Details of the new Raspberry Pi B+ appear at raspberrpi.org; http://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi
Has anyone received one yet?
-
2Nothing special about it though is there. Just more USB ports? They could have added 1GB RAM or 2 LAN ports or something. Bleh – Piotr Kula Jul 13 '14 at 19:57
-
3MicroSD, regulated power supply, will probably make it more reliable. I can always find a use for 6 more gpios. – joan Jul 13 '14 at 19:58
-
I think the better io and power consumption look good, but i will stick with my model b. – RpiUser123 Jul 13 '14 at 20:02
-
IIRC the Pi's processor can't support more memory. – Steve Robillard Jul 13 '14 at 20:25
-
1This isn't really a question, though, is it? And for the record, I have two :-) – recantha Jul 14 '14 at 12:27
I, too, would like to see a second ethernet port as an option. A version of the b+ with a second RJ45 in place of the 3-4 USB ports would be sweet for a number of applications I can think of.
I have two of the B+ boards now. Haven't done anything with them, but overall, I think they are a good improvement over the B. I wish they had preserved compatible mounting holes, though I do like the new design better than the original. Problem is this prevents me from doing incremental replacement in a system that uses 18 PIs. Instead, if I want to take advantage of the other features, I have to replaceall the PIs, and even at $35, when you multiply by 18, it's meaningful money.
I'd also like to have seen them bring USB to the header connector rather than more grounds or the ID EEPROM pins. It'd be nice to be able to plug in a single daughterboard to the connector to integrate an additional USB Ether, power, and console all at once. I'm looking to plug in a daughter board that will hang over the side of the PI (in kind of a 7_ shape) so that the second RJ45 can be in the same vertical space as the first and so that the other side of the daughter board can plug into a socket that connects to USB and power.
With the current design, I'm stuck using an SPI Ether chip, of which I have only found two, one (Microchip ENC28J60) which is widely supported, but is limited to 10Mbps and another which is less well known, but does 10/100/1000. For my application, 10Mbps is sufficient, but 100 would be preferred. SPI doesn't do 100Mbps anyway, but hence the desire for USB.
Anyway, my plan is to put an ENC28J60+Phy and an FT232RL on the daughter board. The "card cage" will supply a USB port on a header connector which the daughter board plugs into. The 5v will supply non-standard high current capability and be passed through to the R-Pi 5V pins on the header as well as powering the FT232RL and the ENC28J60. The ENC28J60 will connect to the SPI port on the R-PI header and to the Phy at the edge of the board next to the USB and/or Ethernet ports (don't remember which is at the correct edge of the b+ board off the top of my head). The FT232RL will connect the console pins of the R-PI on its UART side and the USB side will connect to the card-cage USB port through the card-cage header (4-pin).
The card-cage will supply power and a USB hub to which the USB ports can connect, such that I should be able to access all 18 consoles from a single USB connection to the box and provide the second ethernet ports in a pretty compact form factor.
I've already done something similar with the model B, which is compact enough to fit in carry-on, but doesn't provide the consoles and the ether ports are provided by USB dongles requiring extensive disconnect/reconnect efforts for each use. (compactness requires unplugging the USB Ether dongles and cables for each transport).
All of this fits in a 22" carry on bag with room to spare (for 5 days clothing, a box of business cards, and necessary toiletries).
