The Atomic TV

[Outlander]

Right on!!! You got an 8gb? Good score... those seem to be hard to get ahold of.

Grabbed it right away when BuyaPi.ca emailed they were taking orders. I'm anxiously awaiting the 64 bit O/S

Oh, my family has decided 3 RPi basement has officially secured my "geek" status. Following the intervention, I revealed: work laptop, personal laptop, Chromebook and Ubuntu linux laptop were on the other side of the room (and that I had 2 spare Arduinos in a drawer). No wonder my hydro bill went up.

 

[gte718p]

Grabbed it right away when BuyaPi.ca emailed they were taking orders. I'm anxiously awaiting the 64 bit O/S

Oh, my family has decided 3 RPi basement has officially secured my "geek" status. Following the intervention, I revealed: work laptop, personal laptop, Chromebook and Ubuntu linux laptop were on the other side of the room (and that I had 2 spare Arduinos in a drawer). No wonder my hydro bill went up.

Rookie, you don't need an intervention. You need more toys.

Right now in my office I have, a Pi3B running OctoPrint for my 3D printer and laser, a Pi4 running my home automation project, a Pi4 running PiHole and Rasp AP as my office wifi and DNS server, a Pi3B running and LED matrix with a very very very accurate clock (+-.000001 seconds) and a Pi Zero for my telemetry/weather station. It used to live at my marina but since I have moved it needs a new home. Finally a Pi3B laptop because they where a race sponsor.

I have 2 arduino unos running GRBL for the laser and the CNC mill, a hand full of Adafruit Metro (Uno clones but better) where I'm teaching high school kids to do telemetry, 5 micros running LED displays and art work, and I just got a shipment of 20 ESP-01's in from China. I don't know why I needed that many but they are $.80 each and incredibly versatile. They only have two GPIO, but they have native wifi and are my new go to processor.

I bought the ESPs for a desk lighting project.

Then there is the windows desktop, my Linux server running Ubunutu LTS, my Dell Laptop, Macbook.


I think I strongly need that intervention.

 

[Ryan]

So question... I have an extra Pi Zero W sitting around that I tried to use on a TV project. It just couldn't run HD video smoothly enough for my needs...

What's a good and functional project to use this thing on?

 

[mv213]

So question... I have an extra Pi Zero W sitting around that I tried to use on a TV project. It just couldn't run HD video smoothly enough for my needs...

What's a good and functional project to use this thing on?

You could make an internet radio out of it with an add-on DAC card. There is a pre-built OS and application called Volumio (volumio.org) that I’m using on mine as my garage radio. You just need a few plug and play parts and to flash the volumio OS to your SD card. Volumio.org has a forum so you can look at other peoples’ projects to get ideas.

 

[Outlander]

Rookie, you don't need an intervention. You need more toys.

Right now in my office I have, a Pi3B running OctoPrint for my 3D printer and laser, a Pi4 running my home automation project, a Pi4 running PiHole and Rasp AP as my office wifi and DNS server, a Pi3B running and LED matrix with a very very very accurate clock (+-.000001 seconds) and a Pi Zero for my telemetry/weather station. It used to live at my marina but since I have moved it needs a new home. Finally a Pi3B laptop because they where a race sponsor.

I have 2 arduino unos running GRBL for the laser and the CNC mill, a hand full of Adafruit Metro (Uno clones but better) where I'm teaching high school kids to do telemetry, 5 micros running LED displays and art work, and I just got a shipment of 20 ESP-01's in from China. I don't know why I needed that many but they are $.80 each and incredibly versatile. They only have two GPIO, but they have native wifi and are my new go to processor.

I bought the ESPs for a desk lighting project.

Then there is the windows desktop, my Linux server running Ubunutu LTS, my Dell Laptop, Macbook.


I think I strongly need that intervention.

 

[gte718p]

So question... I have an extra Pi Zero W sitting around that I tried to use on a TV project. It just couldn't run HD video smoothly enough for my needs...

What's a good and functional project to use this thing on?

I use the Zero to replace arduinos in a lot of control projects. I also really like it for telemetry projects as the built in SD card give plenty of storage unlike the arduino. The ability to run python, makes it a good bit easier for internet connected control.

I know you have moved past it, but a W will run HD video if you don't have a GUI for the OS.

Internet Radio as already mentioned. Adafruit makes a nice little hat for $12
https://www.adafruit.com/product/3346 or https://www.adafruit.com/product/4452

Internet connected stop light controller
Dust collector controller
Shop alarm with remote monitoring
LED lighting controller
Garage door controller with remote monitoring
Shop or home energy monitor
Garden Watering controller
Christmas light controller

 

[NUTTSGT]

Kinda surprised you don't have Corvette Summer loaded on it.

 

[Ryan]

Kinda surprised you don't have Corvette Summer loaded on it.

Damnit. Another good one!

 

[Ryan]

I use the Zero to replace arduinos in a lot of control projects. I also really like it for telemetry projects as the built in SD card give plenty of storage unlike the arduino. The ability to run python, makes it a good bit easier for internet connected control.

I know you have moved past it, but a W will run HD video if you don't have a GUI for the OS.

Internet Radio as already mentioned. Adafruit makes a nice little hat for $12
https://www.adafruit.com/product/3346 or https://www.adafruit.com/product/4452

Internet connected stop light controller
Dust collector controller
Shop alarm with remote monitoring
LED lighting controller
Garage door controller with remote monitoring
Shop or home energy monitor
Garden Watering controller
Christmas light controller

I was trying to run 1080p from omxplayer... and just couldn't get it smooth...

 

[gte718p]

Darn I typed a response and lost it.

It should work, but the world should be a fair place.

1st place to look is the SD card. Is it a genuine Class 10. Lots of faces especially if ordered from Amazon as they mingle "like stock" between direct purchase and 3rd party provided. USB drives work better then SD cards.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/sd-card-speed-test/


Not all silicon is created equal. You may have a "weak" chip. Another Zero might work perfectly.

Make sure the power supply is good. HD video is going to push a zero to near its limit. If the voltage drops on the power supply the clock speed will drop.

You can also try over clocking the W. I have found these settings to be stable, but hot. Definitely need active cooling.
arm_freq=1000
gpu_freq=500
core_freq=500
sdram_freq=500
sdram_schmoo=0x02000020
over_voltage=6 (default)
sdram_over_voltage=2

I stole those from a user on the GPI Boy forum. They seem to work well for me. That being said GPI Boy is a good project for using a spare pi. You can also run RetroPi on a zero. Overclocking recommended.

 

[Ryan]

Darn I typed a response and lost it.

It should work, but the world should be a fair place.

1st place to look is the SD card. Is it a genuine Class 10. Lots of faces especially if ordered from Amazon as they mingle "like stock" between direct purchase and 3rd party provided. USB drives work better then SD cards.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/sd-card-speed-test/


Not all silicon is created equal. You may have a "weak" chip. Another Zero might work perfectly.

Make sure the power supply is good. HD video is going to push a zero to near its limit. If the voltage drops on the power supply the clock speed will drop.

You can also try over clocking the W. I have found these settings to be stable, but hot. Definitely need active cooling.
arm_freq=1000
gpu_freq=500
core_freq=500
sdram_freq=500
sdram_schmoo=0x02000020
over_voltage=6 (default)
sdram_over_voltage=2

I stole those from a user on the GPI Boy forum. They seem to work well for me. That being said GPI Boy is a good project for using a spare pi. You can also run RetroPi on a zero. Overclocking recommended.

I've been your ***** all morning. Overclocking worked... video ran perfectly... but I don't have room in the current case for this project for active cooling.

I think you are right - I might have a weak chip.

 

[gte718p]

I think you are right - I might have a weak chip.

To be honest it is not all that rare. If even on Intel or AMD chips the clock speed is listed as up to or designed for a certain speed. AMD and Intel quality test a certain number of chip to give a reasonable assessment that the batch meets specs.

For those into serious performance you can actually buy OEM or aftermarket graded chips sets, that have been tested and proven to be better then the design spec. For every chip that is super fast, there is one that is super slow. Most people don't push their computers hard enough to know the difference. For the ********* speed fanatics (who knew that is an entire hobby unto itself) they call buying an ungraded chip and having it over perform winning the silicon lottery.

I'm a big fan of the Raspberry foundation, however when you are selling an entire computer for $5 there is just not a lot of room for extensive QA. I have seen a pretty wide variety of performance.

Glad you got it working.

 

[mobiledynamics]

Just did a keyword search and this was the only thread that came up. Was testing adblock on the router level - which I found interesting. Anyhow, fast forward I went down the rabbit hole and now have piHole @ home. Amazed on how effective it has been !

 

[NUTTSGT]

Well since this thread came back up, close to a year later, how's the Atomic TV working ?

 

[Ryan]

Well since this thread came back up, close to a year later, how's the Atomic TV working ?

has not been off in over a year.

 

[Ryan]

Update on this project... As of today, this TV had been on for 1975 straight days. Went into the office this morning to a black screen. It's finally shut down. Think it might be the power supply, but I'll have to take it apart to see. I sort of miss it already man...

EDIT: Server logs showed its last down time was 47,436 hours ago.

 

[NUTTSGT]

Damn, that's a pretty good life.