This is part 2 of my review of the HDMI/VGA 1080 Ultimate HD Video Converter. It covers comparison of VGA and HDMI in the GUI; use of an old 1024 x 768 VGA monitor with the Pi; using a VGA projector to show a video; trying out an MHL adaptor with a phone and VGA monitor. If you haven’t seen part one yet, you can find that here. To complete the review, I set myself the following tasks… see if I can get it to go full-screen in GUI by tweaking settings do some side […more…]
Alex Gibson, co-host of the Oxford Jam impressed us all with his RepRap 3d printer controlled by a Raspberry Pi. I hadn’t seen one of these up close and personal before. I’d really like one now, but I have a feeling it requires a large investment in time to build, calibrate and use. Check out the 4 minute video. Most impressive indeed! :) Background Alex told us he’d joined the Thames Valley build group, which is a bunch of people who get together to help each other make RepRaps. The reel of poly-lactic acid (PLA) […more…]
I went along to the Oxford Raspberry Jam last night at RS HQ. There were several impressive demos. But this one was definitely the best sounding of the lot. Peter Andrew has put together a solenoid sequencer (a bit like a drum machine) which is driven by a python script on a raspberry pi. He’s also written an android app to program the beat with his Nexus 7 tablet. Solenoids are pulsed to make them strike a tin can, a jar lid, a small glass jar and a saucepan lid. The saucepan lid sounds wonderful. […more…]
I’ve been doing some prototyping of a new Pi related hardware project I’m working on. I’m not ready to let on what it is yet, but it involves a potentiometer. The pot in question is one of those that you need a small screwdriver to turn. So here’s what happened. I left the screwdriver standing in the pot like this… …and it fell, shorting something out. Not sure exactly what, but it may have bounced on a pin carrying 12V for a motor. What I do know for sure is that an ic chip that […more…]
My V2 Gertboard showed up today. I promised some photos yesterday, so here they are, along with some first impressions… Main visible differences from V1 are: CE and FCC marks Different fuse holder Different motor controller chip – surface mount All ICs are soldered directly to the board apart from the ATMega, which is socketed leds are surface mount there are pull-up resistors on the buffers the buttons are surface mount the DAC chip is teeny weeny and surface mount the regulator is surface mount The jumpers with grippy extension are very practical But the […more…]
I’ve been sitting on this for a while, but I’m now delighted to announce that the manual for the new Rev 2, fully assembled Gertboard, which officially went on sale yesterday, includes full documentation of my Python Gertboard Test Suite. I wrote the Python-specific sections and Myra’s done a great job of weaving them into the fully updated manual. You can download the new manual here You can download the Python Gertboard software here. The Python software was fully tested by Myra before Christmas on the only Rev 2 Gertboard in existence at the time. […more…]
Carles Oriol has put together a raspbian image with just about every emulator you can imagine, including… ZX spectrum DOS / Windows 3.1 Commodore 64 Apple ][ Oric 1 Atari 2600 ScummVM Arcade (MAME, I think) The only one of note that I didn’t see was BBC Micro. I don’t know if it’s available for the Pi. (But there is RISCOS, of course) It’s a very impressive piece of work. No details yet if he intends to republish. It’s possible there may be some copyright issues if he does. For the moment, though, there is […more…]
One of the compromises that had to be made in designing the Raspberry Pi to be so small and so cheap was the decision to exclude a VGA connection. The BCM system on a chip already has HDMI and composite onboard. Adding VGA capability would have needed additional hardware in the form of a VGA chip and a VGA port. VGA ports are quite chunky too. Adding one would take up as much “edge space” on the board as both HDMI and composite ports together. Have a look at this photo… I took this VGA […more…]
Recipe for auto-reset Pi. Take one Rev 2 Raspberry Pi, a few carefully selected slices of fresh Python, one GPIO port (’25 vintage, preferably), one relay (a twin pack is OK, but not AA), one Darlington array (leave the spikes on), a sprinkling of mixed wires and arrange it all carefully with a breadboard. It should end up looking something like this… I decided to take the P6 reset header one step sillier further. Just for fun. ;) The idea here is to use one of the Pi’s own GPIO ports to switch a relay […more…]
One of the changes on the Rev 2 Raspberry Pi board, which I haven’t seen anybody write about yet, (apart from Eben in his original announcement) is the addition of two holes for a header at P6. These were added to enable a reset facility. Shorting those two pins together resets the processor. This was too good an opportunity for my curious mind to pass up, so I decided to add a 2 pin header there and try it out. As luck would have it It just so happened that last week I was given […more…]