Ratherboard(C) (RB) project was started by a group of friends from the field of engineering, design, and video making.
Ratherboard project is our beloved child, and we truly believe that with your contribution it will make the life of hobbyists and professional companies easier, and their work much more fluent, reliable and fun.

RB Use Cases

We have selected some of Ratherboard’s endless application possibilities to make it easier for you to imagine how many areas could be affected positively by the help of the Ratherboard.

Garden & water

Home gardening, greenhouse control, aquavaristique, aquaponics, pet feeder, barn remote monitoring.
Ratherboard is ideal for timed and triggered actions like feeding fish or pets, watering the drying out potter soil, controlling windows, water pumps, ventilation, heating, and so on.

We have implemented three example projects in this topic.

Managing fish tanks with RB:

RB home gardening

...and the same on a much larger scale:

Camera controll

Camera control and video streaming for photography, home security, baby monitoring, ornithology, etc.

Thanks to its various interfaces Ratherboard is able to control action cameras like GoPro, so you will be able to create unusually long timelapses, and upload the pictures to a server immediately. This way the memory card will never become full.

Professional cameras provide an interface for triggering the recording, so Ratherboard may catch the perfect moment. Light-, noise-, motion-triggering or remote control will be fun with the RB.

IP cameras can also be used with wifi connection as you can see on the U-stream video provided by a RB on the Ratherboard homepage.

There are several RPI baby monitoring, and home security example codes on the internet, so RB can be used as a security system's control unit, and setting up such a system is child’s play.

Last, but not least one of the nicest application fields is ornithology, when you are streaming the first days of the life of little birds in their nests.

Weather station

Logging the weather changes could be a hobby project, but also an experiment, or part of the necessary documentation process in agriculture.

Another great example is that one of our RB prototypes is constantly monitoring temperature and light intensity data on the roof of our office, and sends them to an online database through WiFi connection. The data thus obtained is shown on the Ratherboard homepage.

Machine control

2/3/5 axis machines’ control, like CNC machines (cutting, moulding, drilling), robotic arms, and 3D printers can also be controlled by a Ratherboard.

Check out our home-made RB 3D-printer example video:

RB 3D-printer

High altitude ballooning

If you do not want to send the data to the cloud you might as well send the Ratherboard up into the real clouds… At the following link you can read about Dave Akerman’s projects where he sends RPIs to the stratosphere to collect data and take breathtaking pictures.

Electronic displays, interactive citylights, and advertising boards

Control your electronic advertising devices with an affordable Internet of Things (IoT) device! Use a Ratherboard, and change your advertising material remotely through the internet.

Smart homes, RFID systems, vehicle home- and onboard-diagnostics, home brewery, fish bite indicator, RPI-reincarnation of old computer games, RPI server, Multimedia center, Lab and science projects, DIY Oscilloscope and other kind of laboratory equipment...

Yes, there are truly endless possibilities with Ratherboard!

Ratherboard’s System

Architecture And Electronics Solutions

Ratherboard isn’t only a Raspberry motherboard. It is also the box, the connectors, and the printed circuit board (PCB) with many useful features. We summarize these in this introduction video of the RB:

Ratherboard's main board:

Now let's go over what you have just seen in the video:
■ The box is IP67 grade, which means, that it has complete protection against contact with solid particles (dust tight), and ingress of water in harmful quantity is not possible when the enclosure is immersed in water up to 1m.

■ A full connector set is provided to the RB. Read more about it in the “Ratherboard’s Connector Set” section!

■ The PCB has 4 layers and appropriate ground planes, which facilitate excellent EMC behaviour. We have also paid close attention to ESD protection while designing the product, therefore components dedicated for this purpose can be found at all the right places.

■ One of it’s main comfort functions is that the RB generates the 5V supply voltage for the RPI, and 3.3V for other electronics which makes the integration of the components very easy.

■ The standard 40-pin Raspberry connector is compatible with the Raspberry Pi 3 and the Raspberry Pi 2 devices. (Their main features are the easy-to-use operating systems, handling of an SD-card and any computer-peripherals.)

■ One major advantage of the RB is that it can be modularly expanded with the help of the extension boards as the used sensor inputs and output actuators require. By using either the existing extension boards or developing your own, you will be able to create a unique product in a faster and cheaper way. This is ideal for hobby-users and Sw-developer companies.

■ A built-in U-Blox GPS module enables the RB to be used in positioning and in anti-theft applications.

■ Six current-limited (protected) outputs are controlled by an I2C (TWI) interface port expander IC, and their hardware switches off automatically if the load exceeds 2,2 Amps. This protects the hardware in any unwanted situation.

■ A built-in I2C light sensor detects box-opening or sabotage, which can be logged or used to generate an alarm signal.

Ratherboard’s block diagram

Just assemble your well-known Raspberry with a Ratherboard, connect a 12V (7-17V) power supply, and you will be capable to achieve everything your RPI enables.

Ratherboard’s Connector Set

A set of connectors is a standard accessory included to all RB packages. A connector set contains:
■ 4 pieces of 12-pole connectors (The contacts are replaceable, so these number of connectors will you serve you properly forever.)
■ 50 pieces of contacts
■ 50 pieces of sealing plugs
■ A standard 5.5/2.1 mm power supply connector
■ Cable for providing supply voltage

Extension Boards

Key Elements Of RB’s Flexible Architecture

Current extension board types

E1

EXTENSION BOARD 1

The E1 extension board is an interconnection card, which contains built-in series input resistors, and ESD diodes. The user has the possibility to use pull-up or pull down resistors on these 12 specific inputs. We also provided a really cool, small-outline-18 breakout possibility, which will enable you to use a wide variety of integrated circuits in the prototyping area.

E1 block diagram

Want to get more details? Watch the introduction of the RB E1

E2

EXTENSION BOARD 2

The E2 extension board incorporates 5 optocoupler inputs, and 5 optocoupler-outputs, which will be able protect the RPI mini-computer’s inputs in the most cases. E2 has huge prototyping area to create your own innovations!

E2 block diagram

This video shows the specialities of the RB E2

E3

EXTENSION BOARD 3

This board contains an eight-channel analog-to-digital converter, two pieces of single-channel digital-to-analog converters, and eighteen rail-to-rail operational amplifiers with user-configurable amplification, and a prototyping area. These features make it a perfect workhorse for analog projects.

E3 block diagram

Meet the analog beast! RB E3

Future extension board types

Perks

	Donate 5 USD Thank you so much! Your support may decide between go or no-go, and RB or not-2-B! Your name will be indicated on the Ratherbord.com homepage!
	RB for EU Individuals (For individuals in the European Union, and Hungarian companies. The price contains the VAT.) Ratherboard + connector set + RB backer sticker. You are a proud Ratherboard owner! Let’s start the RB adventure together!
	RB Eco for EU Individuals (For individuals in the European Union, and Hungarian companies. The price contains the VAT.) Ratherboard Eco + connector set + RB backer sticker. Choose RB Eco if you do not need the built-in GPS-module. It is Eco-friendlier, and costs less.
	E3 extension for EU Individuals Purchase only with Ratherboard! Free shipping! (For individuals in the European Union, and Hungarian companies. The price contains the VAT.) E3 extension board. Go analog! Unlimited number of possibilities!
	E2 extension for EU Individuals Purchase only with Ratherboard! Free shipping! (For individuals in the European Union, and Hungarian companies. The price contains the VAT.) E2 extension board. Go opto-isolated! Unlimited number of possibilities!
	E1 extension for EU Individuals Purchase only with Ratherboard! Free shipping! (For individuals in the European Union, and Hungarian companies. The price contains the VAT.) E1 extension board. Go a step further! Unlimited number of possibilities!
	Ratherboard (- excl. EU!) (Purchase only if You live outside of the European Union, or if you are an EU company with EU VAT number! The price doesn’t contain the VAT.) Ratherboard + connector set + RB backer sticker. You are a proud Ratherboard owner! Let’s start the RB adventure together!
	Ratherboard Eco (- excl. EU!) (Purchase only if You live outside of the European Union, or if you are an EU company with EU VAT number! The price doesn’t contain the VAT.) Ratherboard Eco + connector set + RB backer sticker. Choose RB Eco if you do not need the built-in GPS-module. It is Eco-friendlier, and costs less.
	E3 extension (- excl. EU!) Purchase only with Ratherboard! Free shipping! (Purchase only if you live outside of the European Union, or if you are an EU company with EU VAT number! The price doesn’t contain the VAT.) Go analog! Unlimited number of possibilities!
	E2 extension (- excl. EU!) Purchase only with Ratherboard! Free shipping! (Purchase only if you live outside of the European Union, or if you are an EU company with EU VAT number! The price doesn’t contain the VAT.) Go opto-isolated! Unlimited number of possibilities!
	E1 extension (- excl. EU!) Purchase only with Ratherboard! Free shipping! (Purchase only if you live outside of the European Union, or if you are an EU company with EU VAT number! The price doesn’t contain the VAT.) E1 extension board. Go a step further! Unlimited number of possibilities!
	Donate 500 USD Marvellous! Your name will be displayed on the first 1000 Ratherboards!
	Become an Alpha-tester Be our Alpha-tester for the next 12 extension board versions! We will ship the prototypes for you, so you may become a test engineer of the RB Team. Note that a non-disclosure agreement will be necessary!
	Meet the team in Budapest! We will guide you through the main attractions of Budapest (2 days). We will invite you for a dinner at one of our favourite places on the bank of the river Danube. You will be able to visit the Ratherboard office.

Shipment and logistics - Updated!

Thanks to our FedEx International Priority® contract, we will be able to fulfil your Indiegogo orders in extremely short times (1-3 days) after we have tested all Ratherboards, while still keeping the costs affordable.
You will receive shipping information continuously, thanks to the proactive notification system of FedEx.

USA, Canada, and EU packaging and freight costs:
■ Single-Ratherboard package: 26 USD

All other region's packaging and freight costs:
■ Single-Ratherboard package: 34 USD

We have defined:
 ■ separate perks for Ratherboard, Ratherboard Eco, and the extension boards.
 ■ separate perks for EU individuals and Hungarian companies!

Attention!
■ Individuals in the European Union and Hungarian companies have to choose the EU-perks, because these contain the amount of the VAT. The perks can be shipped only this way.
■ In the case of EU based companies VAT doesn’t have to be added to the invoice, they can choose the cheaper perks.
■ Purchase extension boards only with Ratherboard! The perks can be shipped only this way.

You can see a sample package in the picture above, which has already been designed with the FedEx package size in mind. The soft sponge protects the contents, while also acting as a separator to create neat compartments for different components.
For mass production of the protecting sponge and for assembly of the final package we have reliable, and experienced partners.

We are open and happy to consider our backers suggestions at ratherboard@ratherboard.com

Stretch Goals

Ratherboard Needs Your Help!

The mass-production can be started at a 30 000 USD fixed goal. Please make it possible!
We prepared a lot of stretch goals to make the RB project even better:

Timeline

A-Team

Ratherboard has been created with the aim to provide an affordable and reliable tool to most control engineering and hobby tasks, all of this built on an existing, proven and well-supported system, the Raspberry Pi. We have selected the best solutions of more than six years of our experience in electronics development, and integrated them into one product.
Indiegogo allows us to contact our future users, whose help will contribute in the making of a valuable product, and whose satisfaction matters us the most.

 

N A M E
Gergely Lagler

R O L E
Campaigner, Inventor of Ratherboard, CEO of Xtalin Engineering Ltd, Electronics engineer

H O B B I E S
Wood works, DIY hardware, Formula Student, electric go-karting

 

N A M E
Szabolcs Veréb

R O L E
Campaigner, Electronics engineer

H O B B I E S
Hiking, biking, electric go-karting, mechanical engineering projects, industrial metal :)

 

N A M E
Dávid Kulcsár

R O L E
Campaigner, Electronics engineer

H O B B I E S
Programming, running, body building, hiking

 

N A M E
Gábor Sulcz

R O L E
Campaigner, CEO of AquaShield

H O B B I E S
Aquaponics, RPI programing

 

N A M E
Dániel Várnagy

R O L E
Campaigner, Designer

H O B B I E S
Formula Student, cooking, biking, DIY, aquaristics, social media

 

N A M E
György Tücsök

R O L E
Campaigner, Member of Innomotion Ltd

H O B B I E S
Plants, photographic techniques, DIY

 

N A M E
Hunor Tamás Dóri

R O L E
Campaigner, Member of Innomotion Ltd

H O B B I E S
Biking, discovering new things, travelling

Posts, Articles & More...

Want to see more about the details?
Here is what you will find on the Ratherboard homepage and facebook:
■ Technical details on example projects
■ Principle of operation of hardware components
■ Details of example projects
■ Cool RB Wallpapers
■ Backstage videos

Check out!

www.ratherboard.com

RB on facebook

What We Need &
What You Get

Our aim is to make Ratherboard the provider of a stable solution on the market. We have been working one and a half years with the development of Ratherboard, and the preparations of the Indiegogo project. We treated this as an investment, during which we learned a lot, and created a tremendously useful device, the Ratherboard. We need to reach the fixed goal to manage the production with affordable unit costs, and to be able to keep all of our promises. 5 to 10-times more funding is needed to establish a sustainable production, test and fulfillment system.

We won’t be able to start the mass production without reaching the minimum goal. That is the key to being able to deliver your perks in a tested, excellent condition, and on time.

In return for your generous contributions, we've set up exciting stretch goals which will add more and more extra value for our supporters.

We prepared and offer really cool perks for beginners, experts, and packages for companies, group of friends and also large packs for partners who might be resellers and development companies who have faith in the potentials of Ratherboard.

Do not forget the Ratherboard T-Shirts!

Risks & Challenges

With our experience in hardware development and manufacturing, at the project’s start we expected that the biggest challenge for us will be the organisation of the shipments. Depending on the number of backers and countries we planned to use perk fulfillment companies like Amplifier. As the project moved forward we received the offer, we couldn’t refuse: a contract with Fedex.

Unexpected situations:
There could be difficulties along the way, but we are going to provide timely updates for our backers and do as much as we can to deliver RB to you on time.

Guarantees

Hardware:
We have been involved in dozens of development projects in the past years. As the employees of the Xtalin Ltd. we have helped out our clients when they were struggling with general hardware problems, reliability, EMC problems, etc. We have learned a lot and became self-confident in HW-development.
Ratherboard is a fully operational working prototype. The only known flaws in the design, that we have swapped two subtitles on the overlay of the PCB. This means we will have a perfect pre-production test batch.

Suppliers and manufacturing:
We are working with the most experienced international suppliers and manufacturers to minimize potential manufacturing risks.

Software:
Software can not be an issue because of the marvelous RPI community, and the lot of free online example codes and projects. In addition, our aim is to build our online platform in a way that helps and boosts communication and sharing RB project experiences in the future.

Partners

Other ways you can help

Buy Ratherboard as a gift, award or as a support to children or schools in need:
There must be talented youngsters, practice-oriented schools, enthusiast geeks in your surroundings who can benefit from the RB-advantages.

0 USD Support:
Even if you can't make a donation, or you can’t buy a perk, you are able to push Ratherboard one step ahead.

Here are some examples:

■ Recruit: Send our campaign’s link to your friends and ask them to join the RB movement.
■ Share#1: Use Indiegogo Share Tools to spread the word. Social media may power our campaign. Use #Ratherboard, #RB, #Raspberry, #RaspberryPi, #RaspberryMotherboard
■ Share#2: Did you already back us? Share these pictures on facebook:
1 2 3 4 5 or maybe in another color: 1 2 3 4 5
■ Share#3: ■ Join us: Like the RB facebook page, and let everybody know that you are a Ratherboard Supporter by changing your profile picture to one these photoes:
1 2 3 4 5 or in a bit mascoulin colour: 1 2 3 4 5