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tedmg edited this page Jun 14, 2015 · 20 revisions

components

  • Vilros RasberryPi Cobbler breakout
  • Vilros Breadboard
  • Sintron Ultimate 37 in 1 Sensor modules (for Arduino)

basics

electronic components

Components are the individual little pieces used in electronic devices. Different kinds have different shapes or colours but they all have silver metal leads (sometimes called legs or pins)

electronic circuits

A circuit is a combination of components put together to do a particular thing.

Electricity flows when it has a way to go around. When simple electrical components are connected to each other 'all the way round in a circle' they form a simple 'circuit'.

When you look at pictures of circuits, you might see photos of green boards with gold lines and lots of little coloured pieces attached - these are actual circuits. Or you may see black and white diagrams with lots of pictorial symbols in an interconnected framework - this is a circuit diagram which makes it clear what is connected to what.

soldering

To create permanent circuits, use a hot soldering iron to melt solder and fix components in place

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3-TfdZVBCc

Breadboard

We don't want to solder permanent circuits, we just want to put together experiments, so we use a breadboard

Have a look at the video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiqNaSPTI7w

To make connections easily from the breadboard to the Pi we use the Vilros Cobbler breakout module https://www.vilros.com/raspberry-pi/rasp-pi-acc/raspberry-pi-cobbler.html

https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/projects/raspberrypi/tutorials/robot/breadboard/

sensors

The "Sintron Ultimate 37 in 1 Sensor Modules Kit" is sold as being for the Arduino, but as they are simply electronic components they can of course be used with the Pi. http://www.sintron-hk.com/Ultimate-37-in-1-Sensor-Modules-Kit-for-Arduino-MCU-Education-User-P3112448.aspx or http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sintron-Raspberry-Education-Documents-Available/dp/B00DU2IQ10#productDetails

The documents can be downloaded from https://www.dropbox.com/s/oitqcijo9za7j9w/37%20in%201%20sensor%20pdf%20files.zip

projects

getting started

There is a simple to follow steps to light an LED at http://www.thirdeyevis.com/pi-page-2.php

This does not use a breadboard, but is simple to understand

simple button and led, also bi-colour led http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/projects/raspberrypi/tutorials/turing-machine/two.html

not used

Gordon Drogon's projects are visually simple, and use a breadboard, but do not use the breakout and the coding is in C - https://projects.drogon.net/raspberry-pi/gpio-examples/tux-crossing/3-more-leds-and-a-button/

doing more

more buttons and LEDs

This project shows a circuit with more buttons and LEDs, and uses Python. It is not as clear and step-by-step, but gives useful ideas http://openmicros.org/index.php/articles/94-ciseco-product-documentation/raspberry-pi/217-getting-started-with-raspberry-pi-gpio-and-python

sensing temperature

https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruits-raspberry-pi-lesson-11-ds18b20-temperature-sensing

to check out

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