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Repurpose Optical Drive With Raspberry Pi

Old(er) Thinkpads with New(er) Intestines: X62/T50/T70/X210/X330 etc.
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rumbero
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Repurpose Optical Drive With Raspberry Pi

#1 Post by rumbero » Wed Nov 10, 2021 2:41 pm

www.instructables.com/Re-purpose-Optical-Drive-With-RPi

»[...] I thought about what I could put in there instead and realised I could embed a Raspberry Pi inside my computer that I could use for projects on the go and more programmable IO for my computer. As this idea evolved I came up with the idea of powering the Pi form the power provided by the laptop to run the optical drive and connecting to the Pi from my laptop using VNC. [...]«

I wonder if instead of a Raspberry Pi using a more capable mini computer would be feasible...
A few 14.1" and 15" T61+ Frankenpads and one T480

unixed
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Re: Repurpose Optical Drive With Raspberry Pi

#2 Post by unixed » Wed Nov 10, 2021 4:39 pm

The raspberry pi 4 (especially the compute module) with 8GB RAM would be a good fit for a T60/T61 frankenpad.
It would be an interesting alternative if networking with other units was not available for any reason.

L29Ah
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Re: Repurpose Optical Drive With Raspberry Pi

#3 Post by L29Ah » Wed Nov 10, 2021 10:27 pm

rumbero wrote:
Wed Nov 10, 2021 2:41 pm
www.instructables.com/Re-purpose-Optical-Drive-With-RPi

»[...] I thought about what I could put in there instead and realised I could embed a Raspberry Pi inside my computer that I could use for projects on the go and more programmable IO for my computer. As this idea evolved I came up with the idea of powering the Pi form the power provided by the laptop to run the optical drive and connecting to the Pi from my laptop using VNC. [...]«

I wonder if instead of a Raspberry Pi using a more capable mini computer would be feasible...
If you only need PIO, a better approach would utilize FTDI boards, as they're more convenient to use from the thinkpad itself, attach to USB readily and are much more energy efficient.
51nb X210 with community EC mod, me_cleaner and recelled 99W*h battery; X230 with coreboot, me_cleaner and nitrocaster's FHD mod as a backup; R500 for guests; T60 just for the looks.

axur-delmeria
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Re: Repurpose Optical Drive With Raspberry Pi

#4 Post by axur-delmeria » Thu Nov 11, 2021 4:18 am

There's the new Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, which has a quad-core Cortex A53 SoC running at 1GHz and 512MB of RAM. A bit slower than the RPi 3B (quad-core Cortex A53 @ 1.4GHz) and half the RAM.
Planned Purchase: T480s i5-8350 FHD Touch
Impulse Buy: Thinkpad not named for safety reasons :lol:
RIP: X220 4291-C91 X61 7676-A24 760XD-U9E :cry:

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