Has anyone tried to use this with a Raspberry Pi Zero W? I am going to buy a Zero and install the software on it. I am thinking it could be used as a network only device for really cheap. Zeros cost around $10 and are extremely small. They can be run in headless mode (no monitor, keyboard, mouse). Further, I think it would be interesting to make an integration between the motor board with the Zero. This would mean only one power supply. Thoughts?
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Hi! I tried it with the RasPi Zero and Zero W, both did not work… The programm never started the GUI.
With RasPi 2, 3 and 4 it works fine.
- fabqu
Hi @fabqu! what do you mean by the program never started the GUI? Do you mean that you installed the GUI version of the OpenFlexure OS image and it did not boot at all?
If it works on all models except RPI zero, I suspect that it’s because maybe the RPI zero uses another CPU architecture. If that is really the problem, then we could compile all OpenFlexure software and configuration from scratch on a vanilla RaspberryPi OS (not the one by OpenFlexure). I would love to test that hypothesis but I do not have a working OpenFlexure microscope to study beforehand.
The Pi Zero has a single core processor of a much older type - same as the original Pi B+. This will not be enough to run the microscope software from the Pi desktop. Pi 4 is recommended, it does work on a Pi 3B+ (both are 4-core). There is a chance a Zero might manage the version of the OFM server software that has no desktop, commanded by SSH or from the client on a different computer. if it works at all it is likely to be very slow. The OFM extensively uses the integration of the Pi camera. The connector is physically different on the Zero, I don’t know whether there is a difference in architecture that will break things for OFM.