What to Buy?

After deciding to augment my van's onboard DVD player with some sort of solid state electronics, I went through a couple of iterations.

I knew that the RPi ran Linux and booted from an SD card. I also knew that it had 2 USB ports (plus an extra for power) as well as an HDMI port and a stereo headphone out. There are other, cool connections available to play with (GPIO jumps to mind) but I am not a hardware hacker at that level. With all that in mind, I started to think about my initial hardware purchase. I decided on a bare-ish bones setup, running directly from the SD boot card for media in the car. I happened to have a 32GB class 10 SD card lying around, so that was the beginning of the build.

I also knew that my 2006 Honda Odyssey EX-L had some aux ports in the way back, by the third row of seats. Specifically RCA inputs for video and left and right audio. It also had a 12V car power socket.

After consulting with some buddies, doing some research online - specifically about power issues and Raspberry Pi in general - I came up with the following list (on amazon.com):

Raspberry Pi Model B Revision 2.0 (512MB) - $42.90

PowerGen Dual USB 3.1A 15w High Output Car Charger - $9.99

FAVI Entertainment Wireless Keyboard (Built-in TouchPad/Laser Pointer) - $18.99

Edimax EW-7811Un 150 Mbps Wireless 11n Nano Size USB Adapter - $10.98

Multicomp Clear Raspberry Pi Enclosure (MC-RP001-CLR) - $10.99

C2G / Cables to Go 40645 3.5mm Stereo Male To 2X RCA Female Adapter - $1.97

I happen to have Amazon Prime, so I did not incur any shipping charges for all of this stuff. 2 days after I ordered it, the hardware showed up. More on the initial boot in the next post.