Re: How to Embed a Raspberry Pi into your Eggbot

[crgfrench]

Thanks Windell — we love our EMSL EggBot!  Thanks for mentioning the fiberglass dust when drilling — we noticed that.  The kit is great and your documentation and support are fantastic.  The way I think of our EggBot now is a dual-board robot.  With the Pi installed on the tailstock the Eggbot has one board (the EiBot Board) that controls the motors and another board (the Pi) that runs Inkscape & the EggBot extensions, and also allows the user to connect keyboard, mouse and monitor to the EggBot itself.  The boards talk to each other over a short onboard USB wire.  Funny enough, the onboard Pi computer, at $35, is even less expensive than the EiBot motor controller board.  I think of both boards as “internal” since they are mounted to the chassis in the same way.  By the way our method uses the RCA video out on the Pi; if one wanted to use HDMI instead just flip the pi over and drill tailstock holes in the appropriate places (with the SD card facing the rear of the chassis).  Mounting a Pi on the tailstock only allows one video out port (RCA or HDMI) to be feasibly used since the other will be facing the ground without clearance for a plug.