A. One Raspberry Pi: You are better to go for the most advanced one available which at present { November 2018 }  is the Raspberry Pi B+, these things are cheap and the 3 series already has WIFI on board, so why skimp? The Pi Zero is not suitable and the new Raspberry Pi A+ though a possible candidate is going to be hard to set up because of its lack of ports.

While it is perfectly possible to assemble the node and set it up with just one raspberry Pi having two of them makes things easier, one which is built into the node and another to set up the Hampvoip image software on. Having an extra Pi is no problem as it can be used for future projects.

B. One Baofeng 888s radio, 2018 model: While older models with the longer board are also suitable I have not covered their conversion on this website. I would have thought that all the new ones now on sale would be suitable.

C. One CM108 soundcard: These are cheap so best buy three or four, they can be fiddly to convert and this is where problems may occur so best have a spare. Any leftover can be used in future projects.

D. One project box to house the node: Use one of the dimensions of 130 x 170 x 55 mm or bigger, that is the size I use for my mini node, but don’t go any smaller than that or things are going to be a tight fit. 

E. One LM2596 Buck Converter: These are for the power supply, again this is a very cheap item so buy a few.

F. Ariel lead hardware of your choice.

G. one SD card, buy the best quality { fast } one you can, 16 GB is fine.

H. Various components: One transistor: { 2N3904 }

Six resistors : 1 x 100 ohm + 1 x 2k  + 1 x 6k and 3 x 10k

Two LEDs: One green and one blue look good in the finished node.

I. Finally one power switch, one power socket and hook up wire.

Having read the above I guess it will not be lost on the average radio amateur just how cheap these nodes are to put together.

Click here to return to the Allstar Mini Node construction details page.