Well, with the release of Raspberry Pi sometime in December, I thought I'd look into building a tablet. Predicted parts:

Raspberry Pi A or B
Touchscreen
Battery (This will have a 300mA draw (700mA for the B version), and will need to provide that through a Micro USB cable)
Wireless Ethernet USB Dongle
SD card (Persistent storage)
USB Hub
A case of some sort.

I know where to get most of this stuff, but I don't know where to get a touchscreen, or a battery that meets those specs. I've been pointed to various places by tifreak and Kerm, (To eBay and someplace else) but they had doubts that I would be able to find a screen big enough. If anyone has Ideas on where I could get such parts, it would be appreciated.

EDIT:



What it doesn't say is how to do this. I'm not really sure what they're talking about.

As for the batteries, it would be setup like any other battery device. The batteries create a circuit with the device. It's nothing different from device to device.

My knowledge ends there, so I'll let others correct, agree or add-on to what I have said.

Well yes, I know that... I mean in terms of how to hook them up, and that sort.

Well, if you're going NiMH the charging hardware is more modest, but with a Li-Ion battery you'll want an overcharging protection circuit.

/me is still very confuddled.

NiMH means the type of rechargeable you buy in the AA form factor, that was made after, say, '99 (older ones are NiCd, which suck in many ways) whereas Li-Ions are the ones you have in Cell phones, laptops, and other stuff.

Li-Ions hold about twice as much, but have a tendency to explode if overcharged. Hence, NiMH is safer. Plus, it uses greener materials, if that matters (not saying production is greener, but waste is)

Also, you can buy NiMH far more easily.

I know about all that. What I'm asking here is, how would I hook this stuff up? I'm not very clear on that bit. More on the anti-vaporware bit: The Register's take on this. Here's a circuit diagram to clear a bit of what I'm trying to do up:

link

***BUMP***

So... There's beta pcbs now. And they really are credit card size. Anyway... Tablets. I would really like to get a post from some of our hardware hackers (*Cough* Kerm *Cough*) who have skipped this topic...

If you can find a nice, cheap, touchscreen, I would be very happy. I've been trying to source one myself and have thus far been unsuccessful.

I think you can simply buy the 4 battery case, and then hook the + and - ends to a USB male port, depending on the pins of the USB micro USB. These can be found on Mouser, and potentially many other electronic hobbyist retailers.

Kerm: Depends on how big the touchscreen. If you are truly aiming for tablet, it's going to be hard, even with the resistive ones... for this guy [Raspberry Pi], I'm going to be aiming for an iPod Touch form factor, since it's guaranteed to be pretty darn cheap.

Albert: absolutely not. You need a voltage regulator on it, either of the 5V low-drop variety, or (maaaaaybe) the 5.1V zener diode trick. For supplying power to a whole board, I would probably go the discrete regulator route. Regarding touchscreens, something 3" diagonal or so is what I want, ideally in the $20 or less range.

I remember you mentioning places to buy touchscreens on irc, but I can't remember where. Could you post them here?

Ahh yes, forgot that even AA batteries can fry a device in a few seconds. :/
My bad.

http://www.directron.com/id800t.html

there you can find a touch screen image viewer, maybe you can disassamble it, sincs it's ony $70 for a 800*600 touch lcd, the quality will be in the same range as the price i think, but it might help to see if everything works

The difficulty there would be seeing how much extra interface circuitry you'd need to make that work with the Pi. Ideally, we'd be able to find a nice LCD that requires minimal interface circuitry. I believe we need something with the LVDS interface?

Actually, DVI. Or Composite. That is, on the Pi's end. You're not likely to find DVI in embedded electronics, but composite is fairly common. LVDS is even more common

Then the touchscreen has some sort of interface of its own.

Hmm, maybe I could figure out some way to make it look like a touchpad, from the pi's end. Some of the DEs have options that can make a touchpad behave like a touchscreen.

figure out some way to make it USB and you don't need to do anything, but anything else will require more work on the Pi's end.

Edit: Wow, check out this thing. Sure, it's only 320x240, but it's also only $20!

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/3-5-tft-lcd-monitor-visual-reversing-vehicles-reverse-camera-ntsc-pal-dc8-15v-49796

There are some USB (display link) screens that have touchscreen.
I have an 800*600 7 inch screen (without touchscreen) of samsung, and it only costs 50 euro.
Linux has displaylink drivers, so you should be able to use them without a hassle

Hmm, that's not a bad price at all for something like that! Ideally, I'd like to be able to find something around 4" or so, with a resolution near 640x480 pixels, resistive touch would be nice, around the $20-$30 mark.