DIY: Initial Raspberry Pi 3 experience & Making a low-cost Pi Case with 250gm Butter Case

New year brought some good news for me after I finally bought a Raspberry Pi 3 to build some hobby projects (Server based and Engineering) which I had read on the Net from long. After ordering the Pi 3 I was also prompted to buy a Case with a fan since some articles and videos showed that the CPU of Pi really gets hot sometimes. 

Within a short span of 24 hours I roughly completed 3-4 projects - 

1. Using the Pi as a Portable NAS (Network Attached Storage) Server.

2. Using the Pi as Webcam Server using a legacy Desktop Webcam.

3. Connecting the Pi to Internet using a TATA Photon Plus Internet dongle.

4. Booting the Pi using a small-sized Micro SD card and a large USB Thumb Drive.

I also managed to play streaming using (using Gaana.com) and also watched HD videos on YouTube. Do note that by default the Pi neither plays Music using the Analog Audio Port, nor through HDMI. So you need to run the "raspi-config" utility (Advanced Options -> Audio) to fine tune your Pi. I also learnt that the Pi doesn't have any BIOS and hence its start-up is controlled using the "/boot/config.txt" file. 

I used the bash script below from Raspberry Pi Forum to check the CPU and GPU temperatures -

#!/bin/bash

cpuTemp0=$(cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp)

cpuTemp1=$(($cpuTemp0/1000))

cpuTemp2=$(($cpuTemp0/100))

cpuTempM=$(($cpuTemp2 % $cpuTemp1))

echo CPU temp"="$cpuTemp1"."$cpuTempM"'C"

echo GPU $(/opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd measure_temp)

After doing all the basic testing and bench-marking, I found that the Pi CPU/GPU only gets considerably hot when you use Video intensive and Processor intensive applications (like watching Videos, Playing Games, etc.). However any Bandwidth hungry applications like NAS Server doesn't make the Pi really hot. There is also a small CPU utilisation widget on the Pi Desktop. Any utilisation going beyond 40-50% makes the Pi hot.

So if you plan to use Pi only for the basic use and don't want to buy a new case I can share with you some pics which will help you in making your own Basic Pi Case.

What you need -

1. Empty 250 gm Butter Case (which you buy from your regular grocery store).

2. A pair of scissors.

3. Measuring Scale.

4. Thermocol.

Assuming that you have been good in Arts and Crafts during your school days (:-), you can make the case by looking into where the different ports are placed and also ensuring that there is ventilation on top of the CPU and space provided for the GPIO pins to be connected externally. I used the Thermocol inside the Butter case, so that the Pi motherboard sits comfortable and doesn't move much.

The pics below will make things easier for you -

What are you waiting for? Try it out yourself and do let me know if you have any questions or want to share your experience about initial setup of your Raspberry Pi 3.