Anyone here developing with a Raspberry Pi

[engine]

I got my first Raspberry Pi last year, and it's been great fun, educational, and provided a home made solution to requirement.

Sadly, it's stopped working. I'm not surprised as it was used as part of a battery-powered remote security camera and mounted in a tree. It's survived the summer and through the winter, up until now, but, I suspect, I failed to insulate it from moisture.

Have you played with a Raspberry Pi and used it for any interesting projects?

[lawman]

Had to look it up to see what it was. Probably not in the cards for me.

[graeme_p]

I am thinking of getting one. It does not look terribly hard to work with and I have some ideas for simple projects I could do with the kids (the older one anyway).

How difficult was doing the battery power circuitry? I would like to have battery backup because mains electricity here is not all that reliable.

[engine]

As my device was remote from any mains power, it was run entirely on the battery, with a solar charger to keep the battery topped up.

It wasn't too difficult to theorise, but was a little frustrating as the obvious didn't work right away. The challenge was to put the Raspberry Pi into an energy-saving mode to save energy drain from the battery, and then to bring it back online and record images as it detected movement.

The next challenge was to retrieve the recorded files. Easy, you might say. Well, not when it was up a tree. I used WiFi for that, but that was rather energy-thirsty. I didn't fully overcome the issue with adequate battery power and charging time during the winter months as I was using an old solar cell that, clearly, didn't provide enough energy when light levels were low.

Back to the drawing board.

Not sure if i'll have time to revisit this project right now, but from what i've learnt it should be easier next time.

[graeme_p]

Thanks for the reply. My use case is not as complicated as yours. I want to use one as a simple, low power consumption home server with a battery (obviously not a terribly sophisticated one given the limitations of a Pi).