# Raspberry Pi - A Cheap Alternative To Arduino?



## Feldon (18/5/12)

I don't use these automation gizmos myself, but I saw this story in the Melbourne _Age _newspaper and thought it might be of interest those brewers who do.





http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/comp...0517-1ys5g.html


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## MastersBrewery (18/5/12)

yep pretty cool bit of kit, but you'd almost need a project group or development group working together to get the full potential out of it. But you could with something like that end up with a fully intergrated touch screen controler tying in applications such as beer smith, and other calc's such as water treatment. So choose the recipe and ALL calcs done for you, pour in grain walk away. Prolly something the guys at brewtroller would be interested in.


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## mfeighan (18/5/12)

i got one it is pretty amazing for its size, however i have been fooling around with the gpio ports and it can be a bit sluggish when using the kernel 1 wire bus etc, so that side project is on hold till the gertboard expansion comes out. 
Makes a pretty sweet media box though


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## Edak (18/5/12)

While it is small and has great processing power, it's still no competitor for the arduino because it lacks the same IO options and is still more expensive (considering I get my arduino clones for under $20 delivered).

When I do receive mine in a couple of weeks I will aim to put it into a MAME cabinet for my man cave.


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## mfeighan (18/5/12)

did you end up getting from rs or farnell?


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## fraser_john (18/5/12)

Wonder if it could run Ubuntu Server? Be a great light weight, low power consumption home server.


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## DanteHicks (18/5/12)

I am still waiting on my Pi, planning a network media box that will fix to the back of the TV.


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## enoch (18/5/12)

Arduino and Raspberry PI have different targets. A good chat with the designers. 
IEEE article


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## mfeighan (18/5/12)

fraser_john said:


> Wonder if it could run Ubuntu Server? Be a great light weight, low power consumption home server.



fileserver will struggle performance wise as it is limited to usb 2.0 hard drives and 10/100 network. it could be just me but i like my stuff off the server at gigabit speeds  it definitely handles debian/ubuntu without issues. Samba shares require a bit of overhead and sometimes struggles, NFS works without a hitch


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## seravitae (18/5/12)

I am developing a brew controller for retail and originally thought the Pi was going to cause serious problems due to its extremely low cost. However as stated, the I/O flexibility is poor, you would need further development just to get it in a useful state, and then the outputs are not useful (HDMI only) depending on what kind of screen you want to interface it to. It is a nice gizmo but I believe it will end up like most other novel arduino/mini-pc designs - useful for a few tinkerers, but for the vast majority they will end up as toys or collecting dust on a shelf.


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## Feldon (3/6/12)

FYI - a story on the Raspberry Pi is in today's _Sunday Age_ newspaper.




Makes this statement:
_"It's not designed to rival cut-price netbooks and all-in-one PCs, in the same way that kits for brewing your own beer aren't designed to rival what you can easily buy in a can. The joy is as much in the brewing as in the tasting."_​ http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/comp...l#ixzz1wgA9wit3

There's also a bloke in the US who is calling on homebrewers to answer an online questionaire about their needs re. using the Raspberry Pi for automated brewing.
_"I am writing a business plan for BrewPi.com, a new open source brewing/fermentation controller based the Raspberry Pi and Arduino.
This will be the first brewing controller that truly connects your brewing to the Internet. You can see your brewing data (temperatures, gravity) and adjust your temperatures from anywhere. But you can also just use it privately on your home network, your choice."_​ http://brewpi.com/survey/index.php?sid=72293&lang=en


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## DJR (17/7/12)

I am going to get one. I have been waiting a while, RS has had supply issues.

They seem to be available without limits now. http://raspberrypi.rsdelivers.com/default.aspx

My issue with Arduino is you have to live with a few limitations like RAM etc, the Raspberry Pi means I can port my existing stuff over. 

Using a USB 1-wire bus master and the OWFS library should be OK with it. This is what i have used so far, but needs a laptop to run presently, a Raspberry Pi means I can put the unit in the control box along with the SSR's. I will probably need a little touchscreen or something like that, but it is easy enough to connect it to the wireless LAN via an ethernet to WLAN adaptor or just wire it to the network here. Then i can run an simple webserver on it and get data out that way. 

It will also make a good little learning PC for the kids when they are old enough to really use it with something like Edubuntu on it.


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## Edak (17/7/12)

My Pi is running a SNES emulator at the moment, runs at mostly full speed but the audio is not 100% yet, will need some more time before their potential is realized.


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## micblair (30/3/13)

Just seen this

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f170/strangebrew-elsinore-raspberry-pi-based-brewery-controller-396627/


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## Edak (31/3/13)

nice one, I might consider replacing my arduino fridge controller with an RPi. It's not really necessary but it's fun tinkering around...


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## pk.sax (24/7/13)

Hmnnnnnnn. I'm just starting to think seriously about a programmable mashtun. Anyone done anything further in this that could advise? I'm a total noob when it comes to working out intricate wiring diagrams, although I do better with system diagrams.


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## bum (24/7/13)

sleep 3600;

?


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