Pimoroni Pirate Radio Review – Make an Internet Radio in about an hour

 Electronics, Review, Uncategorized  5 Responses »
Jul 042017
 
Pimoroni Pirate Radio Review - Make an Internet Radio in about an hour

Back in February, just before I was about to pull the trigger on the RasPiO InsPiRing Kickstarter campaign, I had an email from Emma at Pimoroni. Essentially it was “Would you like to have a look at one of our new Pi Zero W kits?” Damn-right I would! :) But I warned that I would be unlikely to do much with it for a while because of the impending Kickstarter campaign. So, last week on Thursday I finished shipping RasPiO InsPiRing rewards (3 months ahead of schedule – YAY), which meant I could do some […more…]

How to auto-connect your Raspberry Pi to a hidden SSID wifi network

 Linux usage, raspberry pi  24 Responses »
Jun 292017
 
How to auto-connect your Raspberry Pi to a hidden SSID wifi network

I have a Raspberry Pi 3B that acts as a web server for my temperature sensing network. I also use the same Pi for my Pi Word of the day tweets. It’s been pottering along fine for a long time. But last week we had a power outage while we had smart meters installed. For ‘network management’ reasons that I won’t go into, I’d recently decided to ‘hide’ the SSID (Service Set Identifier) of the router this Pi was connected to. I had thought it would automatically connect, having been connected before. But it didn’t, […more…]

Debugging a Tricky LED Problem Using Inspired Logic and a Rigol DS1054z Oscilloscope

 Electronics, python programming, Raspberry Pi Hardware  9 Responses »
May 262017
 
Debugging a Tricky LED Problem Using Inspired Logic and a Rigol DS1054z Oscilloscope

Last week I had a bit of a scare. Having tested all 100 of the trial batch of RasPiO InsPiRing straight-8 boards and found 100/100 working perfectly, I issued an update to let the KickStarter backers know. Testing was done with a DigiSpark, which is based on an ATtiny microcontroller. It’s the same device I sent to the manufacturers for their QC testing because it is small, cheap, pretty bullet-proof and I would not have to explain to them how to use a Pi (which would also need a screen, keyboard, mouse etc. thus making […more…]

Parody – Sing a Song of Crowdfunding

 Electronics, raspberry pi  1 Response »
Mar 272017
 
Parody - Sing a Song of Crowdfunding

Here in the UK it’s Monday morning and yesterday the clocks ‘went forward’, so we’re now in British Summer Time. Everyone could use a bit of ‘good cheer’ on a Monday morning, so I’m releasing a short parody video that I hope you will find amusing. Just Why? Simple answer. For fun. It’s an experiment. I hope it will make you laugh and you’ll want to share it. There’s quite a few geeky jokes buried in the lyrics, but it also tells a story. It took me 8 full takes to get it. I kept […more…]

How to do SMT Surface Mount Soldering by hand

 Electronics  24 Responses »
Mar 202017
 
How to do SMT Surface Mount Soldering by hand

I usually assemble my own prototype PCBs in my workshop. For traditional through-hole technology (THT) and large surface mount (SMT) this is a straightforward matter with no special equipment required – just a soldering iron and regular solder. But, as the boards get more complex and with smaller surface mount parts, you have to shift your methods to something more suitable. For my RasPiO InsPiRing prototypes I’m using 0603 sized capacitors. These are too small for me to be able to do efficiently by hand with an iron. Also the pads on the APA102 LEDs […more…]

Make an LED Arrow Sign with RasPiO InsPiRing

 Electronics, python programming, Raspberry Pi Camera  2 Responses »
Mar 172017
 
Make an LED Arrow Sign with RasPiO InsPiRing

One of the interesting usage possibilities for the RasPiO InsPiRing system is illuminated signage. What could be better than flashy, blinky, multi-coloured signage? Well, not much really? So I decided to make an arrow out of two straight 8s and a triangle. I used white depron foam as a base, ordinary headers and jumper wires to connect all the shapes to each other and to the controller. Then a needle and thread and some hot glue to fasten the shapes to the depron. I then darkened the foam with a marker pen. This is what […more…]

How to make an internet clock with NTP, Pi Zero W and RasPiO InsPiRing

 Electronics, python programming, Raspberry Pi Hardware  6 Responses »
Mar 102017
 
How to make an internet clock with NTP, Pi Zero W and RasPiO InsPiRing

I’ve been messing about with the Pi Zero W and one of my RasPiO InsPiRing boards to make a colourful clock that keeps accurate time using NTP (Network Time Protocol). Because the Zero W has WiFi onboard, it’s perfect for things like this. It’s quite a visual thing, so I made a video about it… Here’s the Code If you want a walk-through of the code, I made a little walk-through video of it, but decided to keep that separate because not everybody would want that level of detail. You can find that after the […more…]

New Raspberry Pi Family Photo 28 Feb 2017

 Electronics, raspberry pi  12 Responses »
Mar 032017
 
New Raspberry Pi Family Photo 28 Feb 2017

This week the new Pi Zero W was launched. A few weeks ago the new compute Module 3 was launched. It’s the Pi birthday party tomorrow. This can only mean one thing. It’s time for a new Pi family photo. I had an interesting exchange with a publisher this week who wanted to use the November family photo in a book. They made me an offer. I added some terms. A contract was then sent to me, which absolutely didn’t reflect my terms and was very biased towards them. Under advice I declined it. So […more…]

RasPiO InsPiring – a new system of RGB LED boards controllable by Pi and just about anything

 Electronics, Product Launch  9 Responses »
Mar 022017
 
RasPiO InsPiring - a new system of RGB LED boards controllable by Pi and just about anything

I’ve been playing with RGB LEDs on and off over the last year or so. They’re amazing things. It’s incredible to me that something so small can produce such bright and brilliantly coloured light. I’ve played with the Adafruit DotStar Pi Painter project (using APA102), which is enormous fun. Also the Pimoroni MOTE (also APA102), which makes everything plug-and-play. Then there was the McRoboface from 4Tronix (using 2 sizes of WS2812). Then back in October 2016 I bought 4 quadrants of 15 WS2812 on ebay to make a 60-element clock. And then one day, amidst […more…]

How much power does Pi Zero W use?

 Electronics, raspberry pi, Raspberry Pi Hardware  25 Responses »
Mar 012017
 
How much power does Pi Zero W use?

It’s become traditional for me to do power measurements of any new Pi and update my chart. People have even started asking me about it on launch days (the cheek of it)… @DavidGlaude No. Not yet. Patience. That's usually a day 2 thing :) — RasPi.TV (@RasPiTV) February 28, 2017 Needless to say I have done some power measurements in my Zero W testing and here are the results. Essentially, the Pi Zero W seems to require 20 mA more than the no-wifi Zero. This is almost certainly due to the new radio chip. Methodology […more…]

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