02 — Parts list and sourcing
Everything on our bench, with the reasons and the pitfalls. Mark what is optional.
OUR OBSERVATIONEvent 2026-09-27Published 2026-09-27SE Inspect build 1.9.37
No affiliate links, no recommendations beyond what we run. Where a detail of our own setup is not yet written down, it says [to be documented] — do not guess it.
Compute
| Part | Our choice | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Raspberry Pi 5 | 8 GB | 4 GB works for recognition; the training environment and four cards are more comfortable with 8 GB |
| Power supply | 5 V DC supply into the X1011 jack (see carrier row) | With the carrier on its DC jack, the carrier feeds the Pi — no USB-C supply on the Pi. With a single card and no carrier supply, the official 27 W USB-C supply is enough. Never feed the Pi from the 12 V belt supply. |
| SD card | ≥ 32 GB, A2 class | Keep a second card for a full image (chapter 10). A damaged card once took the camera firmware with it. |
| M.2 carrier with PCIe switch | Geekworm X1011 — four M.2 key-M slots behind an ASMedia ASM1184e PCIe Gen 2 switch (1 × x1 upstream, 4 × x1 downstream), connected to the Pi 5 by the PCIe FFC cable | The cards enumerate behind the switch on bus 0001:xx. Our bench: the carrier's own DC jack (5 V, 5.5 × 2.1 mm, centre positive; Geekworm: ≥ 5 A, 5 V 10 A for 3–4 modules). In this mode the X1011 also powers the Pi through its pogo pins — the Pi's USB-C stays unplugged; never connect both. Rating of our supply: [to be documented]. Sold for NVMe SSDs; the AKD1500 M.2 modules use the same slot. Geekworm wiki |
Neuromorphic accelerators
| Part | Our choice | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| BrainChip AKD1500, M.2 form factor | 4 | Firmware BC.A1.003.009, MetaTF/akida 2.19.3. One card is enough to start. Sourced from BrainChip. The same chip also comes as a PCIe card — not on our bench. |
Vision
| Part | Our choice | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Raspberry Pi Camera Module 3 (imx708, autofocus) | 2 | Operated at 2304 × 1296. Named by mounting position: "1. Cam (left)", "2. Cam (right)". |
| CSI cable for Pi 5 | 22-pin 0.5 mm, both ends | A loose cable produces Camera frontend has timed out and black frames. |
| Mount and distance | [to be documented: height above belt, angle] | The learning window is 363 px in our frames; keep the part ≥ 256 px across so the model does not have to upscale. |
| Lighting | [to be documented: lamp type] | Point-like lamps caused the glare spots that took three software fixes. Diffuse light or a polariser first, software second. |
Conveyor
| Part | Our choice | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Belt with 12 V DC motor | one direction, on/off | Speed is not controlled; the line pauses the belt instead. |
| Relay module | 12 V Songle SRD-12VDC-SL-C type, opto-isolated, jumper H (high-trigger) | Driven from GPIO 18. Use the NO contact: if the Pi crashes, the relay drops and the belt stops. |
| 12 V supply | ≥ 3 A, belt only | Fuse 3–5 A in the + line. Common ground with the Pi is mandatory. |
| Flyback diode | 1N4007 across the motor | Ring (stripe) towards +; reversed = short circuit. |
Robot arm
| Part | Our choice | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 3-axis stepper arm (X base, Y shoulder, Z elbow) | 3D-printed | Any RAMPS-driven 3-axis arm works with the same firmware. |
| Controller | RAMPS 1.4 on Arduino Mega 2560 | Firmware arduino-sketch/VorsaArm, 115200 baud |
| Stepper drivers | A4988/DRV8825 class | Set the current for your motors before the first homing. |
| End stops | one per axis on the MAX pins | Homing drives towards them; without them the firmware cannot reference. |
| Vacuum pump | on D10 | PWM-capable (pumppwm 0..255) |
| USB cable Pi 5 → Arduino | data cable | A charge-only cable gives you /dev/ttyACM0: No such file or directory. |
Tools you will want
USB card reader (images), a small label printer (card addresses, cable ends), a multimeter, and a second machine on the network to open the UI — the Pi does not need a display.
Checkpoint: every row above is either on the bench or consciously skipped.