Years ago on one of his visits home from Japan, my son gave me his old Raspberry Pi, because he had just upgraded to the new Pi B+. It didn't take much messing around with it before I saw some potential and ended up with a Pi B+ as well. As luck would have it, the Pi 2 was released about a week later, and with the faster processor and double the RAM, I acquired one.
Then the Raspgerry Pi 3 came out with a faster processor and 4 USB ports, and even more useful - built in Wifi and Bluetooth. Suddenly I had the basis for something I had wanted. A low power draw desktop computer for one of the yachts I was living aboard for part of the year.
A wander around the computer stores found me a 15 inch LED TV that used a 12 Volt power supply and had HDMI input and a USB port. I had thought the USB port could be used to power the Pi, but while it may have been sufficient for the B+, the Pi 2 needs close to 2.5 Amps and the early TV USB port outputs were seldom that high.
The neat thing though, was that this TV used a 2 Amp 12 volt power adapter with a standard D.C. plug end. It worked fine instead with a car cigarette lighter adapter. A Pi of course, will run nicely using a cigarette lighter USB charger adapter.
So the electrical requirements were sorted, because the 26 foot Cavalier keel boat I was living on was already set up with 12V cigarette outlets in various places, and solar charging.
A few things happened with my health - mainly three apparent Golden Staph infections in my brain, and a mess of it in my heart, The brain was stabilised using very strong antibiotics, but the heart was bad and required a replacement Aortic Valve. That took me off the yacht and screwed up my life for the next 6 years. After years of suffering from a 1999 spinal injury that the hospital had ignored, then more from the dozen or more fractures in the hit and run incident in 2004, I could do without more health dramas.
My life had been pretty well 'stolen' from me by medical incompetence for years, and now this! As it turned out, things would get worse.
In 2017, the yacht "Shepherd Moons" was wrecked in cyclone Debbie, and while I was trying to salvage some stuff in the wreck lying in the mangroves, I got infected again. I ended up with a Golden Staph infection in my heart that was so serious they were doubtful if it could be operated on. On top of that I had three bleeds into various lobes of the brain. One in the occipital lobe has affected my eyesight, one might have made me a little dumber, but the other was into the cerebellum and was definitely life threatening of its own accord, because there was a real likelihood that I would return from surgery in a permanent vegetative state.
The surgical team pointed out that this time the Golden Staph infection was not only in the valves of my heart, but had apparently eaten into the 'mitral curtain', and area separating two of the chambers in my heart. They would not know for sure, but they suspected repair might not be practical. If it was reparable, they planned to remove a section of my heart containing the root of the Aorta, and the Aortic Valve, and replace the whole piece with a section from a pig's heart.
They also insisted my son, who was now working in Brisbane, fly to Townsville to say 'goodbye' just in case.
Despite saying goodbye to the people closest to me, I ended up surviving again. But my days of living aboard yachts are probably over. I came through with permanent effects of stroke, and some extended peripheral nerve damage as well as a couple of eyesight problems. But I can still drive, which is where we get back to this post.
I still have my Toyota HiAce van, and although it is getting a bit long in the tooth, I have spent a bt on it to keep it mechanically sound. And as much as a laptop might be more practical, I have all the bits here to make a small mobile desktop computer. So when the new Raspberry Pi 3B+ came out I bought one, because I had given my Pi 3 to my son.
I had a couple of Pi 2 around in cases, and since the cases haven't changed, I fitted one to the Pi 3B+, along with spare heat sinks left from when I overclocked the Pi 3. I also still had a bluetooth keyboard with a track pad.
All the parts were there, so I hooked it all together, Immediately I found that the system runs about the same as the overclocked Pi 3. But it is definitely sucking more power than my 2.4 Amp adapter likes. That means I will have to look for a 12V 2750ma or 3000ma adapter.
But it works. Video is ok on Chromium, and great on Kweb with OMXplayer. I worked on some stuff for Kweb with Gunther Kriedl a couple of years ago, so I like Kweb.
I also found that no matter what I did, VLC and SMplayer will not work properly because unlike OMXplayer, they do not have the appropriate codecs available and do not work with the Pi hardware acceleration.
However Kodi still does, so I can play video at 1080p using OMXplayer or Kodi, and I can watch 1080p or 720p YouTube videos.
The last big difference is that the Pi 3B+ can access my 5GHz WiFi with its built in wireless and bluetooth module, and streaming is now seamless.
The Pi case attaches to the back of the TV using velcro, and I use a very short flat HDMI cable for neatness - not the one shown above. Sound is though the HDMI cable,but I also have a little gadget that plugs into the audio socket on the Pi and transmits audio to the car radio if I want to play music with decent sound.
The van has a built in 4G WiFi hotspot access, so I can also have Internet and comms on the move, as well as TV if I am in a reception area.
I'm happy as a pig in stuff.
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