Tag: Arduino

Lessons learned from working on my Raspberry Pi devices (and Raspberry Picos too)

This week I successfully set up five Raspberry Pi devices at home: 3 Pi Zeros, 1 Pi 400, and 1 Pi original. Plus I have two old C.H.I.P. computers that work. I had struggled with using them in the past, but this time it was a breeze due to the lessons I’ve learned. Here’s some of these lessons:

Get wireless ones: I originally had Pi Zeros and Picos without wireless capability. And that can be fine if you know you don’t need it. But it is helpful to be able to have them communicate wirelessly and it gives you more flexibility, even if it costs a few more bucks.

Get headers: again, I had some Pi Zeros and Picos without headers. Unless you are good with soldering, get the ones with headers. It just makes it easier physically  connect them to other technology. The Pi Zero above has no headers, the one below does.

Keep track of all the connectors you need and kept them handy: With the Pi Zeroes, I have a set of adapters that allow me to connect it to power, USB and HDMI. Once I have it set up, I just need a cable to provide power and I run it in headless mode (which I can do because of wireless). I have a special box for all that stuff so I can easily find it.

Give your Pis unique hostnames: if you are going to be connecting to them via ssh or scp, then give them a unique host name. You can do this when you set them up. What’s nice about that is once they connect to the wireless network, I can easily identify them. For example, I can ping pizero1 or I can ssh myuserid@pizero2 versus trying to find out their IP address of 192.168.0.??

Designate a machine for setting up the Pis: for me, I have a Pi 400 that I use to program the Picos. And I have a Ubuntu machine to format the SD cards. But you do what works best for you.Having a consistent environment means when you run into problems, the problem is likely not with your environment but with the SD card or the Pico.

Avoid obsolete or tricky technology: in the past I got discouraged by trying to get old or tricky technology to work. I had old dongles that gave me errors when trying to build the SD cards properly; I had old unsupported Digispark devices that would not work at all; and I had some Adafruit devices that were cool but the path to success with them was challenging. In the future, I am sticking with tried and true technology from Arduino and Pi. Don’t make working with such devices any harder than it has to be.

Get cases for your Pis: if you are going to use them on the regular, get a case. Even a cheap case make it look like a finished and working device and not some hack. Not only does it look better, but it will likely work better (i.e. the cables will not move around and lose a connection). And make sure the case you get is made for your device so it will fit properly.

Document as you go: keep some log of what worked and what didn’t. Take photos of successful set ups. Save all the good web sites that helped out. Better still, blog about it. (If you search this blog for “raspberrypi” you will find the things I have found and written about.)

Good luck with your projects. May they go smoothly.

In praise of this 37 in 1 Sensors Starter Kit

If you’re like me and you’re doing work with an Arduino or a Raspberry Pi, you are going to want to hook it up to something. Now the something might just be a simple button or an LED, or it might be more sophisticated like an infrared receiver or a heat sensor. If that’s you, then you want to consider getting this:  KEYESTUDIO 37 in 1 Sensors Starter Kit for Arduino Mega R3 Nano Raspberry Pi Projects (on amazon.ca).

It says Sensors starter kit, but it has a nice collection of LEDs and buttons, too. Each of the 37 items are easy to plug into a breadboard or you can connect them to your Pi or Arduino with wires.

Other great things:

  • the sensors are all labelled. That means you won’t be pick one up months from now and asking yourself: what does this do?
  • their documentation is really good. It’s online, here. (Note, their site is slow: I printed the long web page into a PDF that I can quickly refer to.)
  • The sensors have their own resistors built in. That way you don’t have to put your own resistors between the Pi and an LED, for example.
  • there is a wide variety of sensors in this kit. You will be able to do many a project with all these sensors.

I’ve purchased sensors in the past, and the problems I’ve had with them are gone due to this kit. I’m glad I bought it.

 

 

Tech Stuff I am interested in, Arduino edition, March 2021


Last March at the beginning of the pandemic I was doing a bunch of Arduino projects. I stopped for some reason. Well, a number of reasons. But I want to get back at it and dive back into these sites.

If you are interested in working with an Arduino, check these out:

  1. Circuito.io: a good site to draw and plan out circuits!
  2. Using Arduino with a Nokia 5110 screen
  3. How to use bluetooth and Arduinos together
  4. More on using bluetooth and Arduinos together
  5. How to use Infrared receivers and Arduinos together
  6. A good tutorial to start you off
  7. How to use LEDS and Arduinos together
  8. How to use LCD displays and Arduinos together
  9. How to use temperature displays and Arduinos together
  10. Morre on LCD displays
  11. More tutorials
  12. A classic intro: getting an LED to blink
  13. How to use Raspberry Pis and Arduinos together
  14. How to use Arduinos to check your website
  15. More on bluetooth
  16. How to use a 16×2 display and Arduinos together

A bonus Raspberry Pi section

Finally, the homepage for Arduino is here.

(Photo by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash )

Some good IT links on cloud, software development, github, python, IoT and more

As I go through my day, I often find IT links that are of interest to work I am doing. This is my latest set of links. As you can see, I am keen on cloud, software development, github, python, and IoT, to say the least.

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