No iMac? Build a iRasp3

I've wanted to try this for a long time with the Raspberry Pi 3. The Pi 3 has built-in WiFi, making it a natural for an iMac-like terminal unit. I've held off because of work on my new book, which is will be out early next year (shameless plug here: http://www.apress.com/us/book/9781484224052).

Now that the Pi 3 is free, I just had to repurpose an old Viewsonic VG2230wm monitor with a Pi on the back (Figure 1).

Figure 1. iRasp front view.

I received the monitor some time ago from a friend without a stand. I eventually junked another monitor which had a stand that could be adapted to the Viewsonic. You can see it crudely attached in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Note the adapted stand for the monitor. Raspberry Pi 3 is mounted on the back with plastic spacers, using wood screws in the plastic casing.

The Pi is mounted on top of four plastic spacers, made from a pen cut with a small pipe cutter. The screw holes were carefully drilled over an area known to have some breathing space underneath. The monitor internals are covered in a metal shield, so I wasn't too worried about hurting anything (I had also been inside before).

The Pi 3 also has four USB ports. So even though I need two for keyboard and mouse, I still have two available. If needed, there is also a wired ethernet port.

I made sure to orient the GPIO header strip towards the bottom. This will allow me to use a longer ribbon cable down to the Cobbler-T for breadboard work.

Someday I hope to replace keyboard and mouse with wireless peripherals, since the Pi 3 also sports Bluetooth. In the meantime, I'll be looking for a shorter HDMI and audio cable.

Thanks for reading.