I was just wondering if anyone has had any success soldering pin headers and then using the extra GPIO on the P5 header?
Please comment if you have!
I was just wondering if anyone has had any success soldering pin headers and then using the extra GPIO on the P5 header?
Please comment if you have!
[…] recantha I was just wondering if anyone has had any success soldering pin headers and then using the extra […]
Agonising over this one, hence not done it yet. I think the best option is to use an angled header from underneath. If you add one above, it makes it hard to mount any add-on boards. If you mount one below, you can’t use a case. So best not bother unless you really need the extra ports (and even then you can buy an expansion chip for £2 LOL
Yeah, I’ve got a port expander board from Hobbytronics (which neatly links to their Pi Cobbler-type board) but not used it yet. I’m hoping… and this is where my ignorance shows… that it somehow magically gives you extra GPIO.
It should do, but you’ll have to come to grips with either SPI or I2C (depending on which it is) to use the extra ports.
Yeah, it’s I2C so I will have to get my head round that!
I guess the only downside of a port-expander chip is that you won’t be able to switch values as quickly as you could with native GPIO (which for most purposes, probably isn’t even noticeable).
Have a look at http://learn.adafruit.com/mcp230xx-gpio-expander-on-the-raspberry-pi
🙂