Posted by: @16never

Hello everyone,

A friend and I are planning on each building a livesectional using the Basic instructions (LED based project). I saw that on the Basic item list is the Raspberry Pi 4, and on the WBBB instructions the Pi Zero W is listed. I am wondering if the Pi Zero would work for the Basic project too, just to save a little money since I am a broke college student. I have never worked with Raspberry Pi before so I don't know what the major differences between the two are models are. Thanks in advance for your help!

Hi @16Never,

Yes the ZeroW will work fine for these projects.  Looking forward to seeing your builds.

Thanks,

Bill

@liveadmin 

Thanks a lot for the fast reply! Im glad to hear the Pi Zero will work.

Bill is correct, the Pi Zero is running on a couple of my boards. The only thing I notice is that the speed in which things happen is slower. For instance, on boot up the Zero is noticeably longer than the newer boards. That said, the software will work fine. Can't wait to see the finished boards. - Mark

The only piece of advice I have is that if you don't own/have access to a soldering iron, make sure to get one of the Pi Zeros with the header soldered in.

I'd also highly recommend the Adafruit breadboard for $8 to connect the Pi up to rest of the circuit.

Does anybody know if the Banana Pi M2 Zero will work with Livesectional software instead of Raspberry Pi Zero W? It’s basically a clone but with a faster processor and significantly cheaper.

I have never tried it. Sounds interesting though. The only concern might be the pin numbering. The software is hard coded to specific GPIO's on the RPi. So if the Banana is setup the same as far as pinouts are concerned, there is a chance. If you try it, let us know what you find out. - Mark

Hi Mark. So I have finally built my map (on PCB), and connected Banana Pi. But it seems that unfortunately I can't pass even the first step of wifi configuration via Berrylan. Bluetooth device can't be seen when Berrylan performs search. Power is on - LED light is on. It's either impossible on Banana Pi (however Berrylan's FAQ says they support multiple other hardware and suggest to try), or it's generally possible on Banana Pi, but the problem is in the software which might be not compatible. Don't know how to check it and proceed. Which OS version is Livesectional v4 based on? Wiki says that Banana Pi M2 Zero should support these OS: Android (Android 4.2, Android 4.4)，Linux (Armbian, Lubuntu, Raspbian, Debian, Fedora, Arch Linux ARM, Gentoo, openSUSE), Berryboot, FreeBSD, OpenWrt.

That looks great.

Here's the OS information from the 'System Information' page of the web interface;

OS Info
PRETTY_NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)"
NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="10"
VERSION="10 (buster)"
VERSION_CODENAME=buster
ID=raspbian
ID_LIKE=debian
HOME_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianForums"
BUG_REPORT_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianBugs"

The other way to setup the WiFi is to have a monitor and keyboard connected, then boot. You will see the RPi's IP address come up in green. Then you can enter;

sudo raspi-config

Then enter your WiFi credentials. You will need to reboot but after that you should be good to go. - Mark