4 boards for the Raspberry Pi

Whilst stocks last there is an offer for all four MyPiFi boards on eBay £18 delivered (uk) or plus delivery (row) they are for the LED board, LCD add on module, 10 LED board and the I/O port expander board giving your Pi more inputs and outputs.

Available on eBay for a short time when they have gone they won't be re added

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=181629776059 

Assembly guides and demo codes can be found on www.mypifi.net

32x32 rgb display with a raspberry Pi

Never really got that far with a 32x32 display, ok I followed Raspberrypi-spy s guide and got it to display things but wanted to try more out like Peter Onions excellent RGB demo.

So after running into difficulties compiling the c code from peteronion.org.uk/PiProgs I emailed Peter, I needed to add -lm to the end of the line and bingo worked straight away.  The demos that Peter has included include Tetris, Clock, game of life, Squares and kaleidoscope and shows how a simple screen can be made to do literally anything.

I've since seen pictures over the tinternet showing the same displays being used to show pictures and framed in a frame too.

Many ideas and possibilities for this great rgb device.

MyPiFi add on boards for Raspberry Pi http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=181629776059 

Home automation with energenie

A long time ago I reviewed the energenie Pi kit consisting of a Pi add on board and two sockets.  Since then I have used ssh to ssh to a Pi to run Amy Mathers Python script that she infamously wrote on work experience at Raspberry Pi Towers.

Now since then I decided to see what else I can do and found a great tutorial http://www.penguintutor.com/raspberrypi/pi-power and followed it. Using a model a with wifi I have a device that should it go down I can ssh into to restart, but more importantly I can use a web browser and enter the Pi IP address and get buttons to choose what I want.

The problem now is I want more and more of these sockets as the Pi is about to automate my house.

Whilst I've never had a problem with the range, I've added 135mm of wire to the antenna which has a nice little hole to solder some wire to, this will boost the range so I should have no problems hitting anywhere around the house.

Feel free to have a go yourself, a starter kit of one energenie add on board and two sockets starts at £19.99 with additional sockets £10 each or 3 for £20 and the big pack of 4 for £25

Now I'm off to make that tea as the kettle has just finished boiling.

Advert: MyPiFi Boards http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=181629776059 

Snake with a Raspberry Pi and Unicorn Hat

Someone else with a great name ;) has written code to run the old Nokia phone game snake on the unicorn hat. Paul Brown who's GitHub link is https://github.com/PaulBrownMagic/python/blob/master/unicornsnake.py the controls are the arrow keys, certainly see this being popular at future raspberry jams

MyPiFi 4 add on boards pack

I forgot how many extra boards I have paid for over my last few kickstarters, so after taking stock of what I had left and needing to make space for future projects I have decided to place up a four board offer on eBay for £18 including free uk postage and packing, saving buyers £10 off the usual price.

The boards included are:

The LED board, three LEDs and a button with assembly instructions and demo code on MyPiFi.net

The second board is the LCD add on module so you can add any hd44780 compatable board eg 16x2 or 20x4 LCD to your project and again comes with assembly guide and demo code to get you started, all you need is to buy a LCD screen to plug into it.

The third board is the 10 LED board, this can be used with the Raspberry Pi or any other GPIO board like arduino with jumper wires or with a port expander board like my forth board.

Then we have the forth board, this is an in/out port expander for controlling things like LEDs via the SCL and SDA pins freeing up many of the other GPIO pins so you can add more to your projects and like with all my add on boards comes with extended GPIO headers so you can still use the GPIO pins.

All common kit form starting at £6 each or all four for £18 on eBay.  http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=181629776059 

Here are just a few people showing theirs on Twitter.

So what you waiting for? Great way to learn on the Raspberry Pi with room to keep building and building as you get better and more confident with the Pi.

I also do discounts to code clubs and Pi shops if you are ordering in bulk too, just contact me for further details.

Testing the Pi and Bash add on module

Been testing this out for a while now and firstly recommend using a new image so nothing on your current image can interfere with the add on board.

The add on board comes with these functions:

• Traffic Light LEDs
• 5 Push Button Switches
• Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) with 2 lines of 16 characters
• Software switchable LCD backlight
• Thermometer
• 8 configurable digital inputs/outputs (I/Os)
• 8 analogue inputs
• Header for connecting additional I2C devices
• Can be powered from external 5V supply

Assembly was quick, but felt strange with the way the board fitted to the Pi, in other words it didn't sit flush like other boards, but has been designed to overhang the Pi.

With the demo script that can be downloaded from the site 

http://pinventor.co.uk/piandbash I was able to straight away test the buttons, leds, temperature gauge and the lcd screen.

The huge list of projects that can be achieved with this add on board include:

• Traffic Light Sequence
• Room Thermometer
• RSS News Ticker
• Model Railway Points Controller
• Internet Radio Alarm Clock
• Weather Station
• Network Monitor
• Bedroom Burglar Alarm

So far I have found averagemanvspi has done the Internet radio, but piandbash do have a forum on their site should you fall into any problems and Rob Boyle the creator is also very helpful should you approach him direct.

There will be some tutorials soon to get you going with all the functions, although the demo code is a great starter to get the feel.

While it seems to be expensive at £23 from modmypi https://www.modmypi.com/raspberry-pi-expansion-boards/pibash-add-on-board you need to remember you have several boards plugged into this one board, leds, lcd, I/o expander, buttons and temperature module so five boards into one and that's just a quick look over it, I expect with the functions combined you could claim it to have more module boards included.

So value for money, I have experience of putting out add on boards with my own MyPiFi brand and can say price wise it's cheap, no huge mark ups and you certainly couldn't get the bits yourself any cheaper as the major cost factor is the PCB.

Perhaps this is what the gertboard should have been?

NYE countdown with a Unicorn and pi

today I came across a brilliant post on twitter from @rdhayler who has written some coding for the Pimoroni Unicorn Hat add on board to scroll text and now one better, a countdown.

More can be found out from his blog page at http://richardhayler.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/new-year-countdown-with-unicornhat.html

Making an old games console.

Now if you are as old as me, you probably know these classics. There is pacman , frogger, spy vs spy, spy hunter, outrun, chase hq, rainbow island, bubble bobble, Tetris, super mario brothers 1-3, sonic the hedgehog, street fighter and then we are up to the games of the current machines.

Now if you are lucky like me, you might have an old NES, sat around with tons of games like me, or you might not have had the chance to say experience the original Atari console. You might have lots of old game roms  stored on a disk somewhere or even a usb stick or have downloaded from an emu rom site off the net (and no I won't be giving any sites due to the piracy technicality) however if you already own legally these roms and want to play them, I can show you how for about £40

Firstly you will need a £25 Raspberry Pi model B+ computer with 512mb of ram. A 8gb sd card, preferably class 10, a usb games console pad (I have a snes one but plenty of different ones out there), a power supply, hdmi lead and Ethernet/wifi connection to start with whilst setting up.

The easiest way is to download the card image from http://blog.petrockblock.com/download/retropie-project-image/ and follow the set up guide.  Much of the hardworking has been taken out of this thanks to the image and with the recommended free software to burn this to sd card you have completed much of the setup quite quickly.

Once done plug into the Pi and boot up, go into the menu and edit the configuration s this is where you can program the usb controller for playing games etc. next exit all together and run raspi-config. Expand the file system, adjust the memory to 256mb and over click to 950mhz then reboot.

Once loaded again you will need to note the IP address. Once obtained, use a file transfer program like FileZilla and log into the Pi using username Pi and password raspberry. Go to Retropie, then click roms and then open up the folder for which game system your roms are for dragging them over from you computer to the Pi. Obviously I cannot tell you to download them or from where, just how to do the step after;)

Once all your games have saved you can unplug the Ethernet/wifi, if into your tv and reboot and once loaded open your game, you will see a message about the usb game controller and bingo you should be now playing one of your old games.

I have so far found amstrad games work, game boy but weird on a huge screen, nes, snes, master system, mega drive. But found n64, play station and anything after about 1998 cannot cope or will not load, but hey this is a retro games console not up to date console so suffices what I need it for and that's to play some classic games.

If you run into any problems then there is the raspberry Pi forums and also  http://blog.petrockblock.com/ where there is a ton of info and walk through guides, next up will be to add the ability to run this through a adafruit Pi touchscreen then I'll have something special.

MyPiFi I/O Expander for Raspberry Pi assembly guide

Firstly open up the packet and sort out the parts.

First job is to solder the GPIO header on as due to it being extended you won't be able to do it later on.

Next the MCP23017 holder, make sure the semi circle indent is the right way round, ie closest to GPIO like the outline is drawn on the board.

Now we move onto the header pins 9 pins per side, I found bluetac a great way to hold the board when soldering it.

Then place the MCP23017 chip in, you will need to bend the legs slightly in to do it. I found holding it and the ends then pressing one side on its side against a flat surface lightly I was able to bend the legs inwards slightly so it would fit straight into the holder. A little bit of pressure is needed to push into the slot but be careful not to use to much as if a leg isn't in place it will break it.

Finally this is how the board should look.

The chip is controlled by the sda and scl pins on the pi.

Heres a video I made in assemblying the board (my second ever video with a new camera), its not the best quality but gives you an idea what to do. the linky is as follows:  http://youtu.be/c9pg37xRwB0

A great write up in getting this running is on the raspberry Pi spy site telling you what to do to set up a mcp23017 device, the link is http://www.raspberrypi-spy.co.uk/2013/07/how-to-use-a-mcp23017-i2c-port-expander-with-the-raspberry-pi-part-1/

Gordon has also written an excellent blog on controlling things though it too using wiringPi http://wiringpi.com/extensions/i2c-mcp23008-mcp23017/

Lastly Alex Eames from the HDMIPI kickstarter and regular Pi blogger has written this with demo scripts.  http://raspi.tv/2013/using-the-mcp23017-port-expander-with-wiringpi2-to-give-you-16-new-gpio-ports-part-3

I haven't written any demo scripts yet as there is plenty about on the Internet, but feel free to send me a link to your projects and I'll add them below.

A great place to get started with demo codes and instructions is here http://nathan.chantrell.net/20120602/raspberry-pi-io-expander-board/

10 LED board assembly guide

Once opened separate all the bits like above, this will make things easier.

Next start by doing the LEDs, negative to top of board, positive next to resistor, positive will be the long leg and negative the short leg.

Once in bend the legs to stop them falling out and then place the resistors in, I find placing them all the same way round is useful when using different resistors but here they are all the same so it's more cosmetic that you keep them the same way.

Next is to solder them all, you will see now that by bending the wires out that things stay in place.

Now you need to cut all the wires as close to the board as possible to ensure nothing can connect to other solder points or it won't work properly.

Now to place the female and male headers, these are eleven pins long starting with connection LED 1 up to 10 and the furthest connection on right is ground.

And once finished this is how it should look.

I have done a video (not very good its my first one) which is on youtube showing how to assemble this board, the link is http://youtu.be/o-95sa_lvwo

I will look to adding demo codes in the future for Raspberry Pi, but if you want to write something let me know and I will add a link on here.

If using an arduino there is a great book u Mark Geddes called Arduino Project Handbook which I recommend.

Here are some of the people who have tweeted their boards: