2. My RasPi Pics Of My Setup!

Here is pics on how I assembled all the accessories to make my RasPi portable computer:

First Pic

Ahh Yes! It looks great!

If looking from the front only thing you will see is the USB cable off to the side. 

Until I can find some sort of right angle adapter this will do for now.

Main thing it looks good from the front!

OK after that first pic everything is looking good.. but not for long..

Due to the constraints of the accessories that were not designed for what I wanted, here goes!

Second Pic:

This is the pic of the back of the Pi computer. The white object is a velcro hooked on Pi Drive. 

I use an SD card to boot the Pi to start up the drive. From that point on, everything is run off the hard drive. The drive is mounted on the plastic Pi cover on the back. The reason I used Velcro is the drive case has no room at all for mounting the case and drive. Also the Pi cover is not deep or wide enough. I wanted both for protection. It was designed for portability. 

Due to mounting problems, the Pi snap in cover platform on the back of the display is used to mount the Pi board on top on the outside because of the cables. The Pi cover is placed over this on 4 bolts and nuts about 1/4" from the Pi display board. The Pi board is mounted on the Pi display cover inside for the Pi and is very secure for the cabling. There is a hole in the back of the box to allow cables and power to the drive.

Third Pic:

This pic show the USB power to the Western Digital Pi hard drive and also goes to the Pi board USB and display. As you look on the bottom, you can see a series of adapters that are needed for the HDMI cable. If you do not have these, the computer will sit at the angle shown above which isn't good. Also it is a pain to plug in and out the cable. But the Pi board was not designed with this in mind! The other thing is the two to one cable adapter is needed because if not things will not power up correctly! This cable also came with the hard drive. I currently do not have an on/off button mounted yet, so i'm using the switch inline on the power cable seen in the back.

Fourth Pic

This pic shows the top view. As you can see the monitor sit at an 80 degree angle almost vertical. It has a slight tilt to the back. The cover is the Pi computer cover. Due to how the pi board is mounted on top on the pi internal cover, there is about a 1/4" gap. This is due to the molded USB connector cover at the left. 

There are 4 nuts and screws as shown to somewhat lock the cover in place.  The first lower nut is tightened down next to the screw hole in the back of the display. The second nut is to tighten to the cover at the bottom of the cover with the top of the screw on top. This way you can set how low or high the cover is needed, and tighten everything via the top of the screw. Do this to all four screws, This also helps in the cooling of the Pi due to running the Pi, display and hard drive. The power adapter I believe is rated for 5 amps at 5V. If not it will fail to boot up. I may need to add a Pi fan later. If heat sinks are used on the Pi, then it may cause a problem about mounting the Pi board inside on the cover. 

But from the way all is assembled, it makes for a solid setup that is easy to move around. The black cable you see is a y-adapter for the power to the display, the Pi board and the hard drive. Another idea I had was to mount a Pi camera to the front but the way the connectors are for the camera may or may not work out. I haven't looked at that yet.

Problem with software

As anyone knows a flaw with the Pi is it does not auto switch to HDMI and turns off the  display monitor. Also to do this you need to enable and disable settings in the Pi boot config file which is a headache . I have tried all sorts of ways to see what works, and my conclusion is it is the way the Pi is designed with the hardware and software. Also you may know the resolution between the display and HD out have major differences and settings that need to be turned on or off.

My way around this turns out to be a simple fix in the config file. I basically have two copies of the settings that control HD and display. What seems to work is comment out ones that don't work for the Pi display but do work in HD. Then do the opposite for the display and comment out for the HD areas. It is easy to get and edit the config file, but there has got to be a better way!

But remember be sure when you do this that you have a backup. Another way is have a boot card for HD and a boot card for Pi display with backups for both! It just may be a hassle to change out the cards!

Conclusion

My final thoughts are it did take a long time trying to fit all the pieces together as one unit. There is of course several things I don't like for this setup because it looks messy. The ugliest being having the cable coming out the side!

But other than this, it is a whole lot neater and safer because having cables all over 

and hooking them up each time you use the Pi, you risk having a major disaster!

But it allows me to carry it all easily as a unit and when sitting next to the TV, 

from the front it looks great! Also the touch screen works too, but 

I seemed to forget if it works all the time. This too has to do with the config file!

And most important you definitely need a Bluetooth wireless keyboard!

It is so much better doing coding on a big screen TV. I even have copies of all my Pi development ebooks on the drive for reading and reference when coding!

Last of all I do plan to get a 3D printer later on my list of things to try, 

so I can design a custom setup for the whole setup. Now that would be nice!

Leave me some comments on what you think and also send me pics of your setups!