The Hackers Lab - Rpi edition

@anon79434934 Know of any hardware hackers that would be up to the task of making a diy lan turtle??

1 Like

Grab an Arietta G25 and attach a USB-ETH adapter to the header (you may need to open it up and do some soldering) or hook up a ENC28J60 module to the SPI bus if 10Mbps is fine with you. You just need to solder 4/5 cables in any cases… then it is just a matter of what SW do you want to install.

You get, double or quadruple memory… less power consumption (https://www.acmesystems.it/power_consumption), similar CPU clock (but this is an ARM not a MIPS), option to easily add wifi and a bunch of interfaces in the expansion header…

Rpi Zero only has 1 USB… if you use it for the USB network interface you cannot attach an USB-ETH adapter (the port is either Host or OTG but not both). So you have to go for the SPI module (like the ENC28J60).

However the Rpi Zero is not that small…

EDIT: Another interesting option is the VoCore (http://vocore.io/). Apparently the latest version does not have an USB OTG any more, but in theory can have up to 5 Ethernet ports.

2 Likes

Nope, and I doubt there are any because it really is not beneficial in any way. It certainly won’t be cheaper and it will be unstable af in the first few tries probably, increasing the cost. Let alone that there is software involved that us hardware guys don’t understand.

The big difference between us hardware dudes and you software dudes is that we care about efficiency and not so much about playing around. After all, we work with things that cost money while software is mostly free of charge. And thus, we don’t like to reinvent the wheel to discover the workings like you software guys do. “If it works like you want it to, it works. Don’t touch it” <- a hardware hacker. At least that’s how I see it.

Then again, I never said no one would be interested. Ask around a little. Maybe someone will be interested.

1 Like

Stop being so negative and practical :stuck_out_tongue:

Hacking and making something work isn’t about cost effectiveness. It’s because making your own stuff is cool! I don’t think you can talk for all hardware guys, after all, there are a lot of them. In time too, things do come down in price.

This project is a mix of hardware and software, so we’d have to work together on this. Not exactly a chore though.

2 Likes

That’s 100% not a mindset of a hardware hacker or any hacker for that matter.

4 Likes

I guess that is just me then. When I make something, it just needs to work, that’s all.

1 Like