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 GPIO Ruler goes on general sale

Electronics, Input and Output, interfacing, python programming, Raspberry Pi Hardware 8 Responses »

Oct 222015

You may remember I ran a KickStarter campaign in August for the RasPiO® GPIO Ruler. The KickStarter rewards were all sent out in the first week of October. (We finished shipping 3 weeks early.) So now it’s time to launch the product officially and make it available to all on general sale. If you missed out on the KickStarter, now you can buy one. In case you haven’t seen it before, this is what it looks like… What Is The RasPiO® GPIO Ruler? It’s a coding crib-sheet for RPi.GPIO, a port ID guide, a multi-scale […more…]

GPIO Zero Test Drive – Making Light of Security

Electronics, python programming, raspberry pi 25 Responses »

Oct 152015

GPIO Zero Test Drive - Making Light of Security

Giving GPIO Zero (Beta version) a test drive might make you feel a little insecure, but I’m aiming to throw some light on the situation. I decided to try out some of the built-in features of GPIO Zero by working up a little hardware project. I looked at the current feature set and decided to try and combine MotionSensor, LED and LightSensor all at once. What sort of project uses that kind of technology? Why a PIR-controlled security light of course – if you swap the LED for a relay and 12V lamp! The video […more…]

GPIO Zero – Introduction

Electronics, python programming, raspberry pi 10 Responses »

Oct 122015

If you’re a RasPi.TV regular, you’ll know that one of my very favourite things is hacking around with the GPIO ports on the Raspberry Pi and sharing my findings with the world. Sometimes this involves documenting a new feature, sometimes it involves making a new project, using a new chip or just getting something working that I haven’t tried before. But it nearly always involves Python programming and the brilliant RPi.GPIO Python library by Ben Croston. I’ve written all sorts of tutorials (~16) on RPi.GPIO because it is one of my favourite things. You may […more…]

New Official Raspberry Pi DSI screen launches

Product Launch, raspberry pi, Raspberry Pi Hardware, Review 44 Responses »

Sep 082015

New Official Raspberry Pi DSI screen launches

The official 7 inch DSI Raspberry Pi screen is now launched and available for purchase. It’s been a long time in the making, but the B+, the A+ and Pi2B have all been responsible for pushing this display to the back-burner. When there finally was some ‘engineering time’ to get on with it, hurdles were faced with EMC compliance and chip availability. But those hurdles are now overcome and the screen is now launched. And it looks great (click any photo for higher resolution). Video Overview Here’s a video overview. There’s more detail in the […more…]

Witty Pi Full Review

Electronics, Raspberry Pi Hardware, Review 12 Responses »

Aug 212015

Back in July I did a mailbag video and got you guys to vote on which item I should do a more in-depth review of. WittyPi got about 50% of the vote by the time I had to make the decision. So here is the UUGear WittyPi review. WittyPi is an A+/B+/Pi2B add-on that gives you a safe on-off switch and enables timed shutdowns and startups of your Raspberry Pi. It has a battery-backed realtime clock (RTC) that controls the startup times and allows your Pi to retain the correct time even if not connected […more…]

RPi. GPIO GPIO.getmode() function

Electronics, python programming, raspberry pi 5 Responses »

Aug 122015

Another new RPi.GPIO feature that I discovered last week is GPIO.getmode(). This appeared in RPi.GPIO 0.5.11 and allows you to query RPi.GPIO to see whether GPIO.setmode() has been set up as BCM, BOARD, or UNSET mode. This could be useful if you are running a suite of scripts or modules which work together. GPIO.getmode() returns… -1 if GPIO.setmode() is not set 11 if GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM) is active 10 if GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BOARD) is active Below you can see a live python session showing what you get when you use GPIO.getmode() with different modes set… Why Did You Bother […more…]

RPI.GPIO New Feature GPIO.RPI_INFO replaces GPIO.RPI_REVISION

Electronics, python programming, raspberry pi 8 Responses »

Aug 102015

RPI.GPIO New Feature GPIO.RPI_INFO replaces GPIO.RPI_REVISION

In RPi.GPIO 0.5.10 (we’re now on 0.5.11) Ben Croston ‘deprecated’ GPIO.RPI_REVISION, which used to be the preferred way to find out what kind of Raspberry Pi board a program was running on. This was a useful feature to make it possible to write software that will work on any Pi, regardless of how its GPIO pins are arranged. To date, we’ve had three different GPIO pin header layouts for the standard Raspberry Pis (four if you count the compute module). But GPIO.RPI_REVISION has been deprecated (fallen out of favour) because there is now something better. […more…]

New Official Raspberry Pi WiFi Dongle 3-way testing Vs ThePiHut and Edimax

Raspberry Pi Hardware, Review 21 Responses »

Aug 062015

New Official Raspberry Pi WiFi Dongle 3-way testing Vs ThePiHut and Edimax

A few weeks ago, Raspberry Pi launched a new official WiFi dongle with the following specs… 802.11 b/g/n USB 2.0 BCM43143 chipset 150Mbps maximum throughput Supports Access Point/Infrastructure mode Works with Raspbian out of the box (other OS yet to be supported) It’s been designed by the Raspberry Pi hardware team, uses a Broadcom chip and has a larger antenna than the other two dongles I’m testing it against. This makes it a little longer than the other two, but how does it stack up against them in terms of performance? That’s what we’re here […more…]

RasPiO GPIO Ruler

Input and Output, interfacing, raspberry pi, Raspberry Pi Hardware 7 Responses »

Jul 142015

For some time now I’ve been using the wonderful RPi.GPIO Python library by Ben Croston. It’s great for using the General Purpose Input Output (GPIO) ports on the Raspberry Pi to control things and read inputs. I’ve written at least 14 tutorials on it (listed here) over the last couple of years. But I still find myself needing to look up the exact commands to use. I’ve made a crib-sheet which is really useful, but pieces of paper get lost. What I really want is the most used commands in a portable, accessible form that […more…]

RasPi.TV Mailbag – July 2015

Mailbag, raspberry pi, Review 12 Responses »

Jul 062015

Today we’re getting a bit interactive. I decided to do a mailbag video, showcasing six of the things people have given me or sent in over the last few months. The items in question are… PiUPS Traffic Hat Official Raspberry Pi wifi dongle Shortcrust Plus Pi 2 (& B+) case Unicorn Hat Witty Pi You Tell Me Which One You Want Reviewed In More Depth I’m off abroad soon. I haven’t got room in the case to take all of these items. Let me know which is the most interesting to you and I’ll take […more…]

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