If what I’ve heard is true, most Raspberry Pi installations consist of the naked circuit board lying atop a nest of wires on the desk behind a monitor. I think it’s true; that was certainly my Raspberry Pi installation for a long time. Now, I’ve decided to use my steampunk computer table as my Raspberry Pi 3 workstation. And I got an idea: Use one of those VESA-standard 2-arm monitor stands that clamps to the edge of a desk without any drilling into or other hacking-up of the desk. One arm holds the monitor, and the other holds the Raspberry Pi itself.
The trick is to buy one of several Raspberry Pi cases that includes a flange with VESA 75 or VESA 100 holes. VESA is a standard for TV and monitor mounting hardware. Its two smallest configurations are a 75mm square, and a 100mm square. Most modern flat-panel TVs and many monitors have threaded holes on their back faces arranged in one of the several VESA configurations. I’m pretty sure (having looked at a lot of monitors and TVs in the past few years) that the 100mm configuration is the commonest. It’s the one on the Dell 1907fp monitor that I’ve been using for Raspberry Pi boards since the beginning. VESA-compatible displays generally use metric screw threads in the mounting holes, with M4 the standard for the smaller configurations, including 100mm. M4 screws can be had at Ace Hardware, and probably also at Home Depot and Lowe’s. (I go to Ace first for such things.)
The Raspberry Pi case that I used is this one:
It has four little wings with both the VESA 75 and VESA 100 holes. The holes in the wings aren’t threaded, and easily pass standard 8-32 machine screws, which I used to hold the case to the second arm of the monitor stand. I oriented the Raspberry Pi with its USB ports on top, so I can reach over the monitor and plug in peripherals or thumb drives easily.
This approach isn’t limited to the Raspberry Pi. There are VESA cases for the Intel NUC (Next Unit of Computing) boards, and most of the higher-end embedded boards like BeagleBone. On a small table like the one I made, there’s not a lot of flat space to park a case of any size, so whatever computer I’m going to be using on it should be able to hang on that second monitor arm. The arms on the unit I bought can hold up to 12 pounds each. Most of the small-form factor Dell machines I use are that weight or lighter. Dell’s Micro 3000 series has an optional VESA bracket, and brackets for other models may be available. And hey, you guys could rig something, right?
My RPi 3 (model B) is just sitting on top of a bookshelf with both a Cat 6 patch cable, a powered micro A USB cable, and a set of Harmon-Kardon computer speakers plugged into it. The micro SD card is loaded with Runeaudio, as an OS. Since I have finally learned how to configure it, it is just great. Yes, it is in a red with grey top case. I only wish that the grey was a bit silvery, or at least lighter.
I am thinking of what my next RPi project will be.
What are you using as an OS, Noobs or Ubuntu?
Using Raspbian with the new Pixel desktop environment. I was reasonably happy with the original Raspbian; UIs are common and cheap and more or less the same.