Raspberry Pi Workbench?

[iris]

I was thinking about embedding a raspberry pi in my workbench, so I have access to some computational stuff, google, and EEVblog from it. Does anybody have board suggestions that would work better? I considered something RISC-V, but I like the raspi's convenient GPIO.

Thanks!
 

[brucehoult]

Not sure I understand the RISC-V comment, as many RISC-V SBCs have Pi-compatible 40 pin GPIO headers. Pretty much all the JH7110 boards are fully compatible with 28 GPIOs, power etc. The same is true of the SpacemiT K1 Muse Pi Pro -- fully compatible with Pi 40 pin.

Some with other SoCs have partially compatible 40 pin headers e.g. Milk-V Meles (TH1520) with just 8 GPIOs (plus I think dedicated 3xUART, 2xI2C, 1xSPI, 1xI2S,1xADC?). And the Banana Pi BPI-F3 has the older-style Raspberry Pi 26 pin header.

It may or may not be relevant to you that the above are generally all in a performance class with Arm A55 boards, a little slower than A72 (e.g. Pi 4) but a lot better than A53 (e.g. Pi 3), and there is nothing comparable to the two year old Pi 5 yet.

[abeyer]

A cheap SFF pc and a usb gpio device would likely give you better experience, and quite possibly less expensive than a new pi once you figure in the extras you need with it.

[iris]

Not sure I understand the RISC-V comment, as many RISC-V SBCs have Pi-compatible 40 pin GPIO headers. Pretty much all the JH7110 boards are fully compatible with 28 GPIOs, power etc. The same is true of the SpacemiT K1 Muse Pi Pro -- fully compatible with Pi 40 pin.

Some with other SoCs have partially compatible 40 pin headers e.g. Milk-V Meles (TH1520) with just 8 GPIOs (plus I think dedicated 3xUART, 2xI2C, 1xSPI, 1xI2S,1xADC?). And the Banana Pi BPI-F3 has the older-style Raspberry Pi 26 pin header.

It may or may not be relevant to you that the above are generally all in a performance class with Arm A55 boards, a little slower than A72 (e.g. Pi 4) but a lot better than A53 (e.g. Pi 3), and there is nothing comparable to the two year old Pi 5 yet.

I meant, I am a fan of raspbian and it's gpio interaction

[brucehoult]

I meant, I am a fan of raspbian and it's gpio interaction

??  Looks like exactly the same /sys/class/gpio/gpio4/value etc setup as on my Visionfive 2 (Debian), Milk-V Megrez (Rockos), LicheePi 3A (Bianbu) RISC-V boards.

And with the same Python etc libraries if you want to do it that way.

[paulca]

A cheap SFF pc and a usb gpio device would likely give you better experience, and quite possibly less expensive than a new pi once you figure in the extras you need with it.

Agreed.  A second hand "litre PC" which are sold "reconditioned" for £100 or so in their droves.

Doesn't hit the GPIO requirement though.  I'm fairly sure there are USB GPIO boards though.  I think if I use GPIO like functionality for things, I just use an MCU.

[Ian.M]

Sooner or later you *will* do something nasty to whatever is providing your GPIOs.   With the current cost of memory, it just doesn't make sense to risk taking out the machine providing your workbench web browsing and documentation access.    A Pi Pico 2W or Pi Zero 2W for GPIO access, controlled over a WiFi link from your bench PC provides isolation and limits the cost of any damage.

[SiliconWizard]

I meant, I am a fan of raspbian and it's gpio interaction

??  Looks like exactly the same /sys/class/gpio/gpio4/value etc setup as on my Visionfive 2 (Debian), Milk-V Megrez (Rockos), LicheePi 3A (Bianbu) RISC-V boards.

And with the same Python etc libraries if you want to do it that way.

These days, the majority of SBCs (arm or RISC-V) have a Linux distribution which comes with the gpio driver, so that part is indeed no problem at all.