White horse geocache series

Today we did a 31 cache and 7.2 mile circular series in about three hours following a route of a series from a few years ago.

Plenty of wildlife on route from hare to deer and about 800ft of total elevation to prepare us for something special soon.

Near the end was a huge size cache which will get a favourite point as these are rare to find these days.

Thanks to the cache owner for a great new series.

View towards white horse hill.

Munzee or geocache

Out in southsea today, so we decided to try both geocaching and Munzee. Out of all the geocaches only one gave me that fuzzy feeling of finding a cache and it was a big box up some steps. We also tried munzees and found 4 that we couldn't scan as they were faint from sunlight over time but managed to go from level one to level 9 in a day but yes it got boring with a Munzee every 20 metres. However I can see this being a nice idea added to geocaching to ensure a cache you log is actually found by yourself and everyone in your group and not one person doing all the work for the group. So out of the dozen ish caches all but one were micros and this is what puts me off. Hey oh at least one of them was a decent size cache.

Didcot power station A no more

Last weekend I joined many to sit on the surrounding hills to watch the demolition of Didcot A.

It's not blown up but blown down the technical term according to those who were commissioned to so the demolition.

At 04.45 the 15 minute warning sounded and that was it till 5 am when the first crack was heard before the three towers tumbled one by one.

Energenie home automation via raspberry pi

I received this a few weeks ago but with kickstarter stuff needing to be sorted out this was left on the table.

Today I had a spare five minutes so decided to try this out.

The pack comes with a raspberry pi add on board and two plugs all in for under £20 

My first job was to plug the module into the pi and plug the fan into the plug then plug into wall socket and turn the fan on at fans on/off switch.

Next was to download the code from energenie4u.co.uk s website and run it using the python command and hey presto  inow have started my move into raspberry house automation.

They also do remote controllers, gsm units and power extension leads (which I've just ordered) which allows control of each socket on the extension lead.

So what next? I think the first thing is to use a temp sensor that detects when temperature gets above 18c or so and will cause the fan to come on till it drops down below 16c and all this done with a pi using the radio frequency 433.92mhz off the add on board which is the same frequency as the plugs.

So so I recommend one and would I buy more? Yes, not only can you control your house but the makers claim these will also save you money on electricity by turning things off rather than leave them on standby.

Here is a quick video showing one plug in action with my living room fan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0QolowV5i4

MyPiFi LED Boards now available online

MyPiFi LED Boards are now available for sale on tindie and eBay, with eBay prices of £6 inc free postage for uk orders for a limited time.

If you would like to stock these please contact me to discuss further.

What people are saying about the MyPiFi LED Board

Atomic Green MyPiFi LED Board

Firstly thank you for purchasing the MyPiFi LED Board.

The gpio pins have changed on the atomic green board compared to all the other colour boards that were prototypes.

Please ensure red is now 11, amber is 13 and green is 21. The button is unchanged on gpio 26

To solder the board start with the header ensuring that the header looks the same as this.

After soldering the header on you can then add the 200 ohm resistors to r1, r2, r3 and r4. It doesn't matter which way round they go as the can be used in both directions.

Then add the LEDs, led 1 is red, led 2 is amber and led 3 is green. Negative goes in top hole closest to gpio pins, positive (longer leg) in the hole furthest away from gpio. If you get this wrong the led will not light.

Next cut the legs off as close to the board as possible.

The button is next, carefully widen the legs so they reach the holes. Cut off the top right leg that goes here.

So it looks like this

This will allow the switch to work, if it's not cut it will not work.  You could cut the leg off prior to soldering which will be easier.

Once soldered plug into the pi and download from git hub the demo scripts ensuring the gpio pins used are correct (11, 13 and 21)

Zachary Igielman has written some great demo scripts to get you started with the MyPiFi LED Board here's details how to get it:

To download:

(sudo apt-get install git-core IF YOU DON'T HAVE GIT INSTALLED)

sudo git clone https://github.com/ZacharyIgielman/smstext-demo-code.git

Then you will have a folder with all the code (cd, sudo python like usual).

If you want to order more, please look for mypifi led board on eBay or alternatively email me Paul mypifi net adding the at and dot in the spaces and I'll send you a PayPal payment request for the amount you want.

Please tweet your pictures and projects using hashtag #mypifiledboard or post them in the comments for this blog post.

Again many thanks and I hope you enjoy your new budget board.

A YouTube video showing the board in action is available by clicking this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFs-omVZ4mA

Update code on git hub now updated to new pin layout https://github.com/ZacharyIgielman/smstext-demo-code

There's also a perl demo by Zak zebrowski https://github.com/japharl/smstext-democode-v1-perl

To purchase more kits visit ebay and search mypifi led board

Cyntech

 http://www.raspberrypi.org/turn-your-pi-into-a-low-cost-hd-surveillance-cam/

Or Tindie https://www.tindie.com/stores/Mypifi/

Demo disco strobe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLncvi_LKus

Update on my MyPiFi LED Board

The boards have been made and ready to ship.

As you can see they have come out well, these pictures are under the fabrication lights which make them look different.

Here's the finished board.

Should be here tomorrow and I'll post some more pictures then.

July CamJam

This is always one event I look forward to, it does mean a two and a half hour drive each way and a total of 205 miles round trip but all worth it.

First thing I came across was Mr Monks great little snake game, brought back my misspent younger years playing this for hours on my works phone.

Raspberrypi guy brought along his robot which looked ace.

Also my MyPiFi LED board made it's first public appearance with 96 hours left on kickstarter www.mypifi.net for short link to project.

There was also a portable pi set up which I thought was excellent.

Alex Eames had his HDMIPI on show, can't wait till these are shipped in about 6 weeks.

Joseph from the stewards academy had brought his robot arm along again controlled by a glove he had built sensors into, I have seen this from the early stages and every time I see it it's improved more. I know what he has planned next but I won't say here or yet what it is, but a suggestion from me is an industrial robot arm mawhahahahahha ;)

Camjam and the Pi Hut also officially released their edu kit a £5 pocket money kit containing breadboard, LEDs, resistors, button switch and some wires all in a box so you could build your own MyPiFi ledboard with it ;)

Some more info on the upcoming Robot Wars was announced including registration in August.

Ben Nuttal did a great presentation on git hub which helped me understand it a bit better, thanks Ben.

If you are wondering about attending in future then yes come along it's worth the trip and lots to discover.

Week to go for my raspberry pi £6 add on board

Week left for my raspberry pi £6 led add on board on kickstarter.  It's done really well hitting funding in under two weeks.  Since then I have add stretch goals for extended headers and custom coloured board which have been achieved, along with option for clear LEDs.

If we can hit 200% before the end of the campaign I will add the option of choosing your clear led colours, white and blue being popular colours.

We also on twitter using the #mypifiledboard hashtag so feel free to join in and tweet.

The linky to the kickstarter is www.mypifi.net