This guide walks through the process of assembling and configuring our LCD displays with USB/serial backpack and stand as a realtime system monitor. These displays are great for monitoring the health and status of “headless” systems such as servers, small Raspberry Pi installations, or as an auxiliary information display on your regular computer. You can get one of our cute acrylic stands in the Adafruit shop.
In order to get raw parsed data out of a magstripe reader, we first experiemented with a MAGTEK Centurion Keyboard Encoder (PN-21073062). We found that although we could get all 3 tracks of data, it was not possible to have it parsed out. We then purchased a raw magstripe decoder head with track 1 reading, the Omron V3A-6 (Datasheet here). By writing some parity checking code, we were able to read the raw data off of the magstripe, and parse it into output that would be ‘typed out’ as an emulated keyboard using a USB-enabled Teensy. An Arduino can also be used, and the data would be output as Serial which may also be useful.
Just thought I’d share a simple little mashup I made between two of the Adafruit Learning System Raspberry Pi Tutorials. I’ve never done anything in Python before (only C++ and other languages), so this might look sloppy, but it seemed to work. I’d appreciate any suggestions on how to clean it up. I’m especially unsure about the inclusions (or as you may call them, imports?).
I combined the 16×2 LCD tutorial with the email LED tutorial to get the LCD to display the RasPi’s IP (I was running headless) and how many unread emails I had in my Gmail inbox.
This project combines a whole heap of modules to enable a Raspberry Pi to power a large 1.2 inch 4 digit 7 segment display. A small switch switches the display between showing the temperature and the current time. The project uses a real-time clock (RTC) to ensure that the Pi always has the correct time, even if it is not connected to the Internet.
Forums member pighixxx is producing an illustrated series of Arduino Basic Connections – just about everything you every wanted to know about how interface your Arduino to a wide selection of input and output devices!
Laser cutting is a fantastic medium for prototyping and the type of small-run manufacturing favored by maker businesses. A powerful laser — usually a 30 Watt or larger CO2 tube laser — is aimed by a computer-controlled X/Y gantry to engrave a surface or cut clean through flat materials like acrylic or wood. It’s quick, precise and repeatable. Avoiding big startup costs such as mold tooling makes it a popular choice in the kit business.
No longer the exclusive domain of mass-produced plywood dinosaur models, these tools are now accessible to members of many community hackerspaces and makerspaces after just a little training. Even owning a personal laser cutter in your workshop or home is within reach of the determined hobbyist.
Unlike 3D printed or injection-molded parts, laser-cut enclosures are always built up from a series of planes. This tends to dictate a certain aesthetic to laser enclosures…it becomes a challenge not to make everything look like the same boring rectilinear box. This isn’t a concern for personal one-off quick projects that nobody will see, but for a finished kit it’s best selling something that looks like a polished product and not some prototype covered in wingnuts and cable ties.
Today’s project consists, as the title says, in the creation of an arduino/MSGEQ7 based pedal to be used with your guitar/bass/whatever. I’m going to show you how to use the MSGEQ7 (a 7 bands equalizer), how to display the result on a graphical LCD and, icing on the cake, how to make your own arduino shield.
Small waterproof OtterBox – 1000 – Make your project stand up to serious abuse with an otterbox, a true waterproof drybox that is also tough enough to get run over. Made of clear polycarbonate, you’ll be able to keep an eye on any indicator LEDs. We have these in 3 sizes: small (#1000), medium (#2000) and large (#3000). They’re ideal for projects with wireless components like GPS loggers, GPRS/GSM cellular or xbee but can also act as a portable “pack & hack” project box. (read more)
Unlike most temperature sensors, the TMP006 does not require contact with the object it is measuring. It uses a very sensitive thermopile to measure the infrared energy being emitted from the surface of the object.
This sensor works best with objects that are good emitters of infrared radiation. The ideal emitter is a completely non-reflective surface or “black body”. Black anodized aluminum or cast iron are pretty good emitters. Polished metal surfaces are very poor emitters, but can usually be turned into a good emitter with a bit of flat-black paint.
The TMP006 works with 3v to 5v, so it can be used with most microcontrollers without the need for a level shifter. It connects via the i2c bus and is addressable so you can have up to 8 TMP006 sensors on the same bus.
Here’s a helpful video tutorial contribution from Adafruit community member David Nash. Thanks for sending this in!
This is a simple project that builds on several of your Raspberry Pi Lesson projects that I thought you might consider including in a more advanced lesson. All of the components were purchased from Adafruit. The project uses your 8×8 matrix as the display so, when the Python program is automatically invoked from bootup, it requires no monitor or keyboard to run. It uses 12C for input and output to two devices and uses one GPIO analog interface. It’s a neat project for a number of reasons not least of which is it provides a means of verifying that your programmable home thermostat is functioning properly.
This mini tutorial will show you how you can find and uninstall all those extra COM ports you may have registered from years of microcontroller-hacking.
You may have noticed that every time a new FTDI-based board is plugged in, you get a new COM port. You might also get new COM port assignment with adapters, etc. Eventually you can get into pretty high COM port numbers and that can be really annoying! For example, on my 6-month old Windows 7 install I’m already up to COM38!
In this lesson you will learn how to use a PIR movement detector with an Arduino and to have the Arduino communicate with a Python program running on your computer to send an email whenever movement is detected by the sensor.
Adafruit has always prided itself on going the extra mile. We always try to provide the the best breakouts possible, but we also put that extra bit of effort into making sure we have a driver for each of those products as well. You want to get started with your new HW as soon as you pull it out of that box … we’re happy to try to make that possible to the best extent that we can! Call it the Adafruit Difference.
That said … writing all those drivers can be pretty time consuming, and then you need to add some example code on top of them to show how the driver works. While I was digging around inside the Android source code for something different, I noticed the intelligent way they abstract away all sensor data down to a single C typedef. The dial went straight to 11 in my head, and the first thing I thought was: ‘why am I not doing this?!?’. I pulled out an MCU and tried to adapt the Android code (conveniently written in C), slimming the typedefs down a bit, adding a couple sensor types, … but keeping the same general structure. After a bit of trial and error, the Adafruit Unified Sensor Driver was born. Driver use and development will never be the same (at least for me)!
We have a reasonably complete tutorial on how the Unified Sensor Driver System works … but you can also have a look at the source code for Adafruit_Sensor on github. In a nutshell what does this do, though? Essentially, it takes any supported sensor type (accelerometers, gyroscopes, pressure sensors, light sensors, etc.) and converts the raw units used by the system (0..1023) into standard SI units on a specific scale. Every accelerometer using the system will report acceleration in m/s^2, pressure sensors will all use hectoPascal (hPa), light sensors use SI lux units, etc.! No more 0..1023 … you get units you understand out of the box and every time!
Don’t know which accelerometer to use, or what speed or resolution you need? No problem … start with whatever you’ve got, and you can just drop in any other ‘Unified’ sensor later. You’ll get exactly the same SI unit types and scales, call the same two functions, and all you need to change in the single line constructor! No more out of stock headaches … just take any other similar sensor and use that as a stand-in, and you don’t have to relearn a whole new driver and set of functions.
But have a look at the learning guide, the source code, and try it out if you have a product that currently has a ‘Unified’ drivers (there’s a list here). And above all, let us know what you think and what can be improved. This is still a bit of an experiment for us, but it definitely feels like the right direction to move things!
The Raspberry Pi can make a great home automation controller. But to be really useful, it needs to be able to turn electrical appliances and lights on and off. That means it needs to be able to control 110V safely. In this lesson, you will combine the PIR sensor from [Lesson 12] with the Powerswitch Tail 2 module from Adafruit, to automatically switch something on when movement is detected.
The Raspberry Pi WebIDE includes an advanced, yet easy to use tool, to help you work through code that you’ve downloaded or written in Python.
If you haven’t used a debugger, either on the command line or in an Integrated Development Environment (IDE), hopefully this guide will help you understand why you’d want to do so, and how to effectively debug your code.
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