Hello Dave,

HD>> The low price of the Pi Zero flows away, because of the costs of all the
HD>> conversion cables to connect it to the outside world,
HD>> i.e. micro HDMI to HDMI, micro USB2 to/from normal USB2A, USB2-RJ45
HD>> dongle etc.

DL> What on earth do you want all that for?

To exchange a normal Pi for the Pi Zero with the same standard cables.
So you need conversion cables for the small connectors to the normal
connectors. That's were I put the finger on.

DL> All you need is an ENC20J60 10BaseT ethernet board (approx GBP5.00)
DL> a PSU and a handful of jumper wires.

I donot know the ENC20J60 10bT EtherNet board.
And why jumper wires?
They also costs money, or did you get that free?
Besides that, the Eminent EM1010 USB2A to/from RJ45 10/100bT EtherNet adapter
has also the high speeds of 100 mBit, instead of the ENC20J60.
The EM1010 costs Euro 20. It worked direct on a Pi Zero of a friend of mine.
Of course the 4 port USB2 hub was needed too.

HD>> And then you still have less memory and less speed compaired to a Pi 3B.

DL> True but a zero is 1/10th (ish) the cost

A Pi 2B costs Euro 35 here, and a Pi Zero Euro 6.
A Pi 3B costs Euro 38 here, and a Pi Zero W Euro 11, that is not 1/10th !
The price of at least the microHDMI to normal HDMI female,
and from micro USB OTG to normal USB2A female together costs more
than the difference in price between the normal Pi 2B and the Pi Zero,
or between the Pi 3B and the Pi Zero W.
For the Zero without WiFi, you also need a simple USB2 to RJ45 10/100bT
EtherNet adapter, i.e. the Eminent EM1010 for instance, Euro 20.
That's what I wanted to show to all of you.
Simple counting he?, as learned at school ;-).
And besides that, the CPU performance is also much different between a Pi Zero
(W) and the 2B / 3B you have to count and consider too.
The Pi Zero has 512 MB, and the Pi 2B and 3B both 1 GB, a big difference!

The power supply unit, keyboard and mouse does not matter in this case,
as they are the same for both a normal Pi 3B and a Pi Zero W,
so no different prices here.
It are the extra conversion cables needed that make it more expensive.
That's my point I want to make all the time.
So I think a Pi Zero or Zero W is a weak approach, compared to a normal Pi.
"Penny wise and Pound foolisch" comes to mind ;-).
But not every one wants to see that, I have remarked here, that's a pity.
For a less asking stand alone usage, it could be an idea.

Henri.

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