https://up-shop.org/up-boards/97-up-squared-pentium-quad-core-8gb-memory64gb-emmc.html
Currently slowly working on a project to automate and add functionality to my car (70’s). Even if it doesn’t work out cheaper or easier than going the route of pre-made tech, I’m still keen to learn whats involved anyway and have a decent knowledge base on mechanics, fabrication, and tech. just not too much with programming.
My question is would this board be a better option than using a raspberry Pi in conjunction with a second hand laptop or laptop with broken screen etc or would it not be worth it? I want to end up with most engine parameters on a display, servos to control all the air vents, possibly control the fan speed too,ultrasonic parking sensors & reversing camera, be capable of running decent emulators (Pi 3 can barely handle N64) and have a nice smooth interface that has little to no lag and doesn’t bog down and glitch out on me.
The system will be mounted under the dashboard out of sight, with a touchscreen display centered on the top of the dashboard, and a keyboard/mouse on the passenger side hidden but accessible.
Thanks
Hi Aaron,
At the end of the day, the board you linked to and a Raspberry Pi are very different boards. One’s running a pentium processor, the other, an ARM processor, there are huge differences in specs, so I guess it just depends on whether your project needs that or not. Perhaps it would be worth trying it with a Pi given the price difference, and if required, you could always upgrade.
Hey Sam,
I already have the Pi and have used it to learn some basic coding, most recently manually installing RetroPie into the Raspbian OS (took me a long time). The conclusion I came to was that the time invested in setting that up and getting it going wasn’t reflected in the actual performance of the system, hence it not being worth integrating that into my project but it’s still something i’m not willing to sacrifice.
Would the different chip architecture make it hard to control GPIO functionality on the board if windows was used as an OS?
Basically is it better to use a second hand laptop or something in conjunction with the Pi or better off buying this board? Not fussed about the price
Hi Aaron,
I haven’t used the UP board myself, so I can’t really comment on its ease of use. If it looks like it has all of the specs then I’d say it’s the one to go for.
