MotorPiTX build and testing with photos

 Electronics, Input and Output, python programming, raspberry pi, Raspberry Pi Hardware, Review  16 Responses »
Sep 302013
 
MotorPiTX build and testing with photos

On Saturday I decided to build my MotorPiTX, by Jason ‘boeeerb’ Barnett. It was a straightforward build. The only difficult part was the optional micro-USB power connector. Overall it took me about an hour to build. I took my time over it – knowing that I was going to photograph it and that you lot would be scrutinising every blemish. ;) About 20 minutes of that time was spent trying to ensure that I didn’t bridge two connections on the micro USB connector. I rarely use desoldering braid, but on this occasion I did. I […more…]

RasPi.TV hits 1 million page views

 raspberry pi  13 Responses »
Sep 272013
 
RasPi.TV hits 1 million page views

I don’t know if you caught the video of my talk at last week-end’s Cambridge Jam? One of the quiz questions (at 17:31) was “RasPi.TV will hit a million page views next week. True, false, pass?” Quite a few people called out “False”, although some of them sounded jocular. In fact it’s True. We just hit 1 million page views at around 5am this morning. That’s 1 million views of WordPress blog pages on RasPi.TV since June 2012. (My WordPress JetPack Stats module is configured to automatically exclude views by ‘logged in’ users i.e. me). […more…]

Cambridge Raspberry Jam 21 September 2013

 Input and Output, interfacing, python programming, raspberry pi, Raspberry Pi Hardware  7 Responses »
Sep 252013
 
Cambridge Raspberry Jam 21 September 2013

I had a very busy time at the Cambridge Raspberry Jam last Saturday. I was speaking and demonstrating the prototype RasPiO® baseboard that I designed. More on that in a bit. Because I was speaking, I decided not to do a show and tell as well. I was glad about that, as I tend to get stuck next to my show and tells, which stops me from going around and seeing what other people are doing. Since Mike “Recantha” Horne had asked me to judge the show and tells competition, I had to have a […more…]

Boeeerb’s MotorPiTX has arrived – a couple of quick photos

 Electronics, raspberry pi, Raspberry Pi Hardware  6 Responses »
Sep 172013
 
Boeeerb's MotorPiTX has arrived - a couple of quick photos

MotorPiTX, by Jason Barnett, was delivered today. It’s a robotics board for the Raspberry Pi, combined with ATX style power supply. It was one of this summer’s successful Kickstarter campaigns. It was either the first or second KS that I’ve backed. I’m a bit busy this week, but there’s a part of me that’s saying “never mind all that, just get out there and put it together”. I’m not going to do that tonight. I think we’ll have to settle for some kit photos and I’ll let you know how I get on with the […more…]

Google Coder on the Raspberry Pi – How to install

 raspberry pi, software installation  10 Responses »
Sep 142013
 
Google Coder on the Raspberry Pi - How to install

I was very keen to try out Google Coder for the Raspberry Pi as soon as I heard about it. I had some problems with it initially because the instructions on the Google Coder download site are/were fairly scant. It talks of an installer, which it later transpires is only for the Mac. The instructions have since improved a bit, but initially were hopelessly confusing. I hope the instructions will have improved even more by the time you read this, but below I’ll show you how I got it up and running. These are instructions […more…]

PiHub powering four Raspberry Pis at once

 raspberry pi, Raspberry Pi Hardware  1 Response »
Sep 102013
 
PiHub powering four Raspberry Pis at once

This is a gratuitously silly video post. Yesterday, Stewart “PenguinTutor” Watkiss posted a comment on the Raspberry Pi Foundation blog… “I wonder if you can run 2 or 3 Raspberry Pis from it if you don’t need it for connecting extra USB accessories to. Based on the power of the power supply it should be, in which case could provide a good way to power multiple Raspberry Pis in a classroom (although I don’t suppose that is officially supported).” …which was far too irresistable a challenge and had to be tried out immediately. I didn’t […more…]

PiHub from Cyntech and Pimoroni – a new powered USB Hub for the Raspberry Pi

 raspberry pi, Raspberry Pi Hardware, Review  9 Responses »
Sep 092013
 
PiHub from Cyntech and Pimoroni - a new powered USB Hub for the Raspberry Pi

PiHub, a new powered USB hub, designed specifically for the Raspberry Pi, has been released today. I first saw an early prototype of this when I visited Cyntech back in May 2013. It was on a table of goodies and it jumped out at me immediately. It’s absolutely beautiful to look at. Modelled in the shape and colours of the Raspberry Pi logo, it has four downstream USB ports, a barrel connector for power and an USB B upstream port that connects to a USB port on the Pi. Here’s what the final production version […more…]

Using PiGlow with GPIO button control on the Raspberry Pi

 Electronics, Input and Output, python programming, raspberry pi, Review  4 Responses »
Sep 062013
 
Using PiGlow with GPIO button control on the Raspberry Pi

Pimoroni released the PiGlow in August while I was away in Poland. It’s a small, purple board (that fits inside a PiBow) with 18 LEDs in 6 colour groups, arranged in a 3 armed spiral formation. It has an 8 bit, 18-way PWM controller that can be used to control the brightness of the LEDs (0 = OFF, 255 = Fully ON). (More on PWM here) Although I was abroad when it came out, there was plenty of banter about it on twitter. In a few short weeks, various people have written Python classes to […more…]