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I am looking for a monitor to use for a novelty decorative, yet functional, pumpkin computer. I will probably be using a Raspberry Pi or Beaglebone Black for this because I already own one. In rough order of importance, my requirements are:

  • Must fit inside of a pumpkin. Think supermarket, not first prize at the county fair.
  • Supports RCA or HDMI (HDMI preferred)
  • Includes AC adaptor or power cord. please recommend one if it does not.
  • Halloween is fast approaching. Three day shipping to the US must be available.
  • Weighs less than 3 pounds (2.5 pounds is a little on the heavy side, too)
  • Decent brightness and manageable glare on the screen. It may be displayed outside during the daytime. I might be able to get around this by recessing the monitor in the pumpkin.
  • The budget is about $95, but less is better. I already own a Raspberry Pi, so this is not included in that budget.
  • I would like to be able to read text for things like basic web browsing.
  • Higher resolution is good, but it doesn't matter as much if it isn't an HDMI display.

Realistically, I think the monitor needs to be at least 5 inches to have much of an effect, but feel free to include a 4.3 recommendation if it is under $20, as I will probably buy it as well to use as a backup. I think that 9 or 10 inches is probably the upper bound of what could reasonably work. If it is too heavy, it will be difficult to stably mount, and it may deform the pumpkin, causing it to slip off, over the course of the ~5 days that this pumpkin is expected to exist.

The following is my wish list, though I don't expect to get many recommendations that include these things:

  • Built in speaker(s)
  • Built in USB hub
  • As cheep as reasonable
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  • My own thoughts: Cheap tablet or phone display plus an HDMI controller board, or something like AT070TN90 -- Forget the PumpkinPi altogether and just grab the cheapest possible 7-8 inch Android tablet, as long as it supports mouse and keyboard input and can preferably support an optical drive. -- Automobile backup camera-type display
    – JTL
    Oct 17, 2015 at 3:45

2 Answers 2

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Buy a tablet.

In fact the amazon fire looks like a great option here. In fact, its cheaper than a 7 inch tablet with similar specs from my favoured crapgadget vendor

Its a cheap, bog standard tablet (running fireos) , has a 7 inch ips screen and considering a raspi is 35 usd and this is 50 usd... its probably a pretty sensible option for what you have in mind. Maybe throw in a case and mount the case to the pumpkin, and protect the tablet from pumpkin guts and throw in a 7 inch matte screen protector (for better daylight use), and its about as good as it gets.

If you're american? 2 day shipping with prime. Need more than one? They have 6 packs for the price of 5. Who'd have thunk.

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  • I updated my question to clarify that I already own the raspi and am not considering that to be part of the budget. Otherwise, this seems like a great option; I hadn't realized that those things were priced competitively with "disposable" tablets. However, unfortunately, it looks like they are sold out until the 25th. This is probably the wrong place to ask, but how do you create the amazon referral link? Is that automatic?
    – JTL
    Oct 17, 2015 at 14:49
  • Yup. I don't do referral links for me. SE does that automatically (And I'm cool with that). I know DX has some tablets in the same price range but they're dubious as heck.
    – Journeyman Geek
    Oct 17, 2015 at 14:59
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If you just want a display, adafruit has a very nice 7" display for about 70usd. DX has screens that are considerably cheaper, slightly dubious build quality compared to what the adafruit screens seem to have, and somewhat variable shipping time (tho its currently a MVP product and they promise fast shipping . The controller board's the same on both I believe.

On my 10.1 inch screen from DX, and the 7 inch version you need a 12V power supply - I just grabbed a wallwart from an old router and it works fine. Any 12V supply would do.

Amusingly, even the 'cheaper' dx screen's almost the same price as the fire tablet in my other answer.

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  • I put "raspberry pi 7 inch display" into duckduckgo and got a lot of options including from eBay and others, depending on where you want it from and if you want touch or not. With Halloween only 2 weeks away, I guess you want somewhere close.
    – Andrew
    Oct 18, 2015 at 1:25
  • @Andrew, yes, since I don't have time for a slowboat right now, that did limit my options. Otherwise, there are indeed quite a few out there. I'll post another answer when my stuff comes in and I determine its suitability for my purposes.
    – JTL
    Oct 20, 2015 at 3:04

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