Tag Archives: raspberry pi project


Raspberry Pi Bandwidth Monitor

Archie500 has posted instructions about how he built a Raspberry Pi-based monitor for his internet bandwidth into and out of his house.

Raspberry Pi monitors internet bandwidth

Raspberry Pi monitors internet bandwidth

This is a bandwidth monitor using a Raspberry Pi and an OLED display to graphically show the internet bandwidth into and out of our house.

A video showing it working is above.

Sometimes if the internet is slow or not working very well it can be hard to tell if it’s because three other people are watching YouTube videos of if there’s some other problem with the internet connection. By checking the bandwidth monitor you can see straight away the data rate into and out of the house and work out if the problem is with your internet connection or just too many people watching Mat and Pat on YouTube.

In a very brief summary it works as follows: The Raspberry Pi uses SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) to get the WAN data rates from the router and then displays these graphically on the OLED screen.

The Raspberry Pi was already set up as our media player and is next to the television. The OLED display was inexpensive and can be bought from a number of places including eBay.

PiClock: A RPi-based clock and Weather display

Hackaday user Kevin Uhlir‘s PiClock is a Raspberry Pi-based fancy clock with weather forecasting and RADAR map display features. The clock retrieves the Weather data from Weather Underground using their API (http://www.wunderground.com/weather/api/ ) and the maps are from Google Maps API. An HDMI monitor is interfaced to RPi for displaying the information.

PiClock: Raspberry Pi based clock and weather data display

PiClock: Raspberry Pi based clock and weather data display

Another Raspberry Pi camera

Check out this Raspberry Pi powered compact camera that uses PiJuice, an all in one battery module, to power the device.

Raspberry Pi powered compact camera

Raspberry Pi powered compact camera

I’m so excited about this new project! A truly compact and portable Raspberry Pi Camera and it’s easy as anything to build!

I first thought about building a Raspberry Pi Camera after seeing theSnapPiCam instructable guide. This is a clever little project, which uses a LiPo battery to power a Raspberry Pi model A. But it got me thinking could I do something even more compact which is even simpler to build?

The real challenge is powering this little baby. Where the SnapPiCam is using a separate battery, converter and charging unit I’ve used the PiJuice. It’s basically an all in one battery module for the Raspberry Pi and it’s an ideal integrated power solution for a DIY Compact Camera.

I’ve also decided to use the Raspberry Pi a+ as it’s the cheapest and smallest available Raspberry Pi so it’ll fit nicely with PiJuice and make this camera supper compact!

 

Open-source ground penetrating RADAR

Open ground penetrating RADAR is an ongoing open-source project initiated by Glenn Powers as his entry for the 2015 Hackaday Prize. The aim is to make a Raspberry Pi powered RADAR system to look into the Earth for less than $500.

Ground penetrating RADAR design

Ground penetrating RADAR design

Commercial ground penetrating radar systems cost thousands of dollars. This project aims to create an open hardware alternative for about $500, using a Raspberry Pi with PiMSO to save data for later analysis and send instantaneous results to a web browser on a tablet or smartphone.

A Baofeng VHF/UHF radio is used a signal generator, which transmits via a Transmit/Recieve switch through an antenna. A RF detector is also connected to the T/R switch, which is connected to the MSO-19.

The radio controller is a 4N25 opto-isolator.

The T/R switch controller is a SN74HC04N (or similar) hex inverter.

Any Pi-compatible GPS and WiFi dongle will do.

The Raspberry Pi triggers the radio, T/R switch and MSO-19 via a buffered GPIO port once per second using a very simple python script.

 

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