Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi

I recently purchased a Raspberry Pi 3 and a Raspberry Pi Zero W.  I have been learning how to navigate the Linux terminal and have built a few simple projects, which I will document below.

Jump to a Project

Retro Pie - Modified NES Cartridge
Pi Webcam with PS3 Camera
Pi 3 - NAS Storage
Wall-Mounted Calendar

Retro Pie Gaming Console

My cousin has wanted a NES Classic or an SNES Classic for the past two years, but has been unable to find one locally.  This year, I decided to surprise him by disassembling and modifying an old Nintendo game cartridge that I had laying around.

The console is running Retro Pie, which is a custom build for the Raspberry Pi that is specifically tailored to running old emulators and ROM’s.  I purchased an 8BitDo wireless SNES controller and mapped all of the buttons, so it has the same feel as playing with an old SNES controller.

I am surprised at how well the Raspberry Pi Zero W handles the NES and SNES games.  I opted to not install any other platforms (namely PS1 or N64) because I’m not sure the Pi Zero W could handle that demand in processing power.

I chose the Pi Zero W over the Pi3 because NES and SNES are not processor-intensive, and I can run the Pi Zero W without having to use a cooling fan.  Once the initial setup is done, it’s essentially plug-and-play.

I used the following instructions as a basis for this idea: link

Hopefully he will be excited to get this gift for Christmas!

Raspberry Pi Webcam

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Another fun project was to build a Pi webcam using some cheap, easy-to-find components.  I used a Pi3 for this because it really has an effect on the quality of the video feed.  My friend found a ton of PS3 cameras for sale at a local GameStop for about $3ea, and he gave one to me.  I installed Raspbian OS and then installed Motion.

Motion is designed to capture photos or videos when the camera detects motion.  I am not using it as a security camera in any way – I just occasionally like to see what my dog Shadow is up to!  I decided not to have it capture any video or photos; it just acts as a live stream of the present moment.

Inside the network, the feed is very responsive, and all you have to do to access it is type the IP address and port # of the Pi into the address bar.

To access it from outside of the network, you have a few options: you can either manually set up Port Forwarding on your router, and have an open port at all times (which can be somewhat of a security vulnerability), or there is a second option.  I chose to use a free service called Remot3.it to access it from outside of the network.  It’s a more secure and elegant solution, in my opinion.  The feed when you access it from outside the network isn’t as seamless as I would like…but we can’t have it all!

All-in-all, it was a fun little side project, for sure.

NAS Storage Device

I have an ASUS RT-68U router that I recently purchased, which has USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports on the back.  I purchased a Western Digital Red 4gb NAS drive and my intention was to plug it directly into the router and use it as a NAS storage device.  When I unboxed it and tried to do this, I discovered something that I hadn’t considered – the router only supported up to 2TB hard drives while using the FAT file structure.  I was going to use FAT over NTFS or Mac OS Extended because FAT is read/write capable between both Windows and Mac machines.  I use a Macbook, and my girlfriend uses a Windows 10 machine, and we both needed to have read/write capabilities with this solution.

So unfortunately it was back to square one.  I decided to try and use the Raspberry Pi as a NAS device, and luckily I came across a product called Open Media Vault.  I flashed the image onto a blank Micro SD card, loaded it into the Pi, and connected it to the network.  The initial configuration was a bit tricky, but after fiddling with it, I now have a great NAS solution that only cost me the price of the hard drive / enclosure!  I couldn’t be happier.

I combined this with Carbon Copy Cloner and now have automatic backups of only certain directories on my Mac.  The NAS drive is specifically designed to run constantly, so I can connect to the backup server whenever I please.  This may have been a more elegant solution than the Asus router would have been, and I got to learn something in the process!  A blessing in disguise!

Wall Calendar

I created a Raspberry Pi wall calendar using a custom Dakboard layout, along with an old monitor and some pieces of wood that I had laying around.  I think it came out pretty well, and it’s a great way for me to stay organized.

 

Parts List:

And the wood for the frame / trim I had laying around in the garage – I used some wood glue for the trim and then used a small air nailer to build the frame.

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