My reason is this … last year I bought the original (expensive) RPI '7 touch screen.
But, I couldn’t (without hacking) dim the back light or switch it completely on/off when not needed and when a sensor detected someone was really watching/using that screen.
Basically an always ON display… very bad for your battery
So with this little HDMI and touch screen, it should be possible to create that behaviour, when my hand is close to the screen it switches on and you see a nice menu / graph / data, want to try and build that with the python framework KIVY
Looking like micro SD card had enough in my home gateway. Do you think I could do some “Santa Clause forensic investigation” tomorrow as a (lame) excuse to climb up on the roof to recover it? Kidding… I will leave it to the 26th!!!
That said it looks like my original RAKberry Pi gateway is heading for the workbench, I shall power up my @Charles Pi Zero W design gateway as a stop-gap.
Merci Charles
How long was it running for all told? Which s/w build was installed/ any SD Card mitigation included etc…would be useful to know background and your experience.
Also did unit see any unplanned power outages during its operating time - I’ve only seen failures immediately after power outs or within a few days of…
With regard to the SD card, it has been on the roof for two winters and 1.5 summers and I am sure it wasn’t new either. Ireland so normally temperate, some wide swings in temperatures by chance in this card’s life. The packet forwarder died before, I can’t recall exactly why but I do sort of remember re-building the application using Git and Resin.io. The gateway also stopped right after a power cut/reset in one of those autumn storms. It restarted with a power cycle then but not today
For DIY I prefer JST-XH 4-pin instead of Grove (also the 2, 3 and 5-pin versions can come handy). Like Grove JST-XH uses 2.54mm spacing, but they are not compatible with each other unfortunately.
I hate being hostage to proprietary connectors. The way I solve the problem is that, whenever I buy something with grove connectors, I leverage off the connector housing leaving the pins soldered in place, then I pull the pins out of a JST housing and push the JST housing onto the original grove connector pins. No more compatibility hassles.
I totally agree about disliking proprietary connectors, I always use connectors which I can dual source. I’m currently using a Molex housing 22-01-2041 with terminals 0008500113 which I buy on a roll. Probably interchangeable with the JST you use. I selected these as I have access to an Applicator and Press which can cut and strip wires and crimp the terminal.
The purpose of grove connectors on sensor boards, is just to diffentiate between ‘normal’ JST connectors, So you don’t , by mistake , mix them and see some magic smoke.
Main use of course are dev boards and easy interchangeable modules, because the connections (I2C) are all the same.
For industrial mass production its probably cheaper to use non grove connectors, for easy dev and education its a perfect , non soldering , system imho.
