Tutorial: Setting up a Raspberry Pi as a WiFi access point @ The Adafruit Learning System.

Would you like to use your Pi as a WiFi router? Or maybe have it as a special filtering access point? Setting up a Pi as an access point (AP) is a bit more advanced than using it as a client, but its still only a half hour of typing to configure. If you want to, this tutorial will make it so the Pi broadcasts a WiFi service and then routes internet traffic to an Ethernet cable. Since its all Linux you can go in and update or configure it however you like.

Learn more!

I’m a child of the 1980s. Miami Vice! Skinny ties! Big hair! And every town had at least one good video game arcade.

Thanks to the super affordable Raspberry Pi and some clever software, anyone can re-create the classic arcade experience at home. Adafruit brings the genuine “clicky” arcade controls, you bring the game files and a little crafting skill to build it.

A basic control setup can be assembled without any soldering! Jumpers plug straight into the Raspberry Pi GPIO header.

Learn more.

The BeagleBone Black is being pitched as an American (Raspberry) Pi. It has a similar feature set, including video output. However, where as the Pi is intended as a general purpose Linux machine, the BBB (as we shall call it here) is much better equipped for connecting to external electronics, with many more GPIO pins, analog inputs and fast booting into Ångström Linux.

This lesson closely follows the ‘Getting Started’ documentation on the BeagleBone web site. http://beagleboard.org/Getting%20Started

Learn more!

Coming soon to the Adafruit Learning System: The Adafruit Sous Vide Controller. This project will turn an inexpensive rice cooker into a precision instrument for molecular gastronomy. The ultimate geek cooking tool.

Haddock Fillets with haricots verts and orange saffron sauce. (one of our favorites!)

We’ve been having a tasty good time putting this controller through its paces. From ‘perfect’ soft boiled eggs, to flaky fish fillets and succulent steaks. In our early tests, the PID control algorithm maintained cooking temperatures to within 0.2 degrees C. With a setpoint temperature of 56 degrees C, your nice thick steak will be a perfect medium rare from edge-to-edge, instead of medium-well on the outside and nearly raw in the middle.

Sirloin Tip-Strip with grilled zucchini. Even an inexpensive cut like this cooks up tender and juicy and perfectly medium rare from edge-to-edge.

Tutorial: Character LCD System Monitor @ Adafruit Learning System

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.

Learn more!

Low Level Magstripe Reading @ The Adafruit Learning System.

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.

Learn more.

Updated tutorial: TV-B-Gone Kit @ The Adafruit Learning System.

Tired of all those LCD TVs everywhere?
Want a break from advertisements while you’re trying to eat?
Want to zap screens from across the street?

The new Universal TV-B-Gone kit is what you need! This ultra-high-power version of the popular TV-B-Gone is fun to make and even more fun to use.

Built in co-operation with Mitch Altman (the inventor of the TV-B-Gone) this kit is a great way to build something truly useful!

Learn more!

Raspberry Pi E-Mail + LCD Tutorial Mashup cobbled from our lovely tutorials:

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.

Source code and more here!

We now have Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM in stock and shipping now!

Tutorial: Large Pi-based Thermometer and Clock @ The Adafruit Learning System.

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.

Learn more!

ABC starts with the simple:

Moves on to the cool

And even takes you where you really don’t want to go:
 pighixxx has posted the first 13 of 20 planned ABC cards here!

Laser-Cut Enclosure Design – Secret Adafruit ninja design tricks revealed! @ The Adafruit Learning System.

This tutorial focuses on case design. If you’re new to laser cutting/engraving, please see our All About Laser Cutters tutorial.

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.

Learn more.

Make your own Arduino/MSGEQ7 based instrument equalizer complete with LCD display by Pierre Vernaeckt –

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.

Tutorial with source code here!

Featured Adafruit Products

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)

TMP006 Infrared Sensor Breakout @ The Adafruit Learning System.

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.

Learn more.

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.

Read more.

Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro” ? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi. But wait, there’s more! Try our new Raspberry Pi WebIDE! The easiest way to learn programming on a Raspberry Pi.

We now have Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM in stock and shipping now!

How to Find Hidden COM Ports @ The Adafruit Learning System.

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!

Learn more!

Arduino Lesson 17. Email Sending Movement Detector @ The Adafruit Learning System.

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.

Learn more!

More lessons:
Arduino Lesson 16. Stepper Motors.
Arduino Lesson 15. Motor Reversing.
Arduino Lesson 14. Servo Motors.
Arduino Lesson 13. DC Motors.
Arduino Lessons 11 & 12. LCD Displays (Part 1 & 2).
Arduino Lesson 10. Making Sounds.
Arduino Lesson 9. Sensing Light.
Arduino Lesson 8. Analog Inputs.
Arduino Lesson 7. Make an RGB LED Fader.
Arduino Lesson 6. Digital Inputs.
Arduino Lesson 5. The Serial Monitor.
Arduino Lesson 4. Eight LEDs and a Shift Register.
Arduino Lesson 3. RGB LEDs.
Arduino Lesson 2. LEDs.
Arduino Lesson 1. Blink.
Arduino Lesson 0. Getting Started with Arduino.
All About Arduino Libraries.

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!

Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 13. Power Control @ The Adafruit Learning System. Control 110V devices from your Raspberry Pi.

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.

Learn more.

Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 12. Sensing Movement @ The Adafruit Learning System. Sense movement and doors opening with your Raspberry Pi.

In this lesson, you will learn how to use the digital inputs on the GPIO connector with a door sensor and a PIR motion detector. In this lesson, we will concentrate on sensing movement and activation of the door switch. In Lesson 13 we will build on this security sensing to have the Pi use a digital output to control the power to an electrical appliance when movement is detected.

Learn more!

Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 11. DS18B20 Temperature Sensing @ The Adafruit Learning System.

The Occidentalis Linux distribution for Raspberry Pi (and Raspbian as of Dec 2012) includes support for the DS18B20 1-wire temperature sensor. These sensors come in a small three pin package like a transistor and are accurate digital devices.

In this lesson, you will learn how to use a DS18B20 with the Raspberry Pi to take temperature readings.

Since the Raspberry Pi has no ADC (Analog to Digital Converter), it cannot directly use an analog temperature sensor like the TMP36, making the DS18B20 a good choice for temperature sensing.

Learn more!

OAdafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 10. Stepper Motors @ The Adafruit Learning System. Control a stepper motor with a L293D or ULN2803 -

Stepper motors fall somewhere in between a regular DC motor (Lesson 9) and a servo motor (Lesson 8]). They have the advantage that they can be positioned accurately, moved forward or backwards one ‘step’ at a time, but they can also rotate continuously.

In this lesson you will learn how to control a stepper motor using your Raspberry Pi and the same L293D motor control chip that you used with the DC motor in Lesson 9.

The Lesson will also show you how to use an alternative driver chip, the ULN2803.

For this project, it does not really matter if you use a L293D or a ULN2803. The lower cost of the ULN2803 and the four spare outputs, that you could use for something else, probably make it the best choice if you don’t have either chip.

The motor is quite low power and suffers less from the surges in current than DC motors and servos (which use DC motors). This project will therefore work okay powered from the 5V line of the Raspberry Pi, as long as the Pi is powered from a good supply of at least 1A.

Learn more!

Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 9. Controlling a DC Motor @ The Adafruit Learning System. Drive a DC motor forward and in reverse with variable speed -

This lesson describes how to control both the speed and direction of a DC motor using Python and a L293D chip.  In Lesson 8, we used the Pi to generate pulses to control the position of a servo motor. In this lesson we use pulses to control the speed of a regular DC motor and the L293D motor control chip to reverse the direction of the current through the motor and hence the direction in which it turns.

Learn more!

Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 8. Using a Servo Motor @ The Adafruit Learning System.

This lesson describes how to control a single servo motor using Python. Servo motors are controlled by pulses of varying lengths. This requires fairly accurate timing. The Raspberry Pi has one pin that generates pulses in hardware, without having to rely on the operating system. Occidentalis includes an interface to make use of this pin for controlling a servo motor.

Learn more!

Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 7. Remote Control with VNC @ The Adafruit Learning System.

In this lesson we will explain how to install and use VNC on your raspberry Pi. This will allow you to see your Raspberry Pi’s desktop remotely in a graphical way, using the mouse as if you were sitting in front of your Pi.

Connecting to a Pi like this can save on desktop clutter, and the problem of having multiple keyboards and mice all over the place. It also means you can put your Pi somewhere else on the network, but still control it.

Learn more.

Tutorial: Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 6. Using SSH @ The Adafruit Learning System.

In this lesson you will learn how to remote control your Raspberry Pi over your local network using Secure Shell (SSH). A common reason for remote controlling your Pi from another computer us that you may be using your Pi solely to control some electronics and therefore not need a keyboard, mouse and monitor, other than for setting it up. It also can just save on desktop clutter, and the problem of having multiple keyboards and mice all over the place.

Learn more.

Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 5. Using a Console Cable @ The Adafruit Learning System.

In this lesson you will learn how to remote control your Raspberry Pi with a console cable. The great advantage of connecting this way is that it can even supply the power for your Pi and you do not need keyboard, mouse or display attached to the Pi to log into it.

You will need to install terminal emulation software (ZOC) and also USB drivers for the Console Lead. ZOC is available for Mac and Windows and allows you to communicate through a serial port from your Mac or PC to another computer – in this case the Raspberry Pi.

The Raspberry Pi uses its built-in serial port to allow devices to connect to its console and issue commands just as if you were logged in.

In the next lesson, we will look at another way of doing much the same thing but over a local network using something called SSH.

Learn more.

Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 4. GPIO Setup @ The Adafruit Learning System. Learn how to setup your Pi for Hacking Electronics!

One of the great things about the Raspberry Pi is that it has a GPIO connector to which you can attach external hardware.

Learn more!

Tutorial: Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 3. Network Setup @ The Adafruit Learning System.

One of the first things that you will want to do is to get your Raspberry Pi connected up to the Internet.

In this lesson, you will learn how to:

• Connect using an Ethernet cable
• Use a WiFi adapter with both Raspbian and Occidentalis
• Find out the IP address of your Raspberry Pi

Learn more!

Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 2. First Time Configuration @ THe Adafruit Learning System. Set up your Raspberry Pi for the first time!

In the first lesson of this series, we showed you how to prepare an SD card containing an operating system for your Raspberry Pi. In this lesson, we will show you how to setup your Raspberry Pi the first time you boot it up.

We do this using a tool called Raspi-Config that runs automatically the first time you boot your Raspberry Pi. This starts before the windowing system and so you have to use the cursor keys and Return key to navigate the menu system.

It is a bit like adjusting the BIOS settings on a PC, once you have things right, you probably won’t need it again.

We will start with the options that are most important and then look at some of the other options that you may wish to configure.

Learn more!

Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 1. Preparing and SD Card for your Raspberry Pi @ The Adafruit Learning System. A new series of of tutorials here at Adafruit by the prolific Simon Monk!

When you buy a Raspberry Pi, it may or may not be sold with an SD card. The SD card is important because this is where the Raspberry Pi keeps its operating system and is also where you will store your documents and programs.  

Even if your Pi came with an SD card with the operating system on, it is a good idea to update it to the latest version, as improvements and bug fixes are going in all the time. Since putting the operating system onto an SD card wipes everything else off the card, it is worth considering using a USB flash drive for your documents, so that when you install a new version of the operating system, you dont’ have the complication of copying them off somewhere self before reformatting the SD card.

If your Pi did not come with an SD card then the minimum size you should get is 4GB, but buy a bigger SD card if you think you will need the space.
This lesson shows you how to create an SD card for your Raspberry Pi.

Learn more!

Debugging with the Raspberry Pi WebIDE

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.

Learn more!

Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro” ? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi. But wait, there’s more! Try our new Raspberry Pi WebIDE! The easiest way to learn programming on a Raspberry Pi.

We now have Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM in stock and shipping now!

Frantone Electronics tackles Ladyada’s dedicated boot loader board project.

From Fran:

The very first thing that I tried to do when I began my Digital Firefly Jar project was to burn bootloaders to newly manufactured ATmega328P microcontrollers.  I knew that to reproduce my project I would need to make multiple programmed ATmega328′s and in anticipation of doing many Arduino projects I bought the chips in bulk.  I knew that I would have to burn bootloaders to all of them in order to upload and use my sketches.  I bought a used Arduino Duemilanove to do this, and there was a clearly laid out tutorial about burning bootloaders on a breadboard on the Arduino site.   It seemed like a no brainer – an easy task – but it wasn’t…  It just did not work!  Many attempts using the set up in the Arduino tutorial met with no success, so I went to the blogs and saw that many people were having problems doing this, and there were as many apparent solutions as there were issues.  I tried every configuration from every blog I could find on the topic: adding pull up resistors, changing power supply, altering settings, changing cables, etc….  but nothing worked.   The afternoon I spent trying every one of these configurations to burn a bootloader met with nothing but errors.

So I decided to go a different route and tried the dedicated bootloader board project suggested by Ladyada that used a very nifty Arduino sketch that had the Duemilanove’s ATmega328 do the task, and this elegant set up works flawlessly.  Success!  And a really cool project too!

Read more.

Attach snaps to your Flora to make it removable! Easily disconnect your Flora for use in multiple projects, or remove it prior to machine washing. Learn how in our new Flora Snaps tutorial on the Adafruit Learning System! Watch the video on YouTube (please subscribe!) and Vimeo.

Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!

James DeVito has just launched a clever Adafruit Learning System tutorial for his Sitcom SFX Door Trigger that has had profound social engineering repercussions within the human population of those passing into and out of his apartment. People want to come stay a while but they hate to leave:

This guide is for people that wish they had a soundtrack to their life. Using a PIR sensor and magnetic door switch with a Raspberry Pi, you’ll be able to play a sound file every time you open a door. More specifically, it will play a pre-recorded sound file based on whether you are entering (applause!) or leaving (booooo!).

This project was conceived and executed along with George Michael Brower.

You can find pretty decent sound clips here & here, and more professional ones here.

Read more.

The Game Show SFX Door Trigger for retail stores is likely imminent.

Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro” ? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi. But wait, there’s more! Try our new Raspberry Pi WebIDE! The easiest way to learn programming on a Raspberry Pi.

Want a FREE RASPBERRY PI? All orders over $350 get a FREE Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM!

Tutorial: Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 6. Using SSH @ The Adafruit Learning System.

In this lesson you will learn how to remote control your Raspberry Pi over your local network using Secure Shell (SSH). A common reason for remote controlling your Pi from another computer us that you may be using your Pi solely to control some electronics and therefore not need a keyboard, mouse and monitor, other than for setting it up. It also can just save on desktop clutter, and the problem of having multiple keyboards and mice all over the place.

Learn more.

Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 5. Using a Console Cable @ The Adafruit Learning System.

In this lesson you will learn how to remote control your Raspberry Pi with a console cable. The great advantage of connecting this way is that it can even supply the power for your Pi and you do not need keyboard, mouse or display attached to the Pi to log into it.

You will need to install terminal emulation software (ZOC) and also USB drivers for the Console Lead. ZOC is available for Mac and Windows and allows you to communicate through a serial port from your Mac or PC to another computer – in this case the Raspberry Pi.

The Raspberry Pi uses its built-in serial port to allow devices to connect to its console and issue commands just as if you were logged in.

In the next lesson, we will look at another way of doing much the same thing but over a local network using something called SSH.

Learn more.

Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 4. GPIO Setup @ The Adafruit Learning System. Learn how to setup your Pi for Hacking Electronics!

One of the great things about the Raspberry Pi is that it has a GPIO connector to which you can attach external hardware.

Learn more!

Tutorial: Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 3. Network Setup @ The Adafruit Learning System.

One of the first things that you will want to do is to get your Raspberry Pi connected up to the Internet.

In this lesson, you will learn how to:

• Connect using an Ethernet cable
• Use a WiFi adapter with both Raspbian and Occidentalis
• Find out the IP address of your Raspberry Pi

Learn more!

Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 2. First Time Configuration @ THe Adafruit Learning System. Set up your Raspberry Pi for the first time!

In the first lesson of this series, we showed you how to prepare an SD card containing an operating system for your Raspberry Pi. In this lesson, we will show you how to setup your Raspberry Pi the first time you boot it up.

We do this using a tool called Raspi-Config that runs automatically the first time you boot your Raspberry Pi. This starts before the windowing system and so you have to use the cursor keys and Return key to navigate the menu system.

It is a bit like adjusting the BIOS settings on a PC, once you have things right, you probably won’t need it again.

We will start with the options that are most important and then look at some of the other options that you may wish to configure.

Learn more!

Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 1. Preparing and SD Card for your Raspberry Pi @ The Adafruit Learning System. A new series of of tutorials here at Adafruit by the prolific Simon Monk!

When you buy a Raspberry Pi, it may or may not be sold with an SD card. The SD card is important because this is where the Raspberry Pi keeps its operating system and is also where you will store your documents and programs.  

Even if your Pi came with an SD card with the operating system on, it is a good idea to update it to the latest version, as improvements and bug fixes are going in all the time. Since putting the operating system onto an SD card wipes everything else off the card, it is worth considering using a USB flash drive for your documents, so that when you install a new version of the operating system, you dont’ have the complication of copying them off somewhere self before reformatting the SD card.

If your Pi did not come with an SD card then the minimum size you should get is 4GB, but buy a bigger SD card if you think you will need the space.
This lesson shows you how to create an SD card for your Raspberry Pi.

Learn more!

Arduino Lesson 15. DC Motor Reversing @ The Adafruit Learning System.

In this lesson, you will learn how to control both the direction and speed of a small DC motor using an Arduino and the L293D motor driver chip. The project uses a pot to control the speed of the motor and a push button to control the direction.

Learn more!

Previous lessons:
Arduino Lesson 14. Servo Motors
Arduino Lesson 13. DC Motors
Arduino Lesson 12. LCD Displays – Part 2
Arduino Lesson 11. LCD Displays – Part 1
Arduino Lesson 10. Making Sounds.
Arduino Lesson 9. Sensing Light.
Arduino Lesson 8. Analog Inputs.
Arduino Lesson 7. Make an RGB LED Fader
Arduino Lesson 6. Digital Inputs
Arduino Lesson 5. The Serial Monitor
Arduino Lesson 4. Eight LEDs and a Shift Register
Arduino Lesson 3. RGB LEDs
Arduino Lesson 2. LEDs
Arduino Lesson 1. Blink

Hidden inside this fashion accessory is a stealthy purpose– it powers down television sets from across the room! Our new tutorial will walk you through the steps for creating your own Flora TV-B-Gone, a wearable gadget triggered by the button in the center of its flower design. The infrared LEDs communicate with TVs the same way your remote does (invisibly to the human eye) but the program contains codes to power down just about every TV brand. You can embellish your design however you like to match your outfit or encase it completely ina jacket pocket. The basic design is here, how you make yours is up to you!

New to FLORA? Check out these other guides:

• Getting Started with FLORA
• Flora RGB Smart Pixels
• Flora Wearable GPS
• Flora Pixel Brooch

Most photographs in this Adafruit Learning System guide by John De Cristofaro.
Arduino-ported TV-B-Gone code updated for Flora by Phillip Burgess.

Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!

Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 5. Using a Console Cable @ The Adafruit Learning System.

In this lesson you will learn how to remote control your Raspberry Pi with a console cable. The great advantage of connecting this way is that it can even supply the power for your Pi and you do not need keyboard, mouse or display attached to the Pi to log into it.

You will need to install terminal emulation software (ZOC) and also USB drivers for the Console Lead. ZOC is available for Mac and Windows and allows you to communicate through a serial port from your Mac or PC to another computer – in this case the Raspberry Pi.

The Raspberry Pi uses its built-in serial port to allow devices to connect to its console and issue commands just as if you were logged in.

In the next lesson, we will look at another way of doing much the same thing but over a local network using something called SSH.

Learn more.

Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 4. GPIO Setup @ The Adafruit Learning System. Learn how to setup your Pi for Hacking Electronics!

One of the great things about the Raspberry Pi is that it has a GPIO connector to which you can attach external hardware.

Learn more!

Tutorial: Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 3. Network Setup @ The Adafruit Learning System.

One of the first things that you will want to do is to get your Raspberry Pi connected up to the Internet.

In this lesson, you will learn how to:

• Connect using an Ethernet cable
• Use a WiFi adapter with both Raspbian and Occidentalis
• Find out the IP address of your Raspberry Pi

Learn more!

Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 2. First Time Configuration @ THe Adafruit Learning System. Set up your Raspberry Pi for the first time!

In the first lesson of this series, we showed you how to prepare an SD card containing an operating system for your Raspberry Pi. In this lesson, we will show you how to setup your Raspberry Pi the first time you boot it up.

We do this using a tool called Raspi-Config that runs automatically the first time you boot your Raspberry Pi. This starts before the windowing system and so you have to use the cursor keys and Return key to navigate the menu system.

It is a bit like adjusting the BIOS settings on a PC, once you have things right, you probably won’t need it again.

We will start with the options that are most important and then look at some of the other options that you may wish to configure.

Learn more!

Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 1. Preparing and SD Card for your Raspberry Pi @ The Adafruit Learning System. A new series of of tutorials here at Adafruit by the prolific Simon Monk!

When you buy a Raspberry Pi, it may or may not be sold with an SD card. The SD card is important because this is where the Raspberry Pi keeps its operating system and is also where you will store your documents and programs.  

Even if your Pi came with an SD card with the operating system on, it is a good idea to update it to the latest version, as improvements and bug fixes are going in all the time. Since putting the operating system onto an SD card wipes everything else off the card, it is worth considering using a USB flash drive for your documents, so that when you install a new version of the operating system, you dont’ have the complication of copying them off somewhere self before reformatting the SD card.

If your Pi did not come with an SD card then the minimum size you should get is 4GB, but buy a bigger SD card if you think you will need the space.
This lesson shows you how to create an SD card for your Raspberry Pi.

Learn more!

Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 4. GPIO Setup @ The Adafruit Learning System. Learn how to setup your Pi for Hacking Electronics!

One of the great things about the Raspberry Pi is that it has a GPIO connector to which you can attach external hardware.

Learn more!

Tutorial: Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 3. Network Setup @ The Adafruit Learning System.

One of the first things that you will want to do is to get your Raspberry Pi connected up to the Internet.

In this lesson, you will learn how to:

• Connect using an Ethernet cable
• Use a WiFi adapter with both Raspbian and Occidentalis
• Find out the IP address of your Raspberry Pi

Learn more!

Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 2. First Time Configuration @ THe Adafruit Learning System. Set up your Raspberry Pi for the first time!

In the first lesson of this series, we showed you how to prepare an SD card containing an operating system for your Raspberry Pi. In this lesson, we will show you how to setup your Raspberry Pi the first time you boot it up.

We do this using a tool called Raspi-Config that runs automatically the first time you boot your Raspberry Pi. This starts before the windowing system and so you have to use the cursor keys and Return key to navigate the menu system.

It is a bit like adjusting the BIOS settings on a PC, once you have things right, you probably won’t need it again.

We will start with the options that are most important and then look at some of the other options that you may wish to configure.

Learn more!

Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi Lesson 1. Preparing and SD Card for your Raspberry Pi @ The Adafruit Learning System. A new series of of tutorials here at Adafruit by the prolific Simon Monk!

When you buy a Raspberry Pi, it may or may not be sold with an SD card. The SD card is important because this is where the Raspberry Pi keeps its operating system and is also where you will store your documents and programs.  

Even if your Pi came with an SD card with the operating system on, it is a good idea to update it to the latest version, as improvements and bug fixes are going in all the time. Since putting the operating system onto an SD card wipes everything else off the card, it is worth considering using a USB flash drive for your documents, so that when you install a new version of the operating system, you dont’ have the complication of copying them off somewhere self before reformatting the SD card.

If your Pi did not come with an SD card then the minimum size you should get is 4GB, but buy a bigger SD card if you think you will need the space.
This lesson shows you how to create an SD card for your Raspberry Pi.

Learn more!

Check out this great community-contributed soldering demo for the Adafruit Motor/Stepper/Servo Shield for Arduino kit – v1.0 from aagrav8d:

I was watching a “let’s play [videogame]” clip when a light went off in my head. “Someone should do this for makers!” I exclaimed. “Shh!” replied my girlfriend.
Anyways, here’s my first attempt.

Adafruit motor shields are great for making roboty things. I use them in my mural drawing robot and several other projects.

Read More.

Adafruit Featured Product!

Adafruit Motor/Stepper/Servo Shield for Arduino kit – v1.0: Here is a design for a full-featured motor shield that will be able to power many simple to medium-complexity projects.

• 2 connections for 5V ‘hobby’ servos connected to the Arduino’s high-resolution dedicated timer – no jitter!
• 4 H-Bridges: L293D chipset provides 0.6A per bridge (1.2A peak) with thermal shutdown protection, internal kickback protection diodes. Can run motors on 4.5VDC to 25VDC.
• Up to 4 bi-directional DC motors with individual 8-bit speed selection (so, about 0.5% resolution)
• Up to 2 stepper motors (unipolar or bipolar) with single coil, double coil or interleaved stepping.
• Pull down resistors keep motors disabled during power-up
• Big terminal block connectors to easily hook up wires (18-26AWG) and power
• Arduino reset button brought up top
• 2-pin terminal block and jumper to connect external power, for separate logic/motor supplies
• Tested compatible with Arduino Mega 1280 & 2560, Diecimila, Duemilanove, and UNO
• Download the easy-to-use Arduino software library, check out the examples and you’re ready to go!

Kit comes with all parts necessary, unassembled. Instructions, examples, and other documentation is available on the website. Motors and Arduino are not included. (read more)

Tutomics is an initiative to develop a set of comic book tutorials that allow people of all ages, cultures and genders to enter into the world of electronics, open hardware and DIY manufacturing in a fun and flexible way.

Tutomics is much more than just tutorials and comics. It is an opportunity to continue demonstrating the enormous potential of open source as a tool in building a better world.  A commitment to popularize the world of open culture amongst all citizens and demonstrate our ability in constructing projects that benefit us all. Don’t you think that supporting these ideas is really worthwhile ?

Read more.

Updated Tutorial: 20mm LED Pixels @ The Adafruit Learning System…

RGB Pixels are digitally-controllable lights you can set to any color, or animate. Each pixel contains an RGB LED and a controller chip molded into a ‘dot’ of silicone, with flanges so they can be pushed into holes in thin sheet material. The dots are waterproof and rugged — they’re typically used to make outdoor signs.

Learn more.

Tutorial: Creating Accurate Footprints in Eagle @ The Adafruit Learning System…

While sometimes quick and dirty works fine for footprints, if you ever have to deal with enclosures or particularly dense boards, you’ll soon find out that accurate footprints can make your life much easier.

There are some really nice, detailed and accurate footprints in the default Eagle libraries, but there aren’t a lot of resources out there on how to create them.  This guide will hopefully serve that purpose, highlighting what works for me making connectors and similar types of footprints.

Learn more.

Tutorial update: Soldering Surface Mount Components…

…The previous page(s) showed how to make a good through-hole joint.  But more and more components are only available in surface mount form these days.  Not all surface mount packages are easily worked by hand, but there are plenty that can be managed with the same basic tools used for through-hole soldering.

Learn more!

Tutorial: Power Supplies @ The Adafruit Learning System.

A power supply is a device that supplies power to another device, at a specific voltage level, voltage type and current level. For example, when we talk about a 9VDC @ 500mA power supply can provide as much as 500mA of current and the voltage will be at least 9V DC up to that maximum current level. While it sounds simple, power supplies have a lot of little hang-ups that can be very tricky for the uninitiated. For example, unregulated supplies say they can provide 9V but really may be outputting 15V! The very common 7805 regulator datasheet claims it can regulate up to 1000 mA of current, but when you put a 15V supply on one side, it overheats and shuts down! This tutorial will try to help explain all about power supplies.

Learn more!

Updated tutorial: 36mm LED Pixels @ The Adafruit Learning System.

RGB Pixels are digitally-controllable lights you can set to any color, or animate. Each pixel contains four RGB LEDs and a controller chip in a sturdy metal housing. The pixel is then ‘flooded’ with epoxy to make it waterproof. These are fairly large pixels but they have a lot of nice mounting options, such as two metal flanges on the side and a 0.15″/4mm diameter hole in the middle so you can screw them directly onto a surface. They’re typically used to make outdoor signs. Compared to our other LED dots, these are much bigger and much brighter, good for larger scale installations.

At 12 volts, they draw a maximum of 120 milliamps per pixel: 40 mA each for red, green and blue.

The LED pixels are spaced along a strand of ribbon cable, with about 3 inches (75mm) between pixels. If additional distance is needed you can cut the ribbon cable and solder 4 wires to extend the gap to the desired length.

Learn more.

Updated Tutorial: USB, DC & Solar Lipoly Charger @ The Adafruit Learning System.

Make your projects to go green this summer with our specialized USB/Solar Lithium Ion Polymer Battery charger! This charger is a very unique design, perfect for outdoor projects, or DIY iPod chargers. We’ve spent over a year testing and tinkering with this charger to come up with a plug and play solution to charging batteries with the sun and we’re really pleased with what we ended up with.

Learn more.

Adafruit Guide To Excellent Soldering @ The Adafruit Learning System. Solder at peak performance!

If you are just getting started in Electronics, Ladyada’s Electronics Toolkit (pictured above) is a great kit full of quality tools – including everything you need to make great solder joints.  If you would rather build your toolkit piece-by-piece, read on:

Learn more!

MCP4725 12-Bit DAC Tutorial @ The Adafruit Learning System. Add an analog output to your microcontroller!

Your microcontroller probably has an ADC (analog -> digital converter) but does it have a DAC (digital -> analog converter)??? Now it can! This breakout board features the easy-to-use MCP4725 12-bit DAC. Control it via I2C and send it the value you want it to output, and the VOUT pin will have it. Great for audio / analog projects, such as when you can’t use PWM but need a sine wave or adjustable bias point.

We break out the ADDR pin so you can connect two of these DACs on one I2C bus, just tie the ADDR pin of one high to keep it from conflicting. Also included is a 6-pin header, for use in a breadboard. Works with both 3.3V or 5V logic.

Some nice extras with this chip: for chips that have 3.4Mbps Fast Mode I2C (Arduino’s don’t) you can update the Vout at ~200 KHz. There’s an EEPROM so if you write the output voltage, you can ‘store it’ so if the device is power cycled it will restore that voltage. The output voltage is rail-to-rail and proportional to the power pin so if you run it from 3.3V, the output range is 0-3.3V. If you run it from 5V the output range is 0-5V.

Learn more.

Updated tutorial: Mini Thermal Receipt Printer.

Add a mini printer to any microcontroller project with this very cute thermal printer. Also known as receipt printers, they’re what you see at the ATM or grocery store. Now you can embed a little printer of your own into an enclosure. This printer is ideal for interfacing with a microcontroller, you simply need a 3.3V to 5V TTL serial output from your microcontroller to print text, barcodes, bitmap graphics, even a QR code!

Learn more!

How to Add Real Time Clock to Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi is designed to be an ultra-low cost computer, so a lot of things we are used to on a computer have been left out. For example, your laptop and computer have a little coin-battery-powered ‘Real Time Clock’  (RTC) module, which keeps time even when the power is off, or the battery removed. To keep costs low and the size small, an RTC is not included with the Raspberry Pi. Instead, the Pi is intended to be connected to the Internet via Ethernet or WiFi, updating the time automatically from the global ntp (nework time protocol) servers

For stand-alone projects with no network connection, you will not be able to keep the time when the power goes out. So in this project we will show you how to add a low cost battery-backed RTC to your Pi to keep time!

Learn more.

Updated tutorial: 1.8″ TFT Display @ The Adafruit Learning System.

This tutorial is for our 1.8″ diagonal TFT display & microSD breakout board. This breakout is the best way to add a small, colorful and bright display to any project. Since the display uses 4-wire SPI to communicate and has its own pixel-addressable frame buffer, it can be used with every kind of microcontroller. Even a very small one with low memory and few pins available!

Learn more…

Updated tutorial: 2.2″ TFT Display @ The Adafruit Learning System.

This lovely little display breakout is the best way to add a small, colorful and bright display to any project. Since the display uses 3-wire SPI to communicate and has its own pixel-addressable frame buffer, it can be used with every kind of microcontroller. Even a very small one with low memory and few pins available!

Learn more…

Updated tutorial: Adalight Project Pack @ Adafruit Learning System.

Adalight is a do-it-yourself LED project kit that adds realtime ambient lighting effects to your computer monitor or home theater media PC. Inspired by the Ambilight feature of Philips’ LCD HDTVs, Adalight adds pop to TV shows, movies or games!

Learn more.

Updated tutorial: Adafruit Ultimate GPS @ Adafruit Learning System. We have updated our Ultimate GPS tutorial, better than ever, covers the changes in the V3 of the module with external antenna support!

Tutorial: Drive a 16×2 LCD with the Raspberry Pi @ The Adafruit Learning System – Adding a LCD to any project immediately kicks it up a notch. This tutorial explains how to connect a inexpensive HDD44780 compatible LCD to the raspberry pi using 6 GPIOs. While there are other ways to connect using I2C or the UART this is the most direct method that get right down to the bare metal.

This technique:

• allows for inexpensive LCDs to be used
• does not require any i2c drivers
• won’t steal the only serial port on the Pi

The example python code sends date, time and the ip address to the display. If you are running a Pi in headless mode being able to determine the IP address at a glance is really handy.

Then we take the tutorial to the next level, showing you how to have the display code launch when the Pi boots so it’s always on. Finally, we also show how you can update your timezone so that the displayed time is correct for your region.

Learn more!

Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro” ? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi.

Tutorial: MCP4725 12-Bit DAC with Raspberry Pi @ The Adafruit Learning System -

Already mastered Analog Inputs with the Pi, and looking for a new challenge?  How about: How can I generate an analog output on the Pi?!

There are several ways you can accomplish this, but one of the easiest and most flexible is to use a dedicated IC called a Digital to Analog Convertor (or DAC).  A DAC allows you to specify a numeric value (0..255 for an 8-bit DAC, 0..4095 for a 12-bit DAC, etc.), and the IC will output a voltage based on the supply voltage, and relative to that numeric value.  For example, using a 12-bit DAC like the MCP4725 we’ll be using here, setting the value to 2048 on a 3.3V system will results in ~1.65V output on the DAC.

This guide will show you everything you need to know to be able to generate precise analog outputs using your Pi and the MCP4725 12-Bit I2C DAC, from connecting everything up, to how to use our easy Python library.

Learn more…

MCP4725 Breakout Board – 12-Bit DAC w/I2C Interface. Your microcontroller probably has an ADC (analog -> digital converter) but does it have a DAC (digital -> analog converter)??? Now it can! This breakout board features the easy-to-use MCP4725 12-bit DAC. Control it via I2C and send it the value you want it to output, and the VOUT pin will have it. Great for audio / analog projects, such as when you can’t use PWM but need a sine wave or adjustable bias point.

We break out the ADDR pin so you can connect two of these DACs on one I2C bus, just tie the ADDR pin of one high to keep it from conflicting. Also included is a 6-pin header, for use in a breadboard. Works with both 3.3V or 5V logic.

Some nice extras with this chip: for chips that have 3.4Mbps Fast Mode I2C (Arduino’s don’t) you can update the Vout at ~200 KHz. There’s an EEPROM so if you write the output voltage, you can ‘store it’ so if the device is power cycled it will restore that voltage. The output voltage is rail-to-rail and proportional to the power pin so if you run it from 3.3V, the output range is 0-3.3V. If you run it from 5V the output range is 0-5V.

We have an easy-to-use Arduino library with a triangle-wave output example that can be used with any ‘duino or ported to any microcontroller with I2C host. Wiring it up is easy – connect VDD to your microcontroller power pin (3-5V), GND to ground, SDA to I2C Data (on the Arduino Uno, this is A4 on the Mega it is 20 and on the Leonardo digital 2), SCL to I2C Clock(on the Arduino Uno, this is A5 on the Mega it is 21 and on the Leonardo digital 3) and listen on VOUT.

For more information about the chip, check out the MCP4725 datasheet

In stock and shipping now.

Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro” ? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi.

Adafruit 16 Channel Servo Driver with Raspberry Pi @ The Adafruit Learning System.

Servo motors are typically driven using the PWM outputs available on most embedded MCUs, but the Pi doesn’t have native HW support for PWM.  It does have HW I2C available, though, which we can use to communicate with a PWM driver like the PCA9685, used on Adafruit’s 16-channel 12-bit PWM/Servo Driver!

Using this breakout, you can easily drive up to 16 servo motors on your Raspberry Pi using our painless Python library and this tutorial. 

Learn more!

Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro” ? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi.

Tutorial: Multimeters – Understanding the functions of a multimeter @ The Adafruit Learning System.

If there is not enough current, your circuit may not be able to do the work it was designed to do.  Logic circuits may not function reliably, displays may be dim, motors may stall. On the other hand, if there is too much current, things will heat up and components may be damaged. In extreme cases there may even be smoke or flames.

Learn more.

HOW TO – Send Raspberry Pi Data to COSM @ The Adafruit Learning System.

The combination of connecting a Raspberry Pi to COSM makes creating a internet of things much easier than it has been in the past. The Pi with it’s easy access to ethernet / WiFi and COSM’s drop dead simple usability will graph all sensor data you send to it. This tutorial explains how to connect a analog temperature sensor to the Pi and use a small python script to upload that data for storage and graphing on COSM.

Learn more.

Updated tutorial – Multimeters @ Adafruit Learning System.

The most important debugging tool in any E.E.’s toolbox is a trusty multimeter. A multimeter can measure continuity, resistance, voltage and sometimes even current, capacitance, temperature, etc. It’s a swiss army knife for geeks!

Learn more.