Weekly Digest 27 – 31 | Aquariums, Cyberdecks & Clusters
Welcome back to another edition of PiShop Africa's Weekly News! Whether you're micro-soldering in Johannesburg, printing enclosures in Cape Town, or tweaking Linux kernels in Nairobi, we've got a packed roundup of hardware challenges, retro hacks, and DIY project inspiration.
Raspberry Pi Community Highlight
The latest issue of the official Raspberry Pi Magazine (#168) is packed with incredible community builds, in-depth tutorials, and hardware news. As always, the issue highlights how versatile single-board computers have become, featuring everything from home automation powerhouses to clever handheld builds. Be sure to check out the digital copy or pick up a physical issue to see what makers around the globe are building this month!
Featured Projects
Simplified Pico VGA: Graphics Output From Fewer Pins
Over on Kevin's Blog, an interesting deep dive explores how to generate VGA output using a Raspberry Pi Pico without burning through all your GPIO pins. While standard Pico VGA implementations (like the official hardware design manual and Pimoroni's Pico VGA Demo Base) typically demand a whopping 17 GPIO pins for full color output, Kevin breaks down cleverly simplified alternatives.
By analyzing implementations like Pico(Q)VGA, DispHSTX, and the MCEBlaster project (a standalone TTL to VGA adapter), Kevin's article looks at how reducing bit depth or taking advantage of composite sync (CSYNC) can bring pin counts down to as few as 8 or 9 pins. It’s a great read for makers trying to build retro displays or embedded terminal outputs on a micro-controller budget!
Pocket-CM5: A Smartphone-Sized Handheld PC Powered by Raspberry Pi CM5
Maker amarullz has shared the open-source hardware design for the piBrick Pocket-CM5, a smartphone-sized handheld computer driven by the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 (CM5).
Featuring a sleek 3.92" AMOLED multi-touch display (1080×1240 @ 90 Hz), a full BlackBerry Q20 keyboard with a trackpad, NVMe M.2 storage support, and a 5000mAh battery, this pocket rocket turns the CM5 into a portable Linux powerhouse. Beyond acting as a mobile terminal, its USB-HID capabilities allow it to plug into other servers as an external keyboard and mouse with an integrated display, making it an ultimate on-site field tool for sysadmins and engineers.
Our Binge-Watch of the Week
Building a 4-Node Physics-Themed Raspberry Pi Cluster by Spencer's Desk
Our top video watch pick this week goes to Spencer's Desk for an incredible walkthrough of building a 4-node Raspberry Pi cluster packed inside a custom 3D-printed case themed around the fundamental forces of physics.Using a Turing Pi 2 board, Spencer puts this cluster to the test by running a local LLM, a Minecraft server, Pi-hole, and even contributing compute power to Einstein@Home to search the universe for rapidly spinning neutron stars (pulsars). It's an insightful, honest, and visually stunning look at whether building a multi-node Pi cluster is actually worth doing!
DIY PC "Cartridge" Vinyl Wraps for HDDs & SSDs
For the retro-hardware modders and physical media purists, this step-by-step tutorial breaks down how to create custom, professional-grade vinyl drive wraps for 2.5-inch HDDs and SSDs. The creator shares printable templates, design techniques for drive spines, masking around drive breathing holes, and cutting vinyl labels to transform standard storage drives into retro PC "game cartridges."
Reef-Pi Opensource Aquarium Controller
Rounding out our picks is a fantastic feature on reef-pi, an open-source aquarium controller built around the Raspberry Pi. Recorded on location at Aquashella, this chat with project creator Ranjib Dey breaks down how makers can merge electronics with marine biology to automate lighting, temperature sensing, dosing pumps, and water parameter monitoring, saving thousands over commercial aquarium automation setups!
Conclusion
That wraps up this week's news article! Lately, it feels like there's been both a lot of news and very little news, but I'll keep posting the stuff that us at PiShop find interesting or inspiring, and maybe we'll even base a project off of one of these!
Do you have any noteworthy projects that you'd like to share with the broader community? Let us know! We'd love to hear more about it and maybe even post it. Tag us on social media or send it through, you could be our next featured build!
