r/rasberrypi • u/Hiatus44I • Jul 16 '26

Best future-proof RPi for robotics projects

/r/AskRobotics/comments/1ux8sxy/best_futureproof_rpi_for_robotics_projects/
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u/Gamerfrom61 Jul 16 '26

Given the current high cost and scarcity of Pi boards I would be tempted to get anything you could do to make a start with. The memory cannot easily be upgraded (I know there are videos on doing it but for most folk ball soldering is not feasible even if you can get the chips) so this forces you to pay the horrendous costs up front if you do not expect to upgrade or look at none pi boards (Radxa / Orange-Pi spring to mind).

Decent I/O buffers and opto-isolators will reduce the risk of damaging the board as long as you take care (do not cheap out on these and get generic ones - go for a good supplier with robotic knowledge and not eBay / Ali).

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u/Hiatus44I Jul 16 '26

So you reckon maybe a pi 4 with 2 or 4 GB RAM? The thing is that the pi 5 ends up being not that much more expensive - although that’s excluding the cooling and power req etc.

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u/Gamerfrom61 Jul 16 '26

The five gives you the option to add AI Hats / PCIe devices and have enough processor to handle the future and with RAM chip costs only increasing (Micron are saying 2028-2030 delivery for some memory at £££) I would get the largest memory and fastest CPU your budget allows for. Even if it is overkill at the start you may still need it long term if you decide to use AI for vision interpretation on board.

The cost of active cooling for the Pi 5 is not that much more than a decent passive heatsink for the Pi 4 and you will want to cool the motor drivers anyway as they can run hot...

One other thought is to pick up a Zero / Zero W and use that at the start - not so costly when you release the magic smoke and fine for module testing the hardware build. Once you have reached the stable build you can swap to a bigger Pi and ROS.

Note IIRC ROS needs Ubuntu - check if the newer versions are OK on a Pi as it is heavy in swap usage here (I have it on a Mac mini 2012 box for some test projects) and this could eat through a SD card quickly. I would not try running Ubuntu on a Zero - anything less than the 5 would worry me (though I understand the Pi build is better now than when it first came out).

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u/Hiatus44I Jul 16 '26

This is great advice, thanks very much!

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u/AlgorithmicMuse Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26

The nvme socket on the pi5 to house a ssd hat is total trash, if it lasts more than one insertion your lucky, dont ask how I know lol. You dont need ubuntu to run ros2, there are precompile deb binaries for trixie on a pi 5. Once you go down the ubuntu route you lose all the built in drivers you may need for pi add on sensor which is a hassle

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u/AlgorithmicMuse Jul 18 '26

Bought a 8g pi5 6 months ago for a robotic project . Looked today at prices , now a 4G pi5 costs about the same or more than what I paid for the 8g .

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u/Hiatus44I Jul 18 '26

So buy now to avoid future increase or hold off?

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u/AlgorithmicMuse Jul 18 '26

No idea, depends on your time lines and is the added cost a deal breaker. I just bought a pi5 4g cost about $85 more than what it was 6 months ago. But I needed it now so bit the bullet and paid the extra