alex

Alex Eames is the founder, owner and main contributor to RasPi.TV more information about him can be found in his Google+ profile.

RasPiO Pro Hat – Putting Pi Ports in Perfect Positions for Productive Play

Electronics, Product Launch, python programming, Raspberry Pi Hardware 18 Responses »

Jan 152016

RasPiO Pro Hat - Putting Pi Ports in Perfect Positions for Productive Play

Today I launched the RasPiO Pro Hat on Kickstarter. It’s a Raspberry Pi Hat for GPIO tinkering (it goes perfectly with GPIO Zero). It arranges the GPIO ports in numerical order around a mini-breadboard, which, to my knowledge, has not been done before. It also replaces the RasPiO Breakout Pro (now end of life) because it protects all the ports from over-current and over/under-voltage as well. It should prove a very useful board for GPIO tinkering and education. Have a look at the video and pop on over to the RasPiO Pro Hat campaign page […more…]

Always Test Everything – Twitter App Update

Electronics, python programming, raspberry pi 7 Responses »

Jan 072016

Always Test Everything - Twitter App Update

I’m a firm believer that you should always test things in advance. It helps avoid unexpected last-minute panics when things don’t work as you expected them to. On Friday I’m going to pick a winner from my twitter followers using the twitter app script I wrote back in October 2013. My Joey from @gooligumelec just arrived. :) I have a spare I will give to a randomly selected follower on Friday. pic.twitter.com/yGtwATYXng — RasPi.TV (@RasPiTV) January 5, 2016 It Still Works, But… Since I had no idea where the SD card with that old Raspbian […more…]

Ethernet On Pi Zero – How To Put An Ethernet Port On Your Pi

Input and Output, interfacing, Raspberry Pi Hardware, Uncategorized 114 Responses »

Dec 022015

Ethernet On Pi Zero - How To Put An Ethernet Port On Your Pi

The Pi Zero attracted a huge amount of attention, which is great for the educational mission of the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Whenever a new product is released, people air their opinions in the forums on what they would have liked it to have. One of the most common “I wish it had”s was an ethernet port. There are reasons why ethernet was not included. The two most obvious ones are cost and board size (it would have almost doubled the size of the Zero) So What’s To Be Done If You Need Ethernet? Well the […more…]

Raspberry Pi Zero – Updated Pi Family Photo

raspberry pi, Raspberry Pi Hardware 20 Responses »

Nov 302015

Raspberry Pi Zero - Updated Pi Family Photo

With each new release of Raspberry Pi, I usually do a new family photo. It’s getting harder and harder to fit them all ‘on the sofa’ and get them all smiling. The way I’ve always done it is “all in one shot”. I may change this for future versions in order to get more definition. We’ll see. (As usual, more ideas than implementation time.) I am very happy for people to use this photo if they wish to do so provided the RasPi.TV credit stays intact. I make it available at 1500px resolution as CC-BY-SA. […more…]

Raspberry Pi Zero – Power Measurements

raspberry pi, Raspberry Pi Hardware 22 Responses »

Nov 272015

Since the Pi Zero is small and eminently wearable, I thought I’d take some power measurements as this will be useful information for people to plan their projects. So I ran my usual series of tests and updated the table and chart showing all consumer models of Raspberry Pi. In my standard tests, I measure the current consumption, using the calibrated shunt on my Emeter, while the Pi is: Idling; Loading LXDE; Watching HD video and Shooting HD video. Since the Zero has no camera port, shooting video is not applicable, but all the other […more…]

Raspberry Pi Zero FREE on the cover of this month’s MagPi magazine.

Raspberry Pi Hardware, Review 45 Responses »

Nov 262015

Raspberry Pi Zero FREE on the cover of this month’s MagPi magazine. Yes you read that correctly. Raspberry Pi have pulled another world first out of the bag. Back in the pre-internet days when I used to buy PC magazines, they used to have a cover disk. Well Raspberry Pi have come up with a ‘cover computer’. It’s an absolutely awesome idea and is sure to cause ‘quite a stir*‘. Raspberry Pi Zero, a brand new spin of the Raspberry Pi, is designed to be as inexpensive as possible. A year ago the model A+ […more…]

7 segment display Python Raspberry Pi – countdown ticker

Electronics, interfacing, python programming, Raspberry Pi Hardware 48 Responses »

Nov 182015

7 segment display Python Raspberry Pi - countdown ticker

Continuing with our theme of 7-segment displays driven directly from the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO using Python, I was asked for an explanation of the code from the previous post. In order to explain something, you first have to fully understand it, so I took some time to have a good look at the ‘business end’ of Bertwert’s code and figured out exactly how it works. I’ve now put a full code walkthrough of that script in the comments section of the previous post. Having done that, and having had a tweet from David Meiklejohn saying […more…]

How to drive a 7 segment display directly on Raspberry Pi in Python

Electronics, Input and Output, interfacing, python programming, Raspberry Pi Hardware 96 Responses »

Nov 162015

Last week I bought some 4-digit, 7-segment displays to experiment with. Strangely enough it was something I’d never tried before, so I was interested to see how they work. I googled around looking to see if someone else had done this before. It seems there are several different sorts of 7-segment displays, so you have to find a good match for the one you’ve bought. You can get them in various guises including: i2c backpack; 12 pins; 16 pins; resistors built-in; common anode; common cathode etc. The ones I bought are 12 pin, bare, no […more…]

CamJam Edukit 3 Robotics Kit

Electronics, Raspberry Pi Hardware, Review 15 Responses »

Nov 132015

CamJam Edukit 3 robotics kit is launched today. It’s an entry-level robotics kit aimed at beginners, but I’ve had quite a lot of fun with it, and haven’t even used all the bits yet. It’s been put together by Jamie Mann from the PiHut, and Mike Horne and Tim Richardson from CamJam. As with other CamJam Edukits, there is a progressive series of worksheets to help guide you through how to make the various pieces do what they’re designed for. You can find those here. Here’s what the kit looks like straight out of the […more…]

RasPiO Duino Videos Complete

Electronics, Input and Output, interfacing, RasPiO Duino 2 Responses »

Oct 292015

Last Thursday I decided I needed to do the “Analog Inputs Video” for RasPiO® Duino. All the other basic functionality was well covered in the previous assembly/setup/tutorial videos. There’s also the 47 page user guide (FREE Download – good intro to Arduino programming) and a GitHub repository with the example sketches in. But I wanted to complete the basic set of videos, so at midday I started planning. I filmed in the afternoon and cut the video in the evening. At about 2230 I was done, so I started uploading it to YouTube (~2.4 Gigabytes […more…]

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