's why it now commands niche prices ;)
- Mashimo 9mo ago
  Yeah, Pi 5 2gb is ~20% more expensive compared to pi3b on release, factoring in inflation (Both in including VAT and local prices) It's 10 bucks more. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Still half the price that I see intel NUCs for sale. Which of course are way more capable. But still, I don't mind the price that much. I could go with a cheaper alternative, but then AFAIK you might have to fiddle with images, kernel and documentation. For me that is worth 10 bucks.
  - joe_mamba 9mo ago
    >Yeah, Pi 5 2gb is ~20% more expensive compared to pi3b on release, factoring in inflation (Both in including VAT and local prices) I don't really care how it compares to past models or inflation to justify its price tag. I was just comparing to to what you can buy on the used market today for the same price and it gets absolutely dunked on in the value proposition by notebooks since the modern full spec RPi is designed to more of a ARM PC than an cheap embedded board. 60 Euros for 2GB and 100 for 8GB models is kind of a ripoff if you don't really need it for a specific niche use case. I think an updated Pi-zero with 2GB RAM and better CPU stripped of other bells and whistles for 30 Euros max, would be amazing value, and more back to the original roots of cheap and simple server/embedded board that made the first pi sell well.
    - Mashimo 9mo ago
      A used notebook was also better in price to performance 10 years ago, no?
      - joe_mamba 9mo ago
        Yeash, but not as good as an alternative to a PI back then, since 8 year old notebooks 10 years ago (so 18 year old notebooks today) were too bulky and power hungry to be a real alternative. Power bricks were all 90W and CPU TDW was 35-45W. But notebooks from the 2018 era (intel 8th gen) have quite low power chips that make a good PI alternatives nowadays. The mobile and embedded X86 chips have closed the gap a lot in power consumption since the PI first launched. Now you can even get laptops with broken screens for free, and just use their motherboard as a home server alternative to a PI. Power consumption will be a bit higher, but not enough to offset the money you just saved anytime soon.
        kalaksi 9mo ago
        Laptops are still pretty bulky and power hungry in comparison if you're looking for very SFF and passive cooling.
        kube-system 9mo ago
        Pop open a cheap Celeron N laptop, and often, the motherboard inside is essentially a passively cooled SBC. https://www.insidemylaptop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Lenovo-Ideapad-110-16.jpg https://www.insidemylaptop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Le... The big pain with using something like this would mostly be the IO and odd form factor.
        joe_mamba 9mo ago
        You can passively cool a laptop CPU too if that's your jam. Plus, latest RPI 5 cases now feature fans to not thermal throttle :))
        jasomill 9mo ago
        You can get a 5-year-old laptop with a perfectly working screen for free if you're on good terms with the owner of a company who has a stack of them sitting in a storage closet waiting for disposal. :) Which is basically just cutting out the middlemen in a transaction that might cost $100 on eBay. Used corporate laptops are particularly cost-effective if you're interested in running Windows, as unlike Intel NUCs and most SBC products, they typically include hardware-locked Windows 10 Pro licenses which can be upgraded to Windows 11 Pro for free.
  - hypeatei 9mo ago
    > Yeah, Pi 5 2gb is ~20% more expensive compared to pi3b What prices are you using for the 3b and 5 to get this percentage? The lowest percentage I got from available data is a 57% increase ($35 -> $55)
    - Mashimo 9mo ago
      I added inflation. 40 EUR form 2016 is now ~52 EUR. Compared to 62 EUR for the current model.
      - pixl97 9mo ago
        Are you adding in the correct 'RAM' inflation being that it's costs are up dramatically?
        Mashimo 9mo ago
        I just looked up the current local prices I can buy a unit for.
  - jasomill 9mo ago
    The main things I use Pis for are 1. Testing images to be deployed on customer Pis. 2. Testing software on ARM64 Linux. Pis are still cheaper than used Apple Silicon Macs, and require less fiddling to run Linux. I currently have a free Oracle Cloud instance that would work just as well for this, but it could go away at any time and it's a PITA to reprovision. 3. Running Mathematica, because it's free on Pi, I only use it a few times a year, and a fully-loaded Pi 5 is cheaper than a single-year personal license to run it on any other platform. 4. Silly stuff like one Pi 3 I have set up to emulate a vintage IBM mainframe.
05 9mo ago
You can run Klipper on any Linux SBC with a USB port, RPi works but so does an old router that supports OpenWRT, a cheap Android TV box that could be flashed to run Linux, or any of the OrangePi/Banana Pi/Alliwinner H3 boards. You don't really need hardware UART because most of the printer boards you'd be using have either native USB or USB to UART converters. For that pedal, would an old Android tablet that supports USB OTG work? Because that's got to be much cheaper, and with much better SDK.
- Mashimo 9mo ago
  Correct. But when I looked into it a few years back fir OrangePi it was not as easy as downloading raspbian. All the images made for the pi would not work, you had to download a kernel from another place or something like that? Sorry I don't remember the details, but it was not as easy as a pi. How much cheaper then 50 bucks can a tablet get? With the pi I can quickly in a hacky way connect rotary encoders with female-female dupon cables, use a python GPIO library made for raspberry pi. https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1461079634354639132/1461079638565585046/AP1GczMANoPQsbT1qhTg5sldqkOgDBfyppw-dUyEIBFT7O2hLP2WTGSLPQOnKQw1656-h1248-s-no-gm.png https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1461079634354639132... I can also use it for Zynthian. And if I'm done with it, I can build a new printer :P
  - b112 9mo ago
    I think the part you're missing, is how expensive the Pi is now. Buy one with a psu, and you're 100 to 150.
    - Mashimo 9mo ago
      Just a few weeks ago I bought a pi5. See my other comment, pi5 2 GB is about ~10% more expensive then when 3 or 3b got released when factoring in inflation. ~60 EUR including 25% VAT. With PSU it's 77 EUR including 25% VAT right now. 4 GB version + case + 64GB SD + PSU = 135 EUR, but I don't need that much ram, disk space or the case. When I put it into a 3d printer I also don't need the PSU.

by Mashimo 9mo ago

joe_mamba 9mo ago

Yeah sure, for niche use cases it's the best and only choice, but that's why it now commands niche prices ;)

Mashimo 9mo ago
Yeah, Pi 5 2gb is ~20% more expensive compared to pi3b on release, factoring in inflation (Both in including VAT and local prices) It's 10 bucks more. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Still half the price that I see intel NUCs for sale. Which of course are way more capable. But still, I don't mind the price that much. I could go with a cheaper alternative, but then AFAIK you might have to fiddle with images, kernel and documentation. For me that is worth 10 bucks.
- joe_mamba 9mo ago
  >Yeah, Pi 5 2gb is ~20% more expensive compared to pi3b on release, factoring in inflation (Both in including VAT and local prices) I don't really care how it compares to past models or inflation to justify its price tag. I was just comparing to to what you can buy on the used market today for the same price and it gets absolutely dunked on in the value proposition by notebooks since the modern full spec RPi is designed to more of a ARM PC than an cheap embedded board. 60 Euros for 2GB and 100 for 8GB models is kind of a ripoff if you don't really need it for a specific niche use case. I think an updated Pi-zero with 2GB RAM and better CPU stripped of other bells and whistles for 30 Euros max, would be amazing value, and more back to the original roots of cheap and simple server/embedded board that made the first pi sell well.
  - Mashimo 9mo ago
    A used notebook was also better in price to performance 10 years ago, no?
    - joe_mamba 9mo ago
      Yeash, but not as good as an alternative to a PI back then, since 8 year old notebooks 10 years ago (so 18 year old notebooks today) were too bulky and power hungry to be a real alternative. Power bricks were all 90W and CPU TDW was 35-45W. But notebooks from the 2018 era (intel 8th gen) have quite low power chips that make a good PI alternatives nowadays. The mobile and embedded X86 chips have closed the gap a lot in power consumption since the PI first launched. Now you can even get laptops with broken screens for free, and just use their motherboard as a home server alternative to a PI. Power consumption will be a bit higher, but not enough to offset the money you just saved anytime soon.
      - kalaksi 9mo ago
        Laptops are still pretty bulky and power hungry in comparison if you're looking for very SFF and passive cooling.
        kube-system 9mo ago
        Pop open a cheap Celeron N laptop, and often, the motherboard inside is essentially a passively cooled SBC. https://www.insidemylaptop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Lenovo-Ideapad-110-16.jpg https://www.insidemylaptop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Le... The big pain with using something like this would mostly be the IO and odd form factor.
        joe_mamba 9mo ago
        You can passively cool a laptop CPU too if that's your jam. Plus, latest RPI 5 cases now feature fans to not thermal throttle :))
      - jasomill 9mo ago
        You can get a 5-year-old laptop with a perfectly working screen for free if you're on good terms with the owner of a company who has a stack of them sitting in a storage closet waiting for disposal. :) Which is basically just cutting out the middlemen in a transaction that might cost $100 on eBay. Used corporate laptops are particularly cost-effective if you're interested in running Windows, as unlike Intel NUCs and most SBC products, they typically include hardware-locked Windows 10 Pro licenses which can be upgraded to Windows 11 Pro for free.
- hypeatei 9mo ago
  > Yeah, Pi 5 2gb is ~20% more expensive compared to pi3b What prices are you using for the 3b and 5 to get this percentage? The lowest percentage I got from available data is a 57% increase ($35 -> $55)
  - Mashimo 9mo ago
    I added inflation. 40 EUR form 2016 is now ~52 EUR. Compared to 62 EUR for the current model.
    - pixl97 9mo ago
      Are you adding in the correct 'RAM' inflation being that it's costs are up dramatically?
      - Mashimo 9mo ago
        I just looked up the current local prices I can buy a unit for.
- jasomill 9mo ago
  The main things I use Pis for are 1. Testing images to be deployed on customer Pis. 2. Testing software on ARM64 Linux. Pis are still cheaper than used Apple Silicon Macs, and require less fiddling to run Linux. I currently have a free Oracle Cloud instance that would work just as well for this, but it could go away at any time and it's a PITA to reprovision. 3. Running Mathematica, because it's free on Pi, I only use it a few times a year, and a fully-loaded Pi 5 is cheaper than a single-year personal license to run it on any other platform. 4. Silly stuff like one Pi 3 I have set up to emulate a vintage IBM mainframe.

05 9mo ago

You can run Klipper on any Linux SBC with a USB port, RPi works but so does an old router that supports OpenWRT, a cheap Android TV box that could be flashed to run Linux, or any of the OrangePi/Banana Pi/Alliwinner H3 boards. You don't really need hardware UART because most of the printer boards you'd be using have either native USB or USB to UART converters. For that pedal, would an old Android tablet that supports USB OTG work? Because that's got to be much cheaper, and with much better SDK.

Mashimo 9mo ago
Correct. But when I looked into it a few years back fir OrangePi it was not as easy as downloading raspbian. All the images made for the pi would not work, you had to download a kernel from another place or something like that? Sorry I don't remember the details, but it was not as easy as a pi. How much cheaper then 50 bucks can a tablet get? With the pi I can quickly in a hacky way connect rotary encoders with female-female dupon cables, use a python GPIO library made for raspberry pi. https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1461079634354639132/1461079638565585046/AP1GczMANoPQsbT1qhTg5sldqkOgDBfyppw-dUyEIBFT7O2hLP2WTGSLPQOnKQw1656-h1248-s-no-gm.png https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1461079634354639132... I can also use it for Zynthian. And if I'm done with it, I can build a new printer :P
- b112 9mo ago
  I think the part you're missing, is how expensive the Pi is now. Buy one with a psu, and you're 100 to 150.
  - Mashimo 9mo ago
    Just a few weeks ago I bought a pi5. See my other comment, pi5 2 GB is about ~10% more expensive then when 3 or 3b got released when factoring in inflation. ~60 EUR including 25% VAT. With PSU it's 77 EUR including 25% VAT right now. 4 GB version + case + 64GB SD + PSU = 135 EUR, but I don't need that much ram, disk space or the case. When I put it into a 3d printer I also don't need the PSU.