connect lcd panel to raspberry pi pricelist
A number of people have used a Motorola Atrix Lapdock to add a screen and keyboard with trackpad to RasPi, in essence building a RasPi-based laptop computer. Lapdock is a very clever idea: you plug your Atrix smart phone into Lapdock and it gives you an 11.6" 1366 x 768 HDMI monitor with speakers, a keyboard with trackpad, two USB ports, and a large enough battery for roughly 5 hours of use. The smart phone acts as a motherboard with "good enough" performance. The advantage over a separate laptop or desktop computer is that you have one computing device so you don"t need to transfer files between your phone and your desk/laptop.
Unfortunately for Motorola, Lapdock was not successful (probably because of its US$500 list price) and Motorola discontinued it and sold remaining stock at deep discounts, with many units selling for US$50-100. This makes it a very attractive way to add a modest size HDMI screen to RasPi, with a keyboard/trackpad and rechargeable battery power thrown in for free.
Lapdock has two connectors that plug into an Atrix phone: a Micro HDMI D plug for carrying video and sound, and a Micro USB plug for charging the phone and connecting to the Lapdock"s internal USB hub, which talks to the Lapdock keyboard, trackpad, and two USB ports. With suitable cables and adapters, these two plugs can be connected to RasPi"s full-size HDMI connector and one of RasPi"s full-size USB A ports.
Motorola also made a Lapdock for the Motorola Droid Bionic smartphone. According to Jim Manley, the Droid Bionic Lapdock is identical to the Atrix Lapdock, except that the two Micro plugs are each rotated 180 degrees.
The RasPi forum has a long thread on Lapdock with many useful suggestions, photos, and links: I made a Raspberry PI Laptop. There"s also a good "blog entry at element14 with photos and suggestions of where to get cables and adapters: Raspberry Pi Laptop. TechRepublic has a tear-down article with photos of Lapdock internal components here: Cracking Open the Motorola Droid Bionic Lapdock. Paul Mano has a wealth of photos of Lapdock innards at Motorola Atrix Lapdock mod projects.
The hardest part about connecting Lapdock is getting the cables and adapters. Most HDMI and USB cables are designed to plug into jacks, whereas the Lapdock has plugs so the cables/adapters must have Micro HDMI and Micro USB female connections. These are unusual cables and adapters, so check the links.
Lapdock uses the HDMI plug to tell if a phone is plugged in by seeing if the HDMI DDC/CEC ground pin is pulled low. If it"s not, Lapdock is powered off. As soon as you plug in a phone or RasPi, all the grounds short together and Lapdock powers itself on. However, it only does this if the HDMI cable actually connects the DDC/CEC ground line. Many cheap HDMI cables do not include the individual ground lines, and rely on a foil shield connected to the outer shells on both ends. Such a cable will not work with an unmodified Lapdock. There is a detailed "blog entry on the subject at element14: Raspberry Pi Lapdock HDMI cable work-around. The "blog describes a side-benefit of this feature: you can add a small power switch to Lapdock so you can leave RasPi attached all the time without draining the battery.
The Lapdock Micro USB plug is the upstream port of Lapdock"s internal USB hub, and connects to one of RasPi"s full-size USB ports. Lapdock is not USB compliant since it provides upstream power on its Vbus pin. Lapdock uses this to charge the Atrix phone. You can use this feature to power RasPi if you have a newer RasPi. The original RasPi rev 1 has 140 mA polyfuses F1 and F2 to protect the USB ports, which are too small for powering RasPi using upstream power. Newer RasPis replace F1 and F2 with zero Ohm jumpers or eliminate them entirely, which allows Lapdock to provide power. If you don"t mind modifying your original RasPi, you can add shorting jumpers over F1 and F2 or replace them with higher-current fuses.
What gets powered on depends on whether Lapdock is open or closed. If it"s open, the screen and all Lapdock USB ports are powered. If you close Lapdock, the screen and full-size USB ports are powered down, but the Micro USB still provides upstream power. This is for charging an Atrix phone. When you open or close Lapdock, the Micro USB power switches off for about a second so if your RasPi is connected it will reboot and you may have a corrupted file system. There"s discussion about this at the RasPi forum link, and someone has used a supercapacitor to work around the problem: Raspberry Pi lapdock tricks.
When you do not connect a HDMI monitor, the GPU in the PI will simply rescale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_scaling) anything that would have appeared on the HDMI screen to a resolution suitable for the TV standard chosen, (PAL or NTSC) and outputs it as a composite video signal.
The Broadcom BCM2835 only provides HDMI output and composite output. RGB and other signals needed by RGB, S-VIDEO or VGA connectors are however not provided, and the R-PI also isn"t designed to power an unpowered converter box.
Note that any conversion hardware that converts HDMI/DVI-D signals to VGA (or DVI-A) signals may come with either an external PSU, or expects power can be drawn from the HDMI port. In the latter case the device may initially appear to work, but there will be a problem, as the HDMI specs only provide in a maximum of 50mA (@ 5 Volt) from the HDMI port, but all of these adapters try to draw much more, up-to 500mA, in case of the R-PI there is a limit of 200mA that can be drawn safely, as 200mA is the limit for the BAT54 diode (D1) on the board. Any HDMI to VGA adapter without external PSU might work for a time, but then burn out D1, therefore Do not use HDMI converters powered by the HDMI port!
The solution is to either only use externally powered converters, or to replace D1 with a sturdier version, such as the PMEG2010AET, and to replace the power input fuse F3 with a higher rated one, as the current one is only 700mA, and the adapter may use 400mA itself. Also notice that the R-PI"s power supply also must be able to deliver the extra current.
Alternatively, it may be possible to design an expansion board that plugs into the LCD headers on the R.Pi. Here is something similar for Beagleboard:
The SOC (system on a chip) does not support any kind of analog component video, including VGA, since the SOC is designed for mobile phone use where this would not be a requirement. Additional components would be needed to generate RGB signals. Additional components would push the price beyond the $25 target and therefore won"t happen.
An additional binary blob might be required for the DSI port to function correctly (or function at all). When or if such a blob will be made available is unknown. Update 04 Jun 2013: "DSI will get done though - there are 1.5M boards out there with the connector on - that would, as you say, have been a waste of money ($120k??) if it never gets used." [1]
The schematics for apples iPhone 3gs and 4g suggest they speak DSI, thus they can probably be connected directly. The older iPhones use a "Mobile Pixel Link" connection from National Semiconductor. The 3GS panel (480×320) goes as low as US $14.88, while the 4G one (960×640, possibly the LG LH350WS1-SD01, with specifications) can be had for US $17.99 or as low as US $14.28. The connectors used might be an issue, but this connector might fit. Additional circuitry might be necessary to provide the display with required 1.8V and 5.7V for operation, and an even higher voltage for the backlight.
The Raspberry Pi provides one clock lane and two data lanes on the S2 connector, as can be read from the schematics. It is currently unknown whether this is enough to drive the iPhone 4G screen, as that screen seems be driven with three data lanes in its original application.
I2C/SPI ADC can be used to interface 4 pin resistive Touch Screens, For example STMPE812A. Texas Instruments has a solution for 4 or 8 wire touchscreens using their rather cheap MSP4309.
These have controllers and interfaces for feeding in text (and symbols). Common screen sizes include 16x2 to 40x4. They"re often seen in keypads, industrial machines, cash registers, laser printers etc.
Parallel interface displays can be found in many sizes, usually up to 7" and more. Parallel interfaces are usually 8 or 16-bits wide (sometimes 18 or 24-bit wide), plus some control-lines. The Raspberry Pi P1-connector does not contain enough GPIOs for 16-bit wide parallel displays, but this could be solved by borrowing some GPIOs from the CSI-connector or from P5 (on newer Raspberry Pis). Alternatively, some additional electronics (e.g. shift-registers or a CPLD) can be used, which could also improve the framerate or lower the CPU-load.
AdvaBoard RPi1: Raspberry Pi multifunction extension board, incl. an interface and software for 3.2"/5"/7" 16-bit parallel TFT-displays incl. touchscreen with up to 50 frames/s (3.2", 320x240)
Texy"s 2.8" TFT + Touch Shield Board: HY28A-LCDB display with 320 x 240 resolution @ 10 ~ 20fps, 65536 colors, assembled and tested £24 plus postage, mounts on GPIO pins nicely matching Pi board size, or via ribbon cable
You’ve been incredibly patient: thank you. The official Raspberry Pi touch display is on sale today, priced at $60 (plus local taxes and shipping): you can buy it at RS Components/Allied Electronics and at Premier Farnell/Newark. Other sellers will be receiving stock later this week.
Two years ago, I began the process of looking for a simple, embeddable display for the Raspberry Pi. I honestly believed it would only take us six months from start to end, but there were a number of issues we met (and other products diverted our attention from the display – like Rev 2.1, B+, A+, and Pi 2). But we’ve finally got there, and I thought you might be interested in learning about our journey.
HDMI is the system we all know and love, it allows us to communicate with monitors up to 4K and has a relatively low signal swing to reduce EMI. There are lots of other very useful bits of the specification such as CEC (a communication channel between the TV and the Pi that allows us to receive input from the TV), EDID (a method of automatically identifying the different formats the TV supports) and a hotplug signal allow the Pi to know when you plug in the cable. The only problem with HDMI is that the electronics required to convert from HDMI to the native panel interface can be quite expensive.
DPI (Display Parallel Interface) is a 24-bit parallel interface with a clock and various synchronisation signals totalling 28 signals, all of which switch at a rate of around 70MHz. This interface has been phased out of tablets/phones because the electromagnetic noise created and power consumed by all those wires. Although it is possible to directly talk to a DPI display through the GPIO connector on a Raspberry Pi it would leave no GPIOs left for people to connect other HATs. DPI displays are available everywhere though, and are relatively cheap!
DSI (Display serial interface) is a high-speed serial interface based on a number of (1GBits) data lanes. The total voltage swing of the data lines is only 200mV; this makes the electromagnetic noise created and power consumed very low. Unfortunately, DSI displays are only really created and sold for special purposes (i.e. when a mobile phone manufacturer wants to make a new phone), and although they can be available to buy, manufacture of the devices is subject to the lifetime of the phone!
DBI (Display Bus Interface) is an old display technology that usually has inbuilt frame storage to reduce tearing, due to the memory and hardware it makes DBI screens expensive.
So our solution to this problem was to employ both DSI (to avoid using up all the GPIOs) and DPI (easily available screens in suitable resolutions) and a bridge chip/conversion board to convert between the two.
Of course lifetime is one of the most important requirements, because if a display only has a lifetime of a few months (or the manufacturer is uninterested in guaranteeing a minimum lifetime), we would have to repeat the whole development cycle once more. So we can’t just buy a display that’s used in your standard iDevice, because it is likely to be cancelled when the iCompany decides to move to another manufacturer!
When looking for a device, we needed to look for what are termed ‘Industrial’ LCD displays. These tend to have better-quality metrics and guaranteed availability.
Our first PCB to do the DSI to DPI conversion was completed back in mid-2013. The board used a Toshiba bridge chip to convert the DSI signals to DPI ones. I spent quite a bit of time getting the Raspberry Pi to talk to the bridge device, and then got it working and displaying an image (yay). We then took it to our local EMC test facility to investigate how easy it would be to pass CE and FCC electromagnetic compliance.
When electrical currents flow around a circuit board, they create electro-magnetic fields, which can be picked up by other electronic devices. Maybe you remember what used to happen to your CRT television when your mum turned on the hoover (sorry for those of you without any experience of analogue television). This was becoming a problem for television and radio receivers; when I was a kid and plugged in my Spectrum 48K, the radio wouldn’t work properly any more. So the powers that be introduced new rules about the amount of energy a device can output at various frequencies from 25MHz up to a couple of GHz. You have to make sure your electronic devices do not cause interference, and are not susceptible to electronic interference.
The best way to reduce electromagnetic interference (EMI) is to keep your high-frequency signals short and close to a nice continuous ground plane, reduce the frequency and drive of the signals (reducing the high frequency components), and reduce the maximum swing of the signals to reduce the signal power. Looking at modern communication systems, that’s exactly what they do: for example, DSI has a signal swing of only 0.2V and only has two or four actual signal lanes.
Unfortunately, DPI is 1.8V signal swing, and although much slower, it needs 28 signal wires, meaning 28x more paths with the same edges switching up and down at the same time. This gives us an output looking something like:
The green line is the class A line, and the black is class B (we need to reach Class B). You need to be below the black line if you want to sell the device to be used in the home.
The next step was to understand why the EMI is so bad, so we tried redesigning the board so it looks like a HAT (it’s not actually a HAT because there is no EEPROM for device tree information), and added an Atmel device to control the power/reset and PWM for the backlight. We also went through three different iterations of adding chokes to improve the noise conducting down the power supply cable, and manipulating the route of the DPI signals to improve the path of the ground return.
The first displays are supplied as a kit which requires some initial construction. Alex Eames from RasPi.TV has helpfully provided a video showing how to do it.
The display module integrates the LCD display with a conversion board that should be plugged into the Raspberry Pi through the display connector. Be aware that the connector is the same as the camera connector, but the two are not compatible, so be careful to correctly identify the display connector first.
The 15-way FPC connector should already be plugged into the display conversion board with the silvered contacts face-up. You can then plug the connector into the Raspberry Pi with the silvered connectors inboard (facing towards the USB connectors).
Attach an official 2A Raspberry Pi power supply to the display board “PWR IN” connector, then attach a standard uUSB connector from the “PWR OUT” connector to the Raspberry Pi.
The Raspberry Pi will now automatically detect the display and use it as the default display (rather than HDMI), although HDMI will still be initialised. If you’d prefer for the HDMI display to stay as default then add:
It is possible to use both display outputs at the same time, but it does require software to choose the right display. Omxplayer is one application that has been modified to enable secondary display output.
Please note, you may need to increase the amount of memory allocated to the GPU to 128MB if the videos are 1080P, adjust the gpu_mem value in config.txt for this. The Raspberry Pi headline figures are 1080P30 decode, so if you are using two 1080P clips it may not play correctly depending on the complexity of the videos.
The Raspberry Pi display has an integrated 10-point touchscreen (a bit of an overkill, but it does seem to work well). The driver for this touchscreen outputs both standard mouse events and full multi-touch events, and therefore can work with X as a mouse (although not brilliantly – X was never designed to work with a touchscreen!).
Kivy is a Python GUI development system for cross-platform applications. It is designed to work with touchscreen devices (phones and tablets), but also runs on the Raspberry Pi. To install Kivy onto your Pi follow the instructions at
From the videos you can see how capable the interface is. I’m in the process of developing a touchscreen application for an installation at home to control a safety and heating monitoring system, so you’ll probably hear more about that at some point!
Last of all, if you’d like a stand for your display, you could do a lot worse than to take a look at the 3D-printed one that Matt Timmons-Brown has designed; we like it a lot. You’ll find his model on Thingiverse.
We have a surprise for you today: Raspberry Pi 4 is now on sale, starting at $35. This is a comprehensive upgrade, touching almost every element of the platform. For the first time we provide a PC-like level of performance for most users, while retaining the interfacing capabilities and hackability of the classic Raspberry Pi line.
As always these prices exclude sales tax, import duty (where appropriate), and shipping. All three variants are launching today: we have initially built more of the 2GB variant than of the others, and will adjust the mix over time as we discover which one is most popular.
At first glance, the Raspberry Pi 4 board looks very similar to our previous $35 products, all the way back to 2014’s Raspberry Pi 1B+. James worked hard to keep it this way, but for the first time he has made a small number of essential tweaks to the form factor to accommodate new features.
We’ve moved from USB micro-B to USB-C for our power connector. This supports an extra 500mA of current, ensuring we have a full 1.2A for downstream USB devices, even under heavy CPU load.
To accommodate dual display output within the existing board footprint, we’ve replaced the type-A (full-size) HDMI connector with a pair of type-D (micro) HDMI connectors.
Our Gigabit Ethernet magjack has moved to the top right of the board, from the bottom right, greatly simplifying PCB routing. The 4-pin Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) connector remains in the same location, so Raspberry Pi 4 remains compatible with the PoE HAT.
The Ethernet controller on the main SoC is connected to an external Broadcom PHY over a dedicated RGMII link, providing full throughput. USB is provided via an external VLI controller, connected over a single PCI Express Gen 2 lane, and providing a total of 4Gbps of bandwidth, shared between the four ports.
All three connectors on the right-hand side of the board overhang the edge by an additional millimetre, with the aim of simplifying case design. In all other respects, the connector and mounting hole layout remains the same, ensuring compatibility with existing HATs and other accessories.
To support Raspberry Pi 4, we are shipping a radically overhauled operating system, based on the forthcoming Debian 10 Buster release. This brings numerous behind-the-scenes technical improvements, along with an extensively modernised user interface, and updated applications including the Chromium 74 web browser. Simon will take an in-depth look at the changes in tomorrow’s blog post, but for now, here’s a screenshot of it in action.
Some advice for those who are keen to get going with Raspbian Buster right away: we strongly recommend you download a new image, rather than upgrading an existing card. This ensures that you’re starting with a clean, working Buster system. If you really, really want to try upgrading, make a backup first.
One notable step forward is that for Raspberry Pi 4, we are retiring the legacy graphics driver stack used on previous models. Instead, we’re using the Mesa “V3D” driver developed by Eric Anholt at Broadcom over the last five years. This offers many benefits, including OpenGL-accelerated web browsing and desktop composition, and the ability to run 3D applications in a window under X. It also eliminates roughly half of the lines of closed-source code in the platform.
Connector and form-factor changes bring with them a requirement for new accessories. We’re sensitive to the fact that we’re requiring people to buy these: Mike and Austin have worked hard to source good-quality, cost-effective products for our reseller and licensee partners, and to find low-cost alternatives where possible.
We’re very pleased with how this has turned out, but if you’d like to re-use one of our existing cases, you can simply cut away the plastic fins on the right-hand side and omit one of the side panels as shown below.
Good, low-cost USB-C power supplies (and USB-C cables) are surprisingly hard to find, as we discovered when sending out prototype units to alpha testers. So we worked with Ktec to develop a suitable 5V/3A power supply; this is priced at $8, and is available in UK (type G), European (type C), North American (type A) and Australian (type I) plug formats.
If you’d like to re-use a Raspberry Pi 3 Official Power Supply, our resellers are offering a $1 adapter which converts from USB micro-B to USB-C. The thick wires and good load-step response of the old official supply make this a surprisingly competitive solution if you don’t need a full 3 amps.
Again, low-cost micro HDMI cables which reliably support the 6Gbps data rate needed for 4Kp60 video can be hard to find. We like the Amazon Basics cable, but we’ve also sourced a 1m cable, which will be available from our resellers for $5.
At the end of last year, Raspberry Pi Press released the Official Raspberry Pi Beginner’s Guide. Gareth Halfacree has produced an updated version, covering the new features of Raspberry Pi 4 and our updated operating system.
This is the first product launch following the opening of our store in Cambridge, UK. For the first time, you can come and buy Raspberry Pi 4 directly from us, today. We’ll be open from 8am to 8pm, with units set up for you to play with and a couple of thousand on hand for you to buy. We even have some exclusive launch-day swag.
Since we launched the original Raspberry Pi in 2012, all our products have been based on 40nm silicon, with performance improvements delivered by adding progressively larger in-order cores (Cortex-A7, Cortex-A53) to the original ARM11-based BCM2835 design. With BCM2837B0 for Raspberry Pi 3B+ we reached the end of that particular road: we could no longer afford to toggle more transistors within our power budget.
Raspberry Pi 4 is built around BCM2711, a complete re-implementation of BCM283X on 28nm. The power savings delivered by the smaller process geometry have allowed us to replace Cortex-A53 with the much more powerful, out-of-order, Cortex-A72 core; this can execute more instructions per clock, yielding performance increases over Raspberry Pi 3B+ of between two and four times, depending on the benchmark.
We’ve taken advantage of the process change to overhaul many other elements of the design. We moved to a more modern memory technology, LPDDR4, tripling available bandwidth; we upgraded the entire display pipeline, including video decode, 3D graphics and display output to support 4Kp60 (or dual 4Kp30) throughput; and we addressed the non-multimedia I/O limitations of previous devices by adding on-board Gigabit Ethernet and PCI Express controllers.
In the past, we’ve indicated 2020 as a likely introduction date for Raspberry Pi 4. We budgeted time for four silicon revisions of BCM2711 (A0, B0, C0, and C1); in comparison, we ship BCM2835C2 (the fifth revision of that design) on Raspberry Pi 1 and Zero.
No. We have a lot of industrial customers who will want to stick with the existing products for the time being. We’ll keep building these models for as long as there’s demand. Raspberry Pi 1B+, 2B, 3B, and 3B+ will continue to sell for $25, $35, $35, and $35 respectively.
Historically, we’ve produced cut-down, lower-cost, versions of some of our $35 products, including Model 1A+ in 2014, and Model 3A+ at the end of last year. At present we haven’t identified a sensible set of changes to allow us to do a “Model 4A” product at significantly less than $35. We’ll keep looking though.
CM1, CM3, and CM3+ will continue to be available. We are evaluating options for producing a Compute Module product based on the Raspberry Pi 4 chipset.
Yes. VideoCore 3D is the only publicly documented 3D graphics core for ARM‑based SoCs, and we want to make Raspberry Pi more open over time, not less.
This time round, particular credit is due to James Adams, who designed the board itself (you’ll find his signature under the USB 3.0 socket); to Mike Buffham, who ran the commercial operation, working with suppliers, licensees, and resellers to bring our most complicated product yet to market; and to all those at Raspberry Pi and Broadcom who have worked tirelessly to make this product a reality over the last few years.
A partial list of others who made major direct contributions to the BCM2711 chip program, CYW43455, VL805, and MxL7704 integrations, DRAM qualification, and Raspberry Pi 4 itself follows:
James Adams, Cyrus Afghahi, Umesh Agalgave, Snehil Agrawal, Sam Alder, Kiarash Amiri, Andrew Anderson, Eng Lim Ang, Eric Anholt, Greg Annandale, Satheesh Appukuttan, Vaibhav Ashtikar, Amy Au, Ben Avison, Matt Bace, Neil Bailey, Jock Baird, Scott Baker, Alix Ball, Giles Ballard, Paul Barnes, Russell Barnes, Fiona Batchelor, Alex Bate, Kris Baxter, Paul Beech, Michael Belhazy, Jonathan Bell, John Bellairs, Oguz Benderli, Doug Berger, Ron Berthiaume, Raj Bharadwaj, Udaya Bhaskar, Geoff Blackman, Ed Bleich, Debbie Brandenburg, David Brewer, Daniel Brierton, Adam Brown, Mike Buffham, Dan Caley, Mark Calleja, Rob Canaway, Cindy Cao, Victor Carmon, Ian Carter, Alex Carter, Amy Carter, Mark Castruita, KK Chan, Louis Chan, Nick Chase, Sherman Chen, Henry Chen, Yuliang Cheng, Chun Fai Cheung, Ravi Chhabra, Scott Clark, Tim Clifford, Nigel Clift, Dom Cobley, Steve Cole, Philip Colligan, Stephen Cook, Sheena Coote, Sherry Coutu, John Cowan-Hughes, John Cox, Peter Coyle, Jon Cronk, Darryl Cross, Steve Dalton, Neil Davies, Russell Davis, Tom De Vall, Jason Demas, Todd DeRego, Ellie Dobson, David Doyle, Alex Eames, Nicola Early, Jeff Echtenkamp, Andrew Edwards, Kevin Edwards, Phil Elwell, Dave Emett, Jiin Taur Eng, Gabrielle England, YG Eom, Peggy Escobedo, Andy Evans, Mark Evans, Florian Fainelli, David Ferguson, Ilan Finkelstein, Nick Francis, Liam Fraser, Ian Furlong, Nachiket Galgali, David Gammon, Jan Gaterman, Eric Gavami, Doug Giles, Andrew Goros, Tim Gover, Trevor Gowen, Peter Green, Simon Greening, Tracey Gregory, Efim Gukovsky, Gareth Halfacree, Mark Harris, Lucy Hattersley, James Hay, Richard Hayler, Gordon Henderson, Leon Hesch, Albert Hickey, Kevin Hill, Stefan Ho, Andrew Hoare, Lewis Hodder, William Hollingworth, Gordon Hollingworth, Michael Horne, Wanchen Hsu, David Hsu, Kevin YC Huang, Pei Huang, Peter Huang, Scofield Huang, James Hughes, Andy Hulbert, Carl Hunt, Rami Husni, Steven Hwang, Incognitum, Bruno Izern, Olivier Jacquemart, Mini Jain, Anurag Jain, Anand Jain, Geraint James, Dinesh Jayabharathi, Vinit Jayaraj, Nick Jeffery, Mengjie Jiang, David John, Alison Johnston, Lily Jones, Richard Jones, Tony Jones, Gareth Jones, Lijo Jose, Nevin Jose, Gary Kao, Gary Keall, Gerald Kelly, Ian Kersley, Gerard Khoo, Dani Kidouchim, Phil King, Andreas Knobloch, Bahar Kordi-Borojeni, Shuvra Kundu, Claire Kuo, Nicole Kuo, Wayne Kusumo, Koen Lampaert, Wyn Landon, Trever Latham, William Lee, Joon Lee, William Lee, Dave Lee, Simon Lewis, David Lewsey, Sherman Li, Xizhe Li, Jay Li, John CH Lin, Johan Lin, Jonic Linley, Chris Liou, Lestin Liu, Simon Long, Roy Longbottom, Patrick Loo, James Lougheed, Janice Lu, Fu Luo-Larson, Jeff Lussier, Helen Lynn, Terence Mackown, Neil MacLeod, Kevin Malone, Shahin Maloyan, Tim Mamtora, Stuart Martin, Simon Martin, Daniel Mason, Karen Matulis, Andrea Mauri, Scott McGregor, Steven Mcninch, Ben Mercer, Kamal Merchant, James Mills, Vassil Mitov, Ali Syed Mohammed, Brendan Moran, Alan Morgan, Giorgia Muirhead, Fiacre Muller, Aram Nahidipour, Siew Ling Ng, Thinh Nguyen, Lee Nguyen, Steve Noh, Paul Noonan, Keri Norris, Rhian Norris, Ben Nuttall, Brian O’Halloran, Martin O’Hanlon, Yong Oh, Simon Oliver, Mandy Oliver, Emma Ormond, Shiji Pan, Kamlesh Pandey, Christopher Pasqualino, Max Passell, Naush Patuck, Rajesh Perruri, Eric Phiri, Dominic Plunkett, Nutan Raj, Karthik Rajendran, Rajendra Ranmale, Murali Rangapuram, Ashwin Rao, Nick Raptopoulos, Chaitanya Ray, Justin Rees, Hias Reichl, Lorraine Richards, David Richardson, Tim Richardson, Dan Riiff, Peter de Rivaz, Josh Rix, Alwyn Roberts, Andrew Robinson, Kevin Robinson, Nigel Roles, Paul Rolfe, Marcelo Romero, Jonathan Rosenfeld, Sarah Roth, Matt Rowley, Matthew Rowley, Dave Saarinen, Ali Salem, Suzie Sanders, Graham Sanderson, Aniruddha Sane,
Andrew Scheller, Marion Scheuermann, Serge Schneider, Graham Scott, Marc Scott, Saran Kumar Seethapathi, Shawn Shadburn, Abdul Shaik, Mark Skala, Graham Smith, Michael Smith, Martin Sperl, Ajay Srivastava, Nick Steele, Ben Stephens, Dave Stevenson, Mike Stimson, Chee Siong Su, Austin Su, Prem Swaroop, Grant Taylor, Daniel Thompsett, Stuart Thomson, Eddie Thorn, Roger Thornton, Chris Tomlinson, Stephen Toomey, Mohamed Toubella, Frankie Tsai, Richard Tuck, Mike Unwin, Liz Upton, Manoj Vajhallya, Sandeep Venkatadas, Divya Vittal, John Wadsworth, Stefan Wahren, Irene Wang, Jeremy Wang, Rich Wells, Simon West, Joe Whaley, Craig Wightman, Oli Wilkin, Richard Wilkins, Sarah Williams, Jack Willis, Rob Wilson, Luke Wren, Romona Wu, Zheng Xu, Paul Yang, Pawel Zackiewicz, Ling Zhang, Jean Zhou, Ulf Ziemann, Rob Zwetsloot.
I want to have as few and as small parts as possible, ideally it would only be Raspberry Pi with power supply and a screen, but after quite a lot of searching the only screen I could find that would work with Raspberry Pi without additional equipment is official 7" touchscreen, I wouldn"t mind it but need a bigger one. My friend gave me his old laptop and now I have this screen http://www.panelook.com/modeldetail.php?id=8753, but problem with them (laptop screens) is that I have to buy controller boards for them.
Do small power supplies exist for those boards? (In small I mean like the raspberry pi charger size) Most of them require 12V,4A (inside 2.5mm, outside 5.5mm) https://www.ebay.com/itm/251602572829
As I also wanted to have some GPIO, or possibility to connect two screens I"ve developed a baseboard for CM3 compute module - https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... 0#p1361021
I"d like to buy some existing products and assemble them, just as I mentioned in the post with the parts that I found it seems to me that I"ll end up with a 2kg monster with wires and chargers all over, when I just want to have some lightweight ultra portable tablet like thing.
I think I have one board with suitable LVDS mapping (Y0=..R1,R0) which I no longer need (due to my new approach based on CM3L). Problem is that I can"t compete on price when compared to these low cost controllers on ebay as my board is assembled by hand and I only build a few (not millions of pieces).
I"d like to buy some existing products and assemble them, just as I mentioned in the post with the parts that I found it seems to me that I"ll end up with a 2kg monster with wires and chargers all over, when I just want to have some lightweight ultra portable tablet like thing.
Yeah, I understand what you mean, handmade things value much more than regular units cost. What I"m doing is intended to be a gift so I"d probably be willing to pay much more than those listed on eBay, but the thing is that I"m doing this 1st time, so would like to make a "demo" model first (to see what comes out of it, if it"s worth it at all), so I"d like to build it with "cheap" parts. I still haven"t decided on what screen to use in the end (want to have one with very good picture quality, the bigger the better, and low price
Plus I live in Tbilisi, Georgia and "economy" shipping takes 3-4 weeks from China, around 2 weeks from USA, unless you order with DHL - but it doubles and triples all the prices.
Why are those power adapters for LCD boards so huge? Or am I searching for wrong thing? I checked my mobile phone and RPI adapters, they"re like 5V/2A, 5V/2.5A, so why are those needed for the LCD board so big? And if I find similar (12V/4A) one smaller somewhere in local electric markets, how would I know if it"s the one with those 2.5mm inside and 5.5mm outside for the plug? (Apart from asking the seller, ofc)
I"d like to buy some existing products and assemble them, just as I mentioned in the post with the parts that I found it seems to me that I"ll end up with a 2kg monster with wires and chargers all over, when I just want to have some lightweight ultra portable tablet like thing.
Plus I"d like to have custom frame for it, and again, whether its a TV, monitor or a laptop, I just want a bare screen with HDMI, (no DVI/VGA, no sound, no 2-3 USB ports) As I said only screens with DSI interface are official raspberry 7" screens that are too small for me.
I"d like to buy some existing products and assemble them, just as I mentioned in the post with the parts that I found it seems to me that I"ll end up with a 2kg monster with wires and chargers all over, when I just want to have some lightweight ultra portable tablet like thing.
Plus I"d like to have custom frame for it, and again, whether its a TV, monitor or a laptop, I just want a bare screen with HDMI, (no DVI/VGA, no sound, no 2-3 USB ports) As I said only screens with DSI interface are official raspberry 7" screens that are too small for me.
I apologize if I"m not writing clearly, I want this "construction" to be inside a custom frame, no electronics visible, with only one power cord coming out. As if I were to make my own tablet, something like that.
Raspberry Pi boards have revolutionized the electronics hobby world with their simple credit card-sized DIY computer kits. Today, almost anyone with a basic electronics assembly and coding knowledge could set up a Raspberry Pi system of their own.
In order to create a small computer of your own, all you need to have is a raspberry pi board, a display unit and a keyboard (optional). If you are able to find the perfect touch screen, you can create a great DIY computer of your own.
Today, we are going to list down all of the best Raspberry Pi compatible LCD screens available online. These screens are ranked and rated based on the following factors.
Rule of thumb, larger the better. The best of the LCD screens for a Raspberry Pi we got here have a 1080P high resolution and is a full touch screen. There are higher variants available as well but we believe that this is a standard benchmark.
The next important thing that you need to look for in a screen is its compatibility with the various systems that you may be using it other than the Raspberry Pi.
This refers to the ports and other connectivity options through which you can set up the screen to the board. It includes the standard HDMI pots to USB ports and even WiFi compatibility as well. Higher the number of I/O ports, the better
First on our list is an LCD touch screen straight from the official house of Raspberry Pi. It is a 7 inches large touch display that is specifically created for the Raspberry Pi board.
Though compatible with all the existing Raspberry Pi models, the hole line up for installation is good enough only for Raspberry A+, Raspberry B+, Raspberry Pi2
Next on our list is a screen by Kuman, one of the top manufacturer’s in the realm of hobby electronics. This one too is a 7 inches large TFT capacitative touch screen.
Next on our list is 1 large 10.1 inches LED Display. The Elecrow HDMI supported LED display monitor supports all the old and new Raspberry Pi models like the Pi 4, 3, 2, and B, B+ models as well.
Apart from Raspberry Pi models, it is also compatible with PS3, PS4, WiiU and XBOX360 and can also be used for video, for car headrest and as a small display for medical equipment too
In this entry, SunFounder comes with a 10.1 inches large HDMI supported IPS LCD display monitor. It has a high resolution of 1280 X 800 pixels and also comes with a camera holder stand.
Next on our list is another SunFounder Raspberry Pi Compatible screen. This one is a simple 7 inches large LCD Display screen with built-in speakers too.
Next product on our list is from a brand called ELECROW. Their LCD screen comes with 5-inches size display and high-resolution picture. It is a resistive touchscreen monitor and comes with a touch pen for easy use.
This LCD touch screen is from SunFounder which has similar dimensions and aesthetical aspect as the previous 10.1 inches Screen by SunFounder and are essentially the same. This is just an older model of the same product.
The last but not least product from our list is a 7-inch LDC touch screen for Raspberry Pi. It supports mini PC like Raspberry 1B+ / 2B / 3B / 3A+/ 3B+/ 4B.
This is quite problematic as you need to select the one from the plenty of choices available in the industry. Some of them are costly-cheap and some offer low-high performances.
But it’s up to you to take the correct decisions as per your requirement. To make it happen, you must acquire some knowledge in technology stuff which becomes very easy for you to pick the right one.
Given below are some of the factors that most of the people ask for while purchasing the Raspberry Pi display kits. Get to know about them in detail to make a good choice.
The very first one in the buying guide list is the Price. The price of the displays tends to be more expensive because it comes with the number of features like resolution, size and many more.
So when you make a purchase, check whether the device is within your budget or not. If it so, then you can happily add the item to cart and wish for it.
But the problem arises when you are unable to afford the money or willing to use the item to fulfill your basic needs. For them, we provided the raspberry pi display kits that come with amazing features at very low prices. Read the product information to know which product best suits your requirements.
Brightness refers to the quality or state of reflecting a light. In other words, brightness can be expressed as the perception elicited by laminating a visual target. It can also be expressed by considering power over a specific area on the monitor. Most of the displays have 200cd/sq.m which is sufficient for a normal usage.
Contrast Ratiodefines the ratio of luminance of the brightest to the darkest color. Generally, the displays are capable of producing high contrast ratio as per the desired. You should also know that there are no specific standards to measure the contrast ratio.
Display resolution or the modes is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. It is controlled by many of the factors like CRT, flat-panel displays, and LCDs. If the resolution you opt is not compatible then the monitors will stretch and shrink to fit in the specified. It turns result in a great loss of the signal and quality.
Like regular displays, the raspberry pi displays make effective communication between the peripheral devices. For this, it makes use of the connectors. The most common connectors are HDMI, VGA & AV-input. Each of them is illustrated below.
HDMI port is an interface of audio-video for transmitting the data from uncompressed data to compressed data from an HDMI source device. It can just transmit the mid-range data of audio/video signals.
A VGA is a 3-row connector that is provided on many of the display devices like computers, TVs, laptops, and projectors. It is a good quality cable that supports the signal within the bandwidth range of (2-MHz-500MHz).
AV port is just a connector to receive audio/video signals from the electronic equipment. This technology is mostly equipped with TVs and DVD recorders and is also very convenient for connecting to headphones or speakers.
In this section, we are going to show you exactly how you can connect your Raspberry Pi to an external display screen. First, let us look at how to connect it using an HDMI port
Using the HDMI port to connect a Raspberry Pi to the LCD screen is one of the simplest and easiest ways to go. Here, all you need to do is to take an HDMI cable and plug it on both sides of the devices. One end goes into the HDMI port of the LCD screen and the other one will go right into the Raspberry Pi’s HDMI port. This set up does not require any special drivers software nor does it require any format of post plugin set up.
Raspberry Pi comes with a tiny 15 pin ribbon cable connector that can support a Display Serial Interface or a DSI standard. This enables fast communication between an LCD screen and the chip.
You can use the Raspberry Pi 7 inch touchscreen display by connecting it with the Raspberry Pi board. All you need to do is to first attach the raspberry pi to the back of the display screen using standoffs and screws that come with the kit.
Now connect the Pi board to the ribbon cable and the display control board. Note the ribbon cable pin orientation is proper or not. After this, carefully release the tabs on both sides of the socket so that the cable slides all way. Now secure this by pressing down on the tabs till you hear a click of a lock. Make sure you are not forcing the cable to lock.
If not, you can simply connect a power supply to the control board and then connect a small micro USB cable in the control board’s USB port and the micro USB port of the Pi. This should power on the device. You are now done setting up the device and the screen and once the power flows, the device boots up.
If the screen does not automatically turn on when the power source is connected, you may have to connect an existing HDMI display for updating your Raspberry Pi board and then reboot the device.
The Raspberry Pi 7″ Touch Screen Display from the house of Raspberry has a great colour output of 800 x 400 pixels and its capacitive touch is multi-fingered up to 10 fingers. That and the fact that it is specifically built for Raspberry pi Boards by the Raspberry company makes it the best Raspberry Pi LCD screen for your DIY Raspberry pi kit.
While those were our picks, we are intrigued by your choices, thoughts and opinions. Did we miss out on anything? Or do you want us to add anything else to this list? If so or if you have any questions for us or about the products mentioned, feel free to write to us in the comments section below. Our product expert team will write back to you as soon as possible.
Raspberry Pi (single-board computers (SBCs) developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in association with Broadcom.computer science in schools and in developing countries.target market for uses such as robotics. It is widely used in many areas, such as for weather monitoring,HDMI and USB standards.
After the release of the second board type, the Raspberry Pi Foundation set up a new entity, named Raspberry Pi Trading, and installed Eben Upton as CEO, with the responsibility of developing technology.Sony factory in Pencoed, Wales,
There are three series of Raspberry Pi, and several generations of each have been released. Raspberry Pi SBCs feature a Broadcom system on a chip (SoC) with an integrated ARM-compatible central processing unit (CPU) and on-chip graphics processing unit (GPU), while Raspberry Pi Pico has a RP2040 system on chip with an integrated ARM-compatible central processing unit (CPU).
In 2014, the Foundation released a board with an improved design, Raspberry Pi Model B+. These first generation boards feature ARM11 processors, are approximately credit-card sized and represent the standard mainline form-factor. Improved A+ and B models were released within a year. A "Compute Module" was released in April 2014 for embedded applications.
The Raspberry Pi 2 was released in February 2015 and initially featured a 900 MHz 32-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 processor with 1 GB RAM. Revision 1.2 featured a 900 MHz 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor (the same as that in the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, but underclocked to 900 MHz).
The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B was released in February 2016 with a 1.2 GHz 64-bit quad core ARM Cortex-A53 processor, on-board 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and USB boot capabilities.
On Pi Day 2018, the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ was launched with a faster 1.4 GHz processor, a three-times faster gigabit Ethernet (throughput limited to ca. 300 Mbit/s by the internal USB 2.0 connection), and 2.4 / 5 GHz dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi (100 Mbit/s).Power over Ethernet (PoE) (with the add-on PoE HAT), USB boot and network boot (an SD card is no longer required).
The Raspberry Pi 4 Model B was released in June 2019ARM Cortex-A72 processor, on-board 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5, full gigabit Ethernet (throughput not limited), two USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, 1–8 GB of RAM, and dual-monitor support via a pair of micro HDMI (HDMI Type D) ports for up to 4K resolution. The version with 1 GB RAM has been abandoned and the prices of the 2 GB version have been reduced. The 8 GB version has a revised circuit board. The Pi 4 is also powered via a USB-C port, enabling additional power to be provided to downstream peripherals, when used with an appropriate PSU. But the Pi can only be operated with 5 volts and not 9 or 12 volts like other mini computers of this class. The initial Raspberry Pi 4 board has a design flaw where third-party e-marked USB cables, such as those used on Apple MacBooks, incorrectly identify it and refuse to provide power.Tom"s Hardware tested 14 different cables and found that 11 of them turned on and powered the Pi without issue.C0. The manufacturer is now using this chip for the Pi 4 B and Pi 400. However, the tack frequency of the Pi 4 B was not increased in the factory.
The Raspberry Pi 400 was released in November 2020. A modern example of a keyboard computer, it features 4 GB of LPDDR4 RAM on a custom board derived from the existing Raspberry Pi 4 combined with a keyboard in a single case. The case was derived from that of the Raspberry Pi Keyboard.
A Raspberry Pi Zero with smaller size and reduced input/output (I/O) and general-purpose input/output (GPIO) capabilities was released in November 2015 for US$5.
On 28 October 2021, the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W was launched, a version of the Zero W with a system in a package (SiP) designed by Raspberry Pi and based on the Raspberry Pi 3.
Raspberry Pi Pico was released in January 2021 with a retail price of $4.microcontroller chip; the RP2040, which was designed by Raspberry Pi in the UK.flash memory. It is programmable in MicroPython, CircuitPython, C and Rust. The Raspberry Pi Foundation has partnered with Adafruit, Pimoroni, Arduino and SparkFun to build accessories for Raspberry Pi Pico and variety of other boards using RP2040 Silicon Platform.physical computing, similar in concept to an Arduino.
On 30 June 2022, the Raspberry Pi Pico W was launched, a version of the Pico with 802.11n Wi-Fi capability, for US$6. The CYW43439 wireless chip in the Pico W also supports Bluetooth, but the capability was not enabled at launch.
As of 4 May 2021, the Foundation is committed to manufacture most Pi models until at least January 2026. Even the 1 GB Pi 4B can still be specially-ordered.
The Raspberry Pi hardware has evolved through several versions that feature variations in the type of the central processing unit, amount of memory capacity, networking support, and peripheral-device support.
This block diagram describes models B, B+, A and A+. The Pi Zero models are similar, but lack the Ethernet and USB hub components. The Ethernet adapter is internally connected to an additional USB port. In Model A, A+, and the Pi Zero, the USB port is connected directly to the system on a chip (SoC). On the Pi 1 Model B+ and later models the USB/Ethernet chip contains a five-port USB hub, of which four ports are available, while the Pi 1 Model B only provides two. On the Pi Zero, the USB port is also connected directly to the SoC, but it uses a micro USB (OTG) port. Unlike all other Pi models, the 40 pin GPIO connector is omitted on the Pi Zero, with solderable through-holes only in the pin locations. The Pi Zero WH remedies this.
Processor speed ranges from 700 MHz to 1.4 GHz for the Pi 3 Model B+ or 1.5 GHz for the Pi 4; on-board memory ranges from 256 MB to 8 GB random-access memory (RAM), with only the Raspberry Pi 4 having more than 1 GB. Secure Digital (SD) cards in MicroSDHC form factor (SDHC on early models) are used to store the operating system and program memory, however some models also come with onboard eMMC storageSSD storage for its operating system.USB ports. For video output, HDMI and composite video are supported, with a standard 3.5 mm tip-ring-sleeve jack carrying mono audio together with composite video. Lower-level output is provided by a number of GPIO pins, which support common protocols like I²C. The B-models have an 8P8C Ethernet port and the Pi 3, Pi 4 and Pi Zero W have on-board Wi-Fi 802.11n and Bluetooth.
The Broadcom BCM2835 SoC used in the first generation Raspberry PiMHz 32-bit ARM1176JZF-S processor, VideoCore IV graphics processing unit (GPU),cache of 16 KB and a level 2 (L2) cache of 128 KB. The level 2 cache is used primarily by the GPU. The SoC is stacked underneath the RAM chip, so only its edge is visible. The ARM1176JZ(F)-S is the same CPU used in the original iPhone,clock rate, and mated with a much faster GPU.
The earlier V1.1 model of the Raspberry Pi 2 used a Broadcom BCM2836 SoC with a 900 MHz 32-bit, quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 processor, with 256 KB shared L2 cache.64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor,underclocked (by default) to the same 900 MHz CPU clock speed as the V1.1. The BCM2836 SoC is no longer in production as of late 2016.
The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B uses a Broadcom BCM2837 SoC with a 1.2 GHz 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor, with 512 KB shared L2 cache. The Model A+ and B+ are 1.4 GHz
The Raspberry Pi 4 uses a Broadcom BCM2711 SoC with a 1.5 GHz (later models: 1.8 GHz) 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A72 processor, with 1 MB shared L2 cache.interrupt controller poorly suited for virtualisation, the interrupt controller on this SoC is compatible with the ARM Generic Interrupt Controller (GIC) architecture 2.0, providing hardware support for interrupt distribution when using ARM virtualisation capabilities.
The Raspberry Pi Zero and Zero W use the same Broadcom BCM2835 SoC as the first generation Raspberry Pi, although now running at 1 GHz CPU clock speed.
The Raspberry Pi Zero W 2 uses the RP3A0-AU CPU, a 1 GHz 64 bit ARM Cortex A53, on 512MB of SDRAM. Documentation states this "system-on-package" is a Broadcom BCM2710A1 package, using a BCM2837 Broadcom chip as core, which is an ARM v8 quad-core. The Raspberry Pi 3 also uses the BCM2837, but clocked at 1.2 GHz.
While operating at 700 MHz by default, the first generation Raspberry Pi provided a real-world performance roughly equivalent to 0.041 GFLOPS.Pentium II of 1997–99. The GPU provides 1 Gpixel/s or 1.5 Gtexel/s of graphics processing or 24 GFLOPS of general purpose computing performance. The graphical capabilities of the Raspberry Pi are roughly equivalent to the performance of the Xbox of 2001.
Raspberry Pi 2 V1.1 included a quad-core Cortex-A7 CPU running at 900 MHz and 1 GB RAM. It was described as 4–6 times more powerful than its predecessor. The GPU was identical to the original.
Most Raspberry Pi systems-on-chip could be overclocked to 800 MHz, and some to 1000 MHz. There are reports the Raspberry Pi 2 can be similarly overclocked, in extreme cases, even to 1500 MHz (discarding all safety features and over-voltage limitations). In Raspberry Pi OS the overclocking options on boot can be made by a software command running "sudo raspi-config" without voiding the warranty.temperature reaches 85 °C (185 °F), but it is possible to override automatic over-voltage and overclocking settings (voiding the warranty); an appropriately sized heat sink is needed to protect the chip from serious overheating.
Newer versions of the firmware contain the option to choose between five overclock ("turbo") presets that, when used, attempt to maximise the performance of the SoC without impairing the lifetime of the board. This is done by monitoring the core temperature of the chip and the CPU load, and dynamically adjusting clock speeds and the core voltage. When the demand is low on the CPU or it is running too hot, the performance is throttled, but if the CPU has much to do and the chip"s temperature is acceptable, performance is temporarily increased with clock speeds of up to 1 GHz, depending on the board version and on which of the turbo settings is used.
In the highest (turbo) mode the SDRAM clock speed was originally 500 MHz, but this was later changed to 600 MHz because of occasional SD card corruption. Simultaneously, in high mode the core clock speed was lowered from 450 to 250 MHz, and in medium mode from 333 to 250 MHz.
The CPU of the first and second generation Raspberry Pi board did not require cooling with a heat sink or fan, even when overclocked, but the Raspberry Pi 3 may generate more heat when overclocked.
The early designs of the Raspberry Pi Model A and B boards included only 256 MB of random access memory (RAM). Of this, the early beta Model B boards allocated 128 MB to the GPU by default, leaving only 128 MB for the CPU.framebuffer, and was likely to fail for any video or 3D. 128 MB was for heavy 3D processing, possibly also with video decoding.Nokia 701 uses 128 MB for the Broadcom VideoCore IV.
The later Model B with 512 MB RAM, was released on 15 October 2012 and was initially released with new standard memory split files (arm256_start.elf, arm384_start.elf, arm496_start.elf) with 256 MB, 384 MB, and 496 MB CPU RAM, and with 256 MB, 128 MB, and 16 MB video RAM, respectively. But about one week later, the foundation released a new version of start.elf that could read a new entry in config.txt (gpu_mem=xx) and could dynamically assign an amount of RAM (from 16 to 256 MB in 8 MB steps) to the GPU, obsoleting the older method of splitting memory, and a single start.elf worked the same for 256 MB and 512 MB Raspberry Pis.
The Model A, A+ and Pi Zero have no Ethernet circuitry and are commonly connected to a network using an external user-supplied USB Ethernet or Wi-Fi adapter. On the Model B and B+ the Ethernet port is provided by a built-in USB Ethernet adapter using the SMSC LAN9514 chip.802.11n (150 Mbit/s) and Bluetooth 4.1 (24 Mbit/s) based on the Broadcom BCM43438 FullMAC chip with no official support for monitor mode (though it was implemented through unofficial firmware patchingIEEE 802.11b/g/n/ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.2, and Gigabit Ethernet (limited to approximately 300 Mbit/s by the USB 2.0 bus between it and the SoC). The Raspberry Pi 4 has full gigabit Ethernet (throughput is not limited as it is not funnelled via the USB chip.)
Raspberry Pi models with a newer chipset can boot from USB mass storage, such as from a flash drive. Booting from USB mass storage is not available in the original Raspberry Pi models, the Raspberry Pi Zero, the Raspberry Pi Pico, the Raspberry Pi 2 A models, and the Raspberry Pi 2 B models with versions lower than 1.2.
Although often pre-configured to operate as a headless computer, the Raspberry Pi may also optionally be operated with any generic USB computer keyboard and mouse.
The video controller can generate standard modern TV resolutions, such as HD and Full HD, and higher or lower monitor resolutions as well as older NTSC or PAL standard CRT TV resolutions. As shipped (i.e., without custom overclocking) it can support the following resolutions: 640×350 EGA; 640×480 VGA; 800×600 SVGA; 1024×768 XGA; 1280×720 720p HDTV; 1280×768 WXGA variant; 1280×800 WXGA variant; 1280×1024 SXGA; 1366×768 WXGA variant; 1400×1050 SXGA+; 1600×1200 UXGA; 1680×1050 WXGA+; 1920×1080 1080p HDTV; 1920×1200 WUXGA.
Although the Raspberry Pi 3 does not have H.265 decoding hardware, the CPU is more powerful than its predecessors, potentially fast enough to allow the decoding of H.265-encoded videos in software.
The Raspberry Pis can also generate 576i and 480i composite video signals, as used on old-style (CRT) TV screens and less-expensive monitors through standard connectors – either RCA or 3.5 mm phono connector depending on model. The television signal standards supported are PAL-B/G/H/I/D, PAL-M, PAL-N, NTSC and NTSC-J.
When booting, the time defaults to being set over the network using the Network Time Protocol (NTP). The source of time information can be another computer on the local network that does have a real-time clock, or to a NTP server on the internet. If no network connection is available, the time may be set manually or configured to assume that no time passed during the shutdown. In the latter case, the time is monotonic (files saved later in time always have later timestamps) but may be considerably earlier than the actual time. For systems that require a built-in real-time clock, a number of small, low-cost add-on boards with real-time clocks are available.
The RP2040 microcontroller has a built-in real-time clock but this can not be set automatically without some form of user entry or network facility being added.
Raspberry Pi 1 Models A+ and B+, Pi 2 Model B, Pi 3 Models A+, B and B+, Pi 4, and Pi Zero, Zero W, Zero WH and Zero W 2 have the same 40-pin pinout called J8 header.
Models A and B provide GPIO access to the ACT status LED using GPIO 16. Models A+ and B+ provide GPIO access to the ACT status LED using GPIO 47, and the power status LED using GPIO 35.
Various operating systems for the Raspberry Pi can be installed on a MicroSD or SD card, depending on the board and available adapters; seen here is the MicroSD slot located on the bottom of a Raspberry Pi 2 board.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation provides Raspberry Pi OS (formerly called Raspbian), a Debian-based Linux distribution for download, as well as third-party Ubuntu, Windows 10 IoT Core, RISC OS, LibreELEC (specialised media centre distribution)Kodi media centre and classroom management.Python and Scratch as the main programming languages, with support for many other languages.firmware is closed source, while unofficial open source is available.seL4 is also supported.
Broadcom VCOS – Proprietary operating system which includes an abstraction layer designed to integrate with existing kernels, such as ThreadX (which is used on the VideoCore4 processor), providing drivers and middleware for application development. In the case of the Raspberry Pi, this includes an application to start the ARM processor(s) and provide the publicly documented API over a mailbox interface, serving as its firmware. An incomplete source of a Linux port of VCOS is available as part of the reference graphics driver published by Broadcom.
Ultibo Core – OS-less unikerel Run Time Library based on Free Pascal. Lazarus IDE (Windows with 3rd party ports to Linux and MacOS). Most Pi models supported.
Alpine Linux – a Linux distribution based on musl and BusyBox, "designed for power users who appreciate security, simplicity and resource efficiency".
Batocera – a buildroot based Linux OS that uses Emulation Station as its frontend for RetroArch and other emulators plus auxiliary scripts. Instead of a classic Linux distribution with package managers handling individual software updates, Batocera is crafted to behave more like a video game console firmware with all tools and emulators included and updated as a single package during software updates.
Slackware ARM – version 13.37 and later runs on the Raspberry Pi without modification.graphical user interface, Slackware"s default user environment is the textual shell / command line interface.Fluxbox window manager running under the X Window System requires an additional 48 MB of RAM.
Stratodesk – The NoTouch OS converts Raspberry Pis into managed thin clients. NoTouch can be pre-installed on Raspberry Pis from ViewSonic, NComputing. and ClearCube and self-installed for do-it-yourself projects.
Raspberry Pi can use a VideoCore IV GPU via a binary blob, which is loaded into the GPU at boot time from the SD-card, and additional software, that initially was closed source.OpenMax, OpenGL ES or OpenVG), which in turn call an open source driver inside the Linux kernel, which then calls the closed source VideoCore IV GPU driver code. The API of the kernel driver is specific for these closed libraries. Video applications use OpenMAX, OpenGL ES and OpenVG, which both in turn use EGL. OpenMAX and EGL use the open source kernel driver in turn.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation first announced it was working on a Vulkan driver in February 2020.Quake 3 at 100 frames per second on a 3B+ was revealed by a graphics engineer who had been working on it as a hobby project on 20 June.
The official firmware is a freely redistributablebinary blob, that is proprietary software.Linux kernel, with patches to remove the dependency on the mailbox interface being responsive. It is known to work on Raspberry Pi 1, 2 and 3, as well as some variants of Raspberry Pi Zero.
C/C++ Interpreter Ch – Released 3 January 2017, C/C++ interpreter Ch and Embedded Ch are released free for non-commercial use for Raspberry Pi, ChIDE is also included for the beginners to learn C/C++.
Greenfoot – Greenfoot teaches object orientation with Java. Create "actors" which live in "worlds" to build games, simulations, and other graphical programs.
Julia – an interactive and cross-platform programming language/environment, that runs on the Pi 1 and later.Visual Studio Code, are available. See also Pi-specific GitHub repository JuliaBerry.
LiveCode – an educational RAD IDE descended from HyperCard using English-like language to write event-handlers for WYSIWYG widgets runnable on desktop, mobile and Raspberry Pi platforms.
Scratch – a cro