Pi(e) in the Sky

This is a followup to my initial blog post: Low Power Server Monitoring with a Raspberry Pi

We're in a good position - we can cheaply instrument any part of our production system using statsd and Graphite

We had a Raspberry Pi / 28" monitor combo with a live graphite dashboard showing the health of our system, but it was sitting on a desk, like a regular monitor should.

Visibility and Space

For this kind of application, visibility is key. If you can't readily see the information, or it is blocked by chairs, people or clutter, it loses value.

We were also faced with a lack of desk space as we're rapidly expanding - get in touch if you're interested in a developer or support role. This meant that in contrast to our production policy, we had to scale up rather than out.

Finding Decent Hardware

After a quick search, we found a lot of desk mounted poles, arms and various other contraptions, but nothing that would give us the required height to mount a reasonable sized monitor above another reasonable sized monitor.

In the end we found a supplier that would sell the required parts:

Desk clamp and pole - make sure you choose the extra large (1m)

Joint lock module - this is the joint that clamps onto the pole. We went with a single joint.

VESA Mount - the VESA mount bolts into the joint at one end and ont the monitor at the other. Tilts up/down + rotates so you can have the screen portrait/landscape.

All in all, this came to £37 including VAT and delivery - not bad.

Putting it Together

Assembly was pretty straightforward - we needed to adjust the desks a little to get the clamp mounted, but once everything was mounted and tightened, the result was pretty good:

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