The Raspberry Pi Compute Module was launched yesterday and I felt I owed it to you, dear readers, to get one. ;) OK. So, maybe it’s not fair to blame you guys for it. I’d have bought one anyway, but you helped me to not dither over the decision. I also have ideas for something I might do with it. But that’s top secret, so don’t tell anyone! So What is the Compute Module? It’s a small module in the same SODIMM form factor as a laptop memory module. You can see it in the […more…]
I’ve recently been working on a new board called the RasPiO® duino. You might guess from the name that it’s a bit Arduino-like, and it is. I’m currently on iteration 5 and there’s going to be at least one more before production. All iterations have worked, but I keep getting ideas and suggestions from my beta testers (and myself) that I want to include. But the board is not really what today’s post is about. I want a way of preventing the water inlet pipe freezing in the basement of our house in Poland. In […more…]
I’m publishing this post just after we hit 2 million page views, which will be around 1600 on Friday 13th June 2014 (lucky for some). It’s interesting this week that the Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced sale of 3 million Pis. We can’t quite match that, but let’s have some fun with stats anyway… 3 Million Pis sold – announced this week 2 Million page views on RasPi.TV – reached today 1 Million minutes of video watched on the RasPi.TV YouTube channel – in the next couple of weeks 1 Million visitors to RasPi.TV blog […more…]
SPI – Serial Peripheral Interface Demystified I was in need of an interesting signal to check out the logic analyser functionality of the BitScope micro. So, another of my current RasPiO® Beta boards was used as a convenient way to connect an mcp3008 analog to digital converter (ADC) to the Pi and the scope. I don’t claim to be an expert on SPI, but having spent the best part of a day playing with it, the mcp3008 data sheet and the BitScope Micro, I understand it a lot better now. Four pins are used… CEO […more…]
When I first saw the Bitscope Micro on the Raspberry Pi Foundation blog, it ‘ticked all my boxes’. A couple of weeks later, when Pimoroni tweeted about having the first batch in stock, I ordered one immediately. In my circumstances, it would have been rude not to. Why? The reasons are too numerous to list them all, but here are the first few that spring to mind… I need a small, portable, USB scope since I spend about 20% of my time abroad and take my work with me. It’s also a logic analyser – […more…]
I needed some new wire strippers as I got fed up damaging my thumb by using a knife. Not knowing which were best, I decided to buy four different types and try them out. The findings are quite interesting. One wasn’t any good, one was the best budget pair, another was the most flexible, and another was the best for electronics work. Have a look at the video to see the results.
While I was away in Poland for Easter I had an email from someone called Jet (jetxu@lemaker.org – he asked me to share that) about a board called Banana Pi. I’d heard of it already. I also knew that other people in the Raspberry Pi community had been approached (we talk to each other ;p). They wanted me to join their forums and submit a request for a sample. I didn’t want to play that game so I said I was happy to have a look at it if they sent me one, but otherwise […more…]
You may remember I launched three RasPiO® boards a couple of weeks ago. One of them, the RasPiO® Breakout Pro, offers protection for the GPIO ports on the Raspberry Pi. I thought it might be interesting to explain how the port protection works, so I’ve made a little video about it… Current Limiting Resistor One of the ways you can potentially damage (or kill) your GPIO ports is to try and draw too much current from them. You’re not supposed to draw more than 16mA from any one port (and 60mA from ALL the GPIO […more…]
The day has finally arrived for me to launch my first three products in the RasPiO® range. What’s RasPiO®? I hear you ask? It’s a family of add-on boards for the Raspberry Pi®. It’s pronounced “Razz-Pie-Oh” (emphasis on Pi) and is derived from the fact that the boards will mostly be I/O (input-output) boards for the Raspberry Pi. We’re starting small and simple, and will grow in size and complexity with time. I spent most of last summer designing PCBs. It takes a frustratingly long time to bring things to market. But that’s another story, […more…]
I’ve been hankering after a hot air rework gun and a soldering station for some time. The main problem is that most rework stations are hundreds of pounds. I don’t really need an ‘industrial strength’ one, so when the most recent CPC Tradesman offers came through the door, two items by TENMA caught my eye. One was a simple soldering station for about £30 (+VAT), the other had both soldering iron and hot air gun for £99 (+ VAT). In the end, I opted for the combined model (SDO174105). I ordered it on Saturday and […more…]