Raspberry 4 or 5? 4 or 8GB?

[nocturnalguy]

Hi group,

Sorry if this sounds like a stupid and obvious question. I am entirely new to the Raspberry world.
I plan to use an ASI 676MC cam that has 3552*3552 Pixel, 12,6 Megapixel.

My only concerns about the 5 version are:

1. Heat generation inside a closed box that cannot be dissipated into the exterior.
2. Almost double the power consumption as the 4 version. I want to build a solar off the grid all-sky cam and I do need to minimize the power consumption, of course without impacting the cam function.

Can you please tell me if I must go for a 4 or 5 version and how much RAM do I need?
Will a RP4 with 4GB will be enough for all allsky scenarios?

Thanks for your support

Martin

[EricClaeys]

@nocturnalguy, Martin,

Welcome to Allsky!

I am not aware of anyone using a Pi 5 in a sealed enclosure, so we can't say if it gets too hot or not.
I plan on replacing my Pi 4 with a 5 at my observatory, but I have a fan for cooling.

A Pi 4 with 4 GB memory is a good choice and will work for years to come. Beware that it may throttle due to heat in an enclosed box. I suggest considering a fan or a vent.

A Pi 3 will work, but unless money is a primary concern, I'd go with the 4. More memory and faster.

Do you know when the ASI676 came out? The current release of Allsky supports all cameras released prior to October 2023. The next release of Allsky, due in a few weeks, supports cameras released prior to today.

[nocturnalguy]

@EricClaeys

Hi Eric!

Thank you so much for your insightful feedback!

I will bother you with a few more questions...

1. In an open enclosure with fan or vent, will the Pi board be affected by the long-term exposure to ambient humidity?

2. In what Allsky functions will you see a benefit from:
   a. the Pi5 higher performance compared to a Pi4?
   b. the 8GB compared to 4GB?

Thanks
Martin

PS: the ASI676MC came out a few months ago, I can wait until the next Allsky release, this project will take some time for me...

[EricClaeys]

@nocturnalguy,
Are you in a high humidity area? If so, you'll probably get dew and may need a dew heater. Some people with closed enclosures also get dew. Silica gel packs seem to help, but they need to be refreshed.
I haven't heard of anyone having problems with a Pi in high humidity. I assume the heat it generates keeps dew off it.
This would be a good question to ask on the Allsky Facebook page - a lot more people read it than our Discussions.

A Pi 5 will be noticeably quicker installing Allsky, but that's not done very often. It'll also be faster creating keograms, startrails, and timelapse, but these are done in the morning, so the speed improvement won't be noticeable unless you create them manually. If you create mini-timelapse, the Pi 5 will allow you to create them more often and/or with more images.
If you use the Pi for more than just Allsky you might notice a speed improvement with the 5.
Another advantage of the Pi 5 is you can use an NVMe drive instead of the SD card for significantly faster disk access and higher reliability.
The Pi 5 also allows you to have two RPi-compatible cameras attached, although only one can be used at a time in Allsky. @Alex-developer and I find this useful with our test units, but I don't expect many other people will use that feature.

Allsky runs very well with 4 GB. The reason to consider 8 GB is if you run more than Allsky and/or you plan to keep the Pi a long time - 8 GB will "future proof" it.

[stevedee]

Not sure if this helps you, but...

My system uses a Pi 4 + 2GB + module 3 PiCamera and is in an enclosed ABS box 150 x 100 x 60mm.
Its a 'fair-weather' system, which means I only put it outside when I'm 99% sure there will be no rain.

As I sometimes get "throttling has occured.." messages I've just started a series of tests where I record temperature readings in a log file. I ran the system yesterday in a room (ambient 20'C approx). Images are taken every 30 seconds.

This section of the log shows what happened when the system switched from day to night mode;

20241007 185950 PiCam=30'C PiSoc temp=51.1'C
20241007 190022 PiCam=30'C PiSoc temp=50.6'C
20241007 190055 PiCam=30'C PiSoc temp=50.6'C
20241007 190127 PiCam=30'C PiSoc temp=50.1'C
20241007 190200 PiCam=30'C PiSoc temp=50.6'C
20241007 190232 PiCam=30'C PiSoc temp=48.7'C
20241007 190304 PiCam=30'C PiSoc temp=49.1'C
20241007 204615 PiCam=44'C PiSoc temp=49.6'C
20241007 204649 PiCam=44'C PiSoc temp=49.6'C
20241007 204722 PiCam=44'C PiSoc temp=50.6'C
20241007 204756 PiCam=44'C PiSoc temp=49.1'C
20241007 204829 PiCam=44'C PiSoc temp=50.1'C
20241007 205149 PiCam=44'C PiSoc temp=48.7'C
20241007 205223 PiCam=44'C PiSoc temp=49.1'C
20241007 205256 PiCam=44'C PiSoc temp=50.1'C
20241007 205723 PiCam=44'C PiSoc temp=49.6'C
20241007 205757 PiCam=44'C PiSoc temp=49.1'C
20241007 205830 PiCam=44'C PiSoc tem

And then, at the end of the night, temperatures really climbed as the system created keogram, startrails & time-lapse video.

20241008 063510 PiCam=44'C PiSoc temp=48.2'C
20241008 063543 PiCam=44'C PiSoc temp=50.1'C
20241008 063617 PiCam=44'C PiSoc temp=49.6'C
20241008 063650 PiCam=44'C PiSoc temp=49.1'C
20241008 063724 PiCam=44'C PiSoc temp=48.7'C
20241008 063758 PiCam=44'C PiSoc temp=48.7'C
20241008 063831 PiCam=44'C PiSoc temp=50.6'C
20241008 063905 PiCam=44'C PiSoc temp=50.1'C
20241008 063938 PiCam=44'C PiSoc temp=51.1'C
20241008 064012 PiCam=44'C PiSoc temp=51.6'C
20241008 064046 PiCam=44'C PiSoc temp=65.2'C
20241008 064149 PiCam=38'C PiSoc temp=68.6'C
20241008 064222 PiCam=36'C PiSoc temp=70.6'C
20241008 064255 PiCam=34'C PiSoc temp=73.5'C
20241008 064328 PiCam=33'C PiSoc temp=75.4'C
20241008 064401 PiCam=33'C PiSoc temp=76.9'C
20241008 064434 PiCam=33'C PiSoc temp=75.9'C
20241008 064508 PiCam=32'C PiSoc temp=77.4'C
20241008 064542 PiCam=32'C PiSoc temp=77.4'C
20241008 064615 PiCam=32'C PiSoc temp=78.4'C
20241008 064649 PiCam=32'C PiSoc temp=79.3'C
20241008 064723 PiCam=32'C PiSoc temp=80.3'C
20241008 064757 PiCam=32'C PiSoc temp=80.8'C
20241008 064831 PiCam=32'C PiSoc temp=80.8'C
20241008 064904 PiCam=32'C PiSoc temp=80.3'C
20241008 064938 PiCam=32'C PiSoc temp=77.9'C
20241008 065012 PiCam=32'C PiSoc temp=81.3'C
20241008 065044 PiCam=32'C PiSoc temp=81.8'C
20241008 065117 PiCam=32'C PiSoc temp=82.3'C
20241008 065149 PiCam=32'C PiSoc temp=82.7'C
20241008 065222 PiCam=32'C PiSoc temp=82.7'C
20241008 065255 PiCam=33'C PiSoc temp=82.7'C
20241008 065328 PiCam=33'C PiSoc temp=82.7'C
20241008 065400 PiCam=33'C PiSoc temp=83.2'C
20241008 065433 PiCam=33'C PiSoc temp=83.2'C
20241008 065506 PiCam=33'C PiSoc temp=84.2'C
20241008 065539 PiCam=33'C PiSoc temp=84.2'C
20241008 065612 PiCam=33'C PiSoc temp=84.2'C
20241008 065644 PiCam=33'C PiSoc temp=83.7'C
20241008 065717 PiCam=33'C PiSoc temp=83.2'C
20241008 065750 PiCam=33'C PiSoc temp=84.2'C
20241008 065823 PiCam=33'C PiSoc temp=84.2'C
20241008 065856 PiCam=34'C PiSoc temp=83.7'C
20241008 065928 PiCam=34'C PiSoc temp=83.2'C
20241008 070001 PiCam=34'C PiSoc temp=84.2'C
20241008 070034 PiCam=35'C PiSoc temp=70.6'C
20241008 070110 PiCam=34'C PiSoc temp=66.2'C
20241008 070143 PiCam=34'C PiSoc temp=64.2'C
20241008 070215 PiCam=34'C PiSoc temp=62.3'C
20241008 070247 PiCam=34'C PiSoc temp=60.8'C
20241008 070319 PiCam=34'C PiSoc temp=59.4'C
20241008 070352 PiCam=33'C PiSoc temp=57.9'C
20241008 070424 PiCam=33'C PiSoc temp=56.9'C

Next step will be to time-stamp the start of these operations (i.e. keogram, startrails, time-lapse).

And just one point on fully enclosed systems that are going to run outside all the time; closed boxed are quite good at sucking in moist air and very poor and letting liquid water drain out. My suggestion is to have a suitably shielded drain hole in the bottom of your box, fitted with some kind of synthetic filter to keep the bugs out.

From 2013 until 2022 I had a few Pi birdbox systems running in the garden of our previous house. They were left in place all year, but generally powered up only during the birdbox season (which is January to June/July here). We didn't have any electro-mechanical problems.
The Raspberry Pi is generally a super reliable computer.

[nocturnalguy]

Thank you all for your precious feedback!
I think I will go for the Pi 5 to be future-proof...
Thanks again!

[EricClaeys]

Which Pi?

[Alex-developer]

If a pi5 4 or 8Gig is within you budget then I would go for that. I have two cameras running

• Pi 5 8Gig with ASI178mm - Its very fast. The only downside I have found is the pi5 is very fussy about having enough stable power
• Pi4 8G with JQ camera - This runs perfectly well but a lot slower than the 5

For the encloser I original had the pi5 sealed but soon added a fan as it was getting very warm in the case.

Hope that helps

Alex